| Document | Document Title |
|---|---|
| US08393010B2 |
Near-field scanning optical microscope
A near-field scanning optical microscope is disclosed. The microscope includes a lighting component, a probe and an ellipsoidal mirror. The lighting component emits a light. The probe is disposed on one side of a testing sample, and the light is focused around a probe tip to draw the near-field light out. The ellipsoidal mirror has a first focal point and a second focal point, and the first focal point and the probe tip are disposed at the corresponding positions, and the near-field light drawn out from the probe tip is scattered from the first focal point inside the ellipsoidal mirror, and reflected and passed through the second focal point. |
| US08393004B2 |
Systems and methods for protecting information used by mobile devices
The present disclosure generally pertains to systems and methods for protecting information for use by mobile devices. In one exemplary embodiment, a system comprises a mobile device, a base, and a memory device. The mobile device has a user input interface, and the base is secured to a user. The mobile device is configured to receive data manually input via the user input interface by the user and to wirelessly transmit the data. The mobile device is further configured to wirelessly transmit a retrieval request in response to a user input. The memory device is mounted on the base. The memory device is configured to receive and store the data wirelessly transmitted by the mobile device. The memory device is further configured to retrieve the data and to wirelessly transmit the data to the mobile device in response to the retrieval request. |
| US08393002B1 |
Method and system for testing an entity
A system and method is provided wherein, in one aspect, a number of different elements are presented to a user. The user is instructed to pick the elements that are the most related to one another. If the user selects the two most related elements, the user is presented with access to additional information, such as a screen for creating an email account. The system and method are intended to allow access to information by humans, but not remote computers emulating a human. |
| US08392999B2 |
Apparatus and methods for assessing and maintaining security of a computerized system under development
A security assessment method for assessing security of a computerized system under development, the system including assets and being managed in accordance with an organization policy, the method including providing an organizational computerized system development policy; classifying said assets in said system under development, thereby to generate asset classification information; and automated creation of at least one security requirement based on said asset classification information and said organization policy. |
| US08392992B1 |
Method and apparatus for preventing sensitive data leakage due to input focus misappropriation
A method and apparatus for preventing sensitive data leakage due to input focus misappropriation is described. In one embodiment, a method for restricting a change in an input focus to protect sensitive data comprising identifying a visual representation component used to receive sensitive data, wherein the virtual representation component having an input focus of a computer and preventing a change in the input focus from the visual representation component. |
| US08392990B2 |
Mitigating excessive operations attacks in a wireless communication network
A technique for mitigating excessive operations attacks in a wireless communication network includes receiving message requests from stations, detecting an excessive operation attack, checking if a received request is a first request or a retry request, and ignoring any first requests. The method can also include saving information about the first request, and wherein if checking reveals that the received request is a retry request, the method further confirms that the retry request and the saved information about the first request meet matching conditions, whereupon the retry request is further processed as normal. Since attacks rarely utilize retry requests, this technique effectively ignores attack messages. |
| US08392987B2 |
Web page safety judgment system
A user terminal displays on its display unit a target web page including an authentication information input field into which input authentication information is inputted by the user terminal. The user terminal judges first to third validity levels for a plurality of login history information by referring to a login information list and a service group information. The user terminal selects a corresponding process from a plurality of predetermined processes for the input authentication information based on existence or absence of the login history information in the first or second validity level and on a result of checking the input authentication information with login information in the login history information in the first to third validity levels. The user terminal executes the corresponding process. |
| US08392986B1 |
Evaluating text-based access strings
A computer-implemented method may include presenting to multiple users a test text string each time an access text string is presented to the users, receiving input related to the test text string from the users and using by an evaluation processor the input related to the test text string to validate the test text string as a candidate to use as a future access text string. |
| US08392985B2 |
Security management in system with secure memory secrets
In some embodiments a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) manages a first flag that identifies whether a secure environment has ever been established. A chipset manages a second flag that identifies that there might have been secrets in memory and a reset or power failure occurred. At least one processor and/or the chipset lock, maintain a lock, and/or unlock a memory in response to the second flag. Other embodiments are described and claimed. |
| US08392984B2 |
Provisioning/configuration systems for VPN to VPN bridging for IP video conferencing
Internet Protocol (IP) video conferencing bridging provisioning/configuration systems receive a service order associated with a customer, where the service order requests enrollment of the customer in a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to VPN bridging network service for IP video conferencing. The provisioning/configuration systems orchestrate, based on the service order, configuration of multiple network nodes in a network that provides the VPN to VPN bridging network service for IP video conferencing to the customer to enable IP video conferencing calls to be made from the customer via the network to another customer on a different VPN. |
| US08392974B2 |
Information processing system and processing method thereof
When a plurality of information processing apparatuses that have an authentication function cooperate to execute a job, user authentication information is transmitted from a cooperative information source processing apparatus to a destination cooperative information processing apparatus that execute the cooperative job. A user account is created at the destination cooperative information processing apparatus based on the transmitted authentication information. When the cooperative information source processing apparatus notifies execution of a cooperative job to the destination cooperative information processing apparatus, authentication information that is authenticated at the cooperative information source processing apparatus is transmitted to the destination cooperative information processing apparatus. The destination cooperative information processing apparatus creates a user account based on the authentication information, and executes the cooperative job using the created user account. |
| US08392967B2 |
Image forming system, image forming apparatus, and method for creating, maintaining, and applying authorization information
A user-manager server device includes: registration information on a local group including a domain user separately from a domain group managed by a directory server device, and authorization information on the domain group, the domain user, and/or the local group. When a logged-in user belongs to the local group, an authorization processing unit transmits the authorization information on the local group to a multifunction periphery (MFP) as the authorization information corresponding to the logged-in user. When the logged-in user does not belong to the local group, the authorization processing unit transmits the authorization information on one of the domain group and the domain user to the MFP as the authorization information corresponding to the logged-in user. |
| US08392959B2 |
Portable media asset
A method, apparatus, and system are disclosed that provide for a secure download of a media asset from a video-on-demand server responsive to a user request. The media asset may be routed to a recorder device for storage purposes. The media asset may also be streamed to a set top box for (simultaneous) playback on, e.g., a television. The media asset may subsequently be played from the storage on one or more media players. |
| US08392955B2 |
Apparatus and method for representing a sequence of content as projections for reconstructing the sequence at full or lower quality
A content presentation system comprising content playing apparatus and content providing apparatus operative to receive an array of digitally represented numbers, representing content as P points in D-dimensional space, to generate therefrom a plurality of projections on at least one sub-space of a vector space comprising a span of at least one D-dimensional vector, and to provide the plurality of projections to the content playing apparatus, the content playing apparatus being operative to reconstruct the array of digitally represented numbers from the plurality of projections and to expose human users to content accordingly. |
| US08392951B2 |
Information providing apparatus and method thereof
A mobile terminal including a communication unit configured to communicate with an external server associated with the mobile terminal; a display unit configured to display a video; and a controller configured to receive a detection request signal requesting an object in the video be detected, to detect the object in the video upon receiving the detection request signal, to retrieve history timing information about when the object was detected in the displayed video, and to display the history timing information on the display unit. |
| US08392949B2 |
Electronic-program-guide retrieval method and electronic-program-guide retrieval system
An EPG retrieval system includes a data server, a client, and a dictionary database. The data server stores program information of an EPG. The client includes an access unit for accessing the data server, and an input unit for inputting a retrieval keyword for performing retrieval on the program information. The dictionary database stores retrieval keywords and keywords relevant to the retrieval keywords. The client inputs an arbitrary keyword, and extracts keywords relevant to the input keyword. The extracted keywords and the input keyword are used to perform retrieval on the program information. |
| US08392948B2 |
Interactive program guide systems and processes
Interactive program guide systems and related processes are provided which can automatically tune a television, or program a VCR, based on program selections made from program schedule information displayed on a television or other suitable video monitor. The interactive program guide is preferably implemented using a microprocessor-controlled set-top box that is coupled to the viewer's television set. The set-top box receives program schedule information and software from a headend telecasting center. Preferably, program schedule information for the current day and at least six subsequent days is stored in a memory within the set-top box. The interactive program guide provides a display mode for allowing the viewer to apply a restrictive search selection criterion and a nonrestrictive sort attribute to the program schedule information. |
| US08392945B2 |
System and method for controlling alternative access to video events associated with video broadcast services
A video services receiver system and related operating methods provide alternative event information to a customer who is subject to a blackout for a desired event. If the blacked out content is available via a different event on a different service, the system will find the other event and provide an appropriate notification to the customer. A method of providing access to events by a customer associated with a video services receiver begins by identifying a first event on a first service, the first event corresponding to a first presentation of content. The method continues by retrieving an alternative event identifier for the first event and using the alternative event identifier to search for a second event on a second service, the second event corresponding to a second presentation of the content. Thereafter, the method generates an alternative event notification for the customer. The alternative event notification indicates availability of the second event for access by the customer. |
| US08392936B2 |
Complex event processing (CEP) adapters for CEP systems for receiving objects from a source and outputing objects to a sink
Methods, systems, and computer-readable media are disclosed for implementing adapters for event processing systems. A particular system includes an input adapter configured to store event objects received from a source at an input queue. The system also includes a query engine configured to remove event objects from the input queue, to perform a query with respect to the removed event objects to generate result objects, and to insert result objects into an output queue. The system also includes an output adapter configured to remove result objects from the output queue and to transmit the result objects to a sink. |
| US08392933B2 |
Open gateway framework
An open gateway framework addresses the need for efficient modularization, extension, and adaptation of device functionality, such as gateway or set top box functionally. The open gateway framework facilitates rapid third party application development on customer electronic devices, particularly for telecommunications service providers. The open gateway framework provides: portability between different devices; rapid development based on extended platform features with a custom Application Programming Interface (API); and deployment with little or no impact on device base software. |
| US08392931B2 |
Data transfer protocol for data replication between multiple pairs of storage controllers on a SAN fabric
A method for communicating between devices in a network includes creating an I/O tunnel between a first device and a second device through the network. The I/O tunnel is associated with I/O resources in both the first device and the second device, and wherein at least one of the I/O resources comprises a buffer resource. A data transfer operation may be sent between the first device and the second device by consuming at least some of the I/O resources associated with the I/O tunnel. A plurality of commands or a plurality of responses can be aggregated into a single buffer resource. Upon completion of the data transfer operation, the I/O resources that are consumed are automatically renewed. |
| US08392930B2 |
Resource contention log navigation with thread view and resource view pivoting via user selections
A contention log contains data for contentions that occur during execution of a multi-threaded application, such as a timestamp of the contention, contention length, contending thread identity, contending thread call stack, and contended-for resource identity. After execution of the application ends, contention analysis data generated from the contention log shows developers information such as total number of contentions for particular resource(s), total number of contentions encountered by thread(s), a list of resources that were most contended for, a list of threads that were most contending, a plot of the number of contentions per time interval during execution of the application, and so on. A developer may pivot between details about threads and details about resources to explore relationships between thread(s) and resource(s) involved in contention(s). Other information may also be displayed, such as call stacks, program source code, and process thread ownership, for example. |
| US08392927B2 |
System and method for determining a partition of a consumer's resource access demands between a plurality of different classes of service
According to one embodiment, a method comprises receiving into a planning tool a representative workload for a consumer. The method further comprises determining, by the planning tool, an allocation of demand of the consumer for each of a plurality of different classes of service (COSs). According to one embodiment, a method comprises defining a plurality of classes of service (COSs) for use by a scheduler in allocating capacity of a resource pool to a consumer, wherein the COSs each specify a different priority for accessing the capacity of the resource pool. The method further comprises evaluating, by a planning tool, a representative workload of the consumer, and determining, by the planning tool, a partitioning of resource demands of the representative workload between the plurality of COSs. |
| US08392926B2 |
Scheduling heterogeneous partitioned resources with sharing constraints
A system and method that provides an automated solution to obtaining quality scheduling for users of computing resources. The system, implemented in an enterprise software test center, collects information from test-shop personnel about test machine features and availability, test jobs, and tester preferences and constraints. The system reformulates this testing information as a system of constraints. An optimizing scheduling engine computes efficient schedules whereby all the jobs are feasibly scheduled while satisfying the users' time preferences to the greatest extent possible. The method and system achieves fairness: if all preferences can not be meet, it is attempted to evenly distribute violations of preferences across the users. The test scheduling is generated according to a first application of a greedy algorithm that finds an initial feasible assignment of jobs. The second is a local search algorithm that improves the initial greedy solution. |
| US08392924B2 |
Custom scheduling and control of a multifunction printer
A method and system for implementing custom scheduling policies including making alterations to internal task scheduling policies or firmware operating within the MFP throughout the lifetime of the MFP. Internal task scheduling policy alterations can be made either remotely or on-site at a customer location. Custom scheduling policies can be implemented for different periods of time. The MFP includes a task run-time controller to receive and process the internal task scheduling policy alterations. The task run-time controller includes a task tuner, which may implement the internal task scheduling policy alterations responsive to usage characteristics of the MFP. |
| US08392922B2 |
Marshaling results of nested tasks
The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for marshaling results of nested tasks. Unwrap methods are used to reduce the level of task nesting and insure that appropriate results are marshaled between tasks. A proxy task is used to represent the aggregate asynchronous operation of a wrapping task and a wrapped task. The proxy task has a completion state that is at least indicative of the completion state of the aggregate asynchronous operation. The completion state of the aggregate asynchronous operation is determined and set from one or more of the completion state of the wrapping task and the wrapped task. The completion state of the proxy task can be conveyed to calling logic to indicate the completion state of the aggregate asynchronous operation to the calling logic. |
| US08392914B2 |
Method and apparatus for recognizing processes in GOS by VMM
The present invention provides a method apparatus for recognizing a process in a guest operation system by a virtual machine monitor, and the method comprises: step 101 of recording by the virtual machine monitor the page table information of a process to be executed upon process switching of the guest operating system; step 102 of acquiring by the virtual machine monitor the identification information of the currently-executed process; step 103 of storing by the virtual machine monitor the correspondence between the previously recorded page table information of the process to be executed and the identification information of the currently-executed process. By storing the correspondence between the process page directory base address and the identification information of the process, the method and apparatus of the present invention enable the virtual machine monitor to locate and monitor processes executed in the GOS, thus promoting the management granularity on GOS of the virtual machine monitor to a process level. |
| US08392909B2 |
Synchronizing vital product data for computer processor subsystems
A computer processor subsystem, e.g. called a “target”, in response to receiving an update to vital product data of the system from a source computer processor subsystem, examines the update to detect the vital product data of the target computer processor subsystem stored by the source computer processor subsystem; and, in response to the detected vital product data being incorrect, the target computer processor subsystem forwards its correct vital product data to the source computer processor subsystem having the incorrect vital product data. A computer processor subsystem is the authoritative reference for its vital product data. |
| US08392901B2 |
Replacing a ROM image in a computer's ROM
In at least some embodiments, a method comprises receiving a first command from a source external to a computer to provide a copy of a read only memory (ROM) image from the computer to the external source. The method also comprises receiving a second command from the source external to the computer to replace the computer's ROM image and, without re-booting the computer, replacing the computer's ROM image with a ROM image received from the external source. |
| US08392900B1 |
Methods and systems for barrier reduction in parallel processing systems
Systems and methods according to the present invention provide techniques which modify programs having barrier statements. Dependence relations between statements, and enforcement associations between the barrier statements and the dependence relations, in the program are identified. The dependence relations are classified as being either enforceable by point-to-point synchronization or not enforceable by point-to-point synchronization. A subset of the barrier statements, which will enforce those dependence relations that are unenforceable by point-to-point synchronization, are determined. Other(s) of the barrier statements are replaced with a point-to-point synchronization routine. |
| US08392896B2 |
Software test bed generation
A system and method is described for generating a test bed that is useful in developing, testing and/or supporting the use of software, such as software used for managing IT processes and/or monitoring equipment in an enterprise network. The system and method operates by processing a manifest to generate an instance space model of a computer network, wherein the manifest refers to a type space model of a computer network and includes an encoding that conveys parameters that are used to inflate the type space model of the computer network into the instance space model of the computer network. The type space model may comprise an object-relational directed graph that describes a plurality of potential directed graph instances and the instance space model may comprise one of the plurality of potential directed graph instances. |
| US08392888B2 |
Method of translating n to n instructions employing an enhanced extended translation facility
A method, article, and system for providing an effective implementation of assembler language translate-n-to-n instructions implemented on 21, 31, and 64-bit architectures, while maintaining backward compatibility with existing systems. The enhanced Extended-Translation Facility 2 (ETF2) instruction set introduces a new operand in an unused field (M3) that facilitates a change in the original instruction format and its intended function. With the ETF2-Enhancement Facility installed, a value of zeros in the M3 field indicates that instruction operation is to continue as originally defined. When a nonzero value is coded in the M3 field a new function is carried out. The assembler accommodates the changes by making the new M3 field optional when coding the instructions. If the M3 field is not coded, the assembler defaults to providing zeros in the M3 field (as found in the original instruction format), and backward compatible operation is provided. |
| US08392885B2 |
Low privilege debugging pipeline
A low privilege debug pipeline publisher advertises a debugging pipeline. Instead of having a client to which a debugger on the server has been attached interrogate the server for debugging information, the client requests information from the server. Control is returned to the server which can refuse to provide the requested information to the client. A debuggee server executes client code being debugged in an isolated context so that pausing the code at a breakpoint does not block the server. The server can apply transforms to compiled code to make the code cooperate with debugging services so that a privileged component to inspect the debuggee code is not needed. |
| US08392878B2 |
In-place structure in a graphical program
System and method for including an in-place structure in a graphical program. Input including the structure in the graphical program may be received, where the structure is displayed in the graphical program. At least one graphical program node may be associated with the structure. The at least one graphical program node may be executable to manipulate at least one of a first element or a second element. The structure may specify that data memory of the first element is useable as the data memory of the second element in the graphical program. The structure may be usable by a development environment to reduce memory usage of the graphical program during execution. |
| US08392874B2 |
Creating an executable configuration
A process for creating an executable configuration that can be run on a target system by selecting from a library a number of abstracted software components that are independent of the target system that implement individual functions of the target system and that are provided with a specified command interface and a specified interface to data channels, the selected software components that are independent of the target system are interconnected via their data channels for the realization of the automatization task to a model which is automatically transformed by a model transformation into a net list of nodes, attributes and edges, whereby the software components form the nodes, the initial parameters, the attributes and the data channels the edges of the net list, the software components that are independent of the target system are transformed into software components dependent on the target system, the software components that are dependent on the target system are instantiated at the target system and parameterized by their command interface and from the net list, the processing sequence of the software components is identified for processing in correct information flow. |
| US08392872B2 |
Pseudo translation within integrated development environment
A computer program is pseudo translated within an integrated development environment (IDE). Pseudo translation is performed, within an IDE, on one or more first resource files for the computer program, to generate corresponding one or more second resource files, without modifying one or more source code files for the computer program. The computer program is debugged and/or run, within the IDE, using the second resource files, such that the second resource files remain hidden from a user of the IDE, and without changing the user interface language of the computerized system. |
| US08392861B2 |
Method of semiconductor integrated circuit device using library for estimating timing/area to place cells
To considerably reduce the cell layout change after timing optimization to reduce the term of layout design by estimating timing and an area after the timing optimization. During the period of initial layout processing using a net list, a timing constraint, a floor plan, a layout library, a timing library, etc., a library for estimating timing/area for estimating the timing and area after the timing optimization is created in advance and whether the timing constraint can be met is estimated. A cell in a path that hardly meets the timing constraint is placed in proximity and conversely, a cell that easily meets the timing constraint is placed at a distance. At this time, an area increase is also estimated so that wiring congestion does not occur. |
| US08392858B2 |
Detection and removal of hazards during optimization of logic circuits
A method of generating a hazard-free representation of a logic circuit that can leverage the powerful and mature synchronous-circuit CAD synthesis tools. In a representative embodiment of the method, an initial representation of a specified asynchronous logic circuit is synthesized using one of such CAD tools. The initial representation is then analyzed to identify hazardous transitions and modified, e.g., by iteratively inserting additional logic aimed at preventing the identified hazardous transitions from producing glitches, until a hazard-free representation of the specified asynchronous logic circuit is produced. |
| US08392857B2 |
Automated circuit design process for generation of stability constraints for generically defined electronic system with feedback
A method is described that involves accepting a description of an electronic system having feedback. The method further includes expressing a real root of the electronic system's transfer function and expressing a real part of a complex root of the electronic system's transfer function. The method further includes expressing a time parameter as a maximum of the real root and the real part of a complex root. The method further involves expressing a settling time of the electronic system with the time parameter and using the settling time to automatically generate a design for the electronic system. |
| US08392856B2 |
Semiconductor device and layout design method for the same
A semiconductor device includes: a plurality of line features including at least one real feature which includes a gate electrode portion, and at least one dummy feature. Two of multiple ones of the dummy feature, and at least one of the line features interposed between the two dummy features and including the at least one real feature form parallel running line features which are evenly spaced. The parallel running line features have an identical width, and line end portions of the parallel running line features are substantially flush. Line end portion uniformization dummy features are formed on extensions of the line end portions of the parallel running line features. The line end portion uniformization dummy features include a plurality of linear features each having a same width as each of the line features and spaced at intervals equal to an interval between each adjacent pair of the line features. |
| US08392853B2 |
Transparent interface used to independently manipulate and interrogate N-dimensional focus objects in virtual and real visualization systems
Method, system, and software for performing independent operations with and upon N-Dimensional spatial and temporal objects displayed in virtual and real visualization systems. The technique applies user selected points or regions of interest in the visualization system to identify corresponding points or regions on transparent focus objects which describe the visualized objects, and which intersect the user's topological line of sight. The resulting set of points or regions are then used to extract information from the focus objects, which provide additional information on object content or location of related file systems. The transparent interface provides intrinsic operations which can be applied directly to the focus objects, or coupling mechanisms to external user applications, to process, manipulate or transform focus objects in either the transparent interface or the visualization system. |
| US08392850B2 |
Information processing apparatus and method, and program for handling images
Disclosed herein is an information processing apparatus which may include list acquire means, thumbnail image acquire means, display means, selection means, and image acquire means. |
| US08392846B2 |
Virtual pin pad for fuel payment systems
A method and system for displaying a virtual PIN pad in varying locations on a touch screen in order to prevent fraud or the interception of personal identification numbers. |
| US08392843B2 |
System and method for drag-and-drop workflow editing in a multifunction peripheral (MFP)
The invention relates to a drag-and-drop workflow editor associated with a multifunction peripheral (MFP). In one embodiment, a drag-and-drop workflow allows a user to define multiple source, transformation, and destination processes in a graphical, drag-and-drop workflow editor. In some embodiments, the source processes may be dynamic processes that are executed at different times. |
| US08392840B2 |
Large sets of data
This document describes tools that enable a computing device to retrieve large data in smaller blocks. The tools also allow the computing device to receive and display data that does not include display formatting information through the use of templates. |
| US08392839B2 |
System and method for using partial teleportation or relocation in virtual worlds
The processing burden of rendering incident to a full teleportation operation in a virtual universe is avoided while contact with particular teleport destinations is promoted by provision of a partial teleportation facility such as a virtual kiosk as an object within a virtual universe (which may be sponsored or owned by users wishing to promote particular teleportation destinations) at which an avatar can view previously rendered images of portions of one or more teleportation destinations. Limited interaction and simulated travel within the teleportation destination can be achieved through image manipulation and updates rather than rendering. An avatar image can be displayed in connection with both the object and the teleport destination with, preferably control of only one avatar image while the other is displayed using a low resolution image. Full teleportation can be initiated automatically upon detection of a particular condition such as duration of an avatar presence at the location of the partial teleportation facility object. When full teleportation is initiated, the processing intensive rendering can be supplemented from image data representing the portion or the teleportation destination, thus hiding rendering delays and simulating seamless, instantaneous response to the full teleportation operation. |
| US08392837B2 |
Browser supporting multiple users
A method and apparatus for a browser supporting multiple user identifying states. A plurality of browser instances are initiated on a client. One of a plurality of user identifying states is selected for each of the plurality of browser instances. Each selected user identifying state is used in a distinct session between the browser and a server. |
| US08392832B2 |
Display placeholders for rich media content
Methods, systems, devices, and programming structures for providing temporary substitute placeholder content for rich media content in data sets downloaded to wireless communications devices. The substitute placeholder content may be logically related to the rich content for which it substitutes, and may be displayed in the same relative size and location as the rich content ultimately to be displayed. |
| US08392831B2 |
Handheld electronic device and method for performing optimized spell checking during text entry by providing a sequentially ordered series of spell-check algorithms
A handheld electronic device includes a reduced QWERTY keyboard and is enabled with a disambiguation routine that is operable to disambiguate text input. In addition to identifying and outputting representations of language objects that are stored in the memory and that correspond with a text input, the device is able to perform a spell check routine during input of a text entry. The spell check routine subjects a text entry to a sequentially ordered series of spell-check algorithms and ceases subjecting the text entry to further spell-check algorithms upon identification of a predetermined quantity of spell-check language objects. |
| US08392830B2 |
Method and system for code editing
A method and system for code editing using copy and paste operations are provided. The method includes copying a section of text (111) from a source program text (101) and providing source context information (120) for the copied section of text (111). The method further includes pasting (140) the copied section of text (111) to a destination location, including: defining the pasted text (140) as separate from the destination program text (102); carrying out editing (132) to conform variables of the pasted text to the variables of the destination program text (102); and then integrating (133) the pasted text into the destination program text (102). The step of carrying out editing to conform variables of the pasted text (140) to the variables of the destination program text (102) references the source context information (120) and context information (104) of the destination program text (102). Providing source context information (120) may either provide a rich schema storable in association with the copied text (111), providing metadata information relating to the variables of the copied text, or may provide a link to the source program code context information (103). |
| US08392828B2 |
Open theme builder and API
Methods and system for customizing a webpage include generating a schematic representation of the webpage wherein the webpage includes a plurality of section elements that are customizable. The schematic representation identifies a plurality of schematic section elements corresponding to the plurality of section elements of the webpage. The schematic representation is rendered for the webpage and provides visual navigation through various section elements of the webpage. A schematic section element is selected from the schematic representation, for customizing. The selection of the schematic section element triggers rendering of respective one or more navigation links, which provide tools or options for customization. Changes representing customization to one or more attributes associated with the selected schematic section element are received and the attributes are updated at the schematic representation in real-time. The changes are cascaded to the corresponding section elements of the webpage in substantial real-time based on user interaction. |
| US08392826B2 |
Methods and systems for use in maintaining media data quality upon conversion to a different data format
The present embodiments provide methods, apparatuses, and systems for use in maintaining data quality upon conversion to a different data format. Some embodiments provide methods that receive media data in a first format, initiate a first conversion of the media data at the first format to a second converted format, identify parameters dictating the conversion to the second converted format, record the parameters, and distribute the recorded parameters to remote systems such that the parameters at least in part control the remote systems during a conversion of the media data to the second converted format. |
| US08392823B1 |
Systems and methods for detecting hidden text and hidden links
A system detects hidden elements in a document that includes a group of elements. The system may identify each of the elements in the document and create a structural representation of the document. The structural representation may provide an interconnection of the group of elements in the document. The system may also determine whether one or more elements of the group of elements are hidden based at least in part on locations or other attributes or properties of the one or more elements in the structural representation. |
| US08392820B2 |
Method of establishing a plain text document from a HTML document
The present invention provides a method of establishing a plain text document from a HTML document. The method including the steps of (A) acquiring a HTML document defined by HTML elements, each composed of tags and content between the tags; (B) pre-processing the HTML document by omitting some of the tags (including the content between those tags), whereby the rest of the HTML document comprises at least one target tag (including content between the target tags); (C) using a data structure to store the remaining tags of the pre-processed HTML document; (D) grouping the remaining tags (including the content between the remaining tags) stored in the data structure of the pre-processed HTML document into at least one target group according to the target tag(s); and (E) identifying the target group(s) most related to a title of the HTML document by comparing correlation(s) between the target group(s) and the title, and establishing a plain text document having the content of the identified target group. |
| US08392816B2 |
Page classifier engine
Embodiments of the present invention relate to classifying pages of an electronic document, such as a scanned book page. OCR software is applied to the contents of the electronic document, revealing semantic information about the content of the electronic document. Software-based features are applied to the semantic information to determine the type of page the electronic document is. Page types may include table of contents (TOC), table of figures (TOF), bibliography, index, or other types of pages commonly found in a book, magazine, or other publication. Once determined, the determined page type is stored and used by other software engines. |
| US08392813B2 |
Redundant file system
Some embodiments of the invention shift the responsibility for creating parity and error correction blocks from the hardware or software RAID units or modules to the computer system's file system, allowing the file system's existing mechanisms of write atomicity to be used to help ensure consistency of the on-disk information throughout all or increasing portions of the information saving and/or updating cycle. |
| US08392808B2 |
Rate matching for a wireless communications system
Apparatuses and methods are provided for generating a plurality of redundancy versions using various rate matching algorithms. In some embodiments, a rate matcher is provided that allocates systematic and parity bits to the redundancy versions in a manner that allows all of these bits to be transmitted in at least one redundancy version. In some embodiments, the rate matcher uses a first puncturing algorithm to generate both a first redundancy version and a third redundancy version, but allocates a different proportion of the systematic bits to these redundancy versions. In these embodiments, the second redundancy version may include only bits that were not transmitted in the first redundancy version. |
| US08392803B2 |
Method and device for identifying video data losses
To identify data losses in a video sequence transmitted between a server and at least one client over a communication network, the sequence comprising a plurality of video data containers coded using scalable video coding employing a predetermined number of hierarchical levels, the video data containers being transmitted over the network via a series of data transport packets: a process (311) is carried out of detecting losses and of locating the video data affected by those losses, without decoding the video data, by combining information coming from transport packets and information coming from video data container headers.Application for improving decoding on receiving a video sequence. |
| US08392802B2 |
Spectral content based decoding and frequency offset estimation
Methods and systems to identify a codeword associated with samples of a signal from spectral content of the samples, and to estimate a frequency offset from the spectral contents. The samples may correspond to a physical layer header of a data frame. Modulation may be removed from the samples in accordance with each of a plurality of modulation sequences, each sequence associated with a corresponding codeword. Power levels in spectral contents of the modulation-removed samples are examined to identify a peak power level indicative of a match between a modulation sequence and the samples. The corresponding codeword is identified as being associated with the header, and transmission parameters associated with the identified codeword are used to decode a corresponding frame. An estimated frequency offset may be determined from a frequency associated with the peak power level. |
| US08392801B2 |
Decoding device and coding system
A decoding device is provided, which can minimize the number of coded data addition requests by the decoding device, reduce processing time to prevent delay, and minimize frame rate reduction. The decoding device performs data reproduction by performing error correction of data of a predicted image using coded data which is an error correction code generated based on original data. The decoding device includes a coded bit receiving part, a preset value generating/updating part, a decoding part that performs a decoding process based on a preset value or a predicted value, and coded bits, and a bit addition request determining part that determines whether or not there is a need to request additional coded bits from decoding process results from the decoder. When it is determined to perform a decoding process with additional coded data, the preset value generating/updating part updates the preset value based on previous decoding process results. |
| US08392792B2 |
Method for encoding low density parity check codes using result of checking previously specified parity bits
There is provided to a method for encoding an LDPC (Low Density Parity Check) code using the result of checking a previously specified parity, including the steps of: forming a parity bit check matrix having a dual diagonal structure consisting of (N-K) rows for check nodes and (N-K) columns on the basis of the H matrix; calculating the values of all the parity bits by inserting a given binary value in sub-blocks, with the parity bit check matrix formed on the H matrix; if the values of the parity bits are incorrect, checking the parity bit corresponding to the sub-block located in the last part of the H matrix; searching the parity bit parts where the parity bit check result is represented as “1”; performing an XOR operation in sub-blocks on the parity bit part obtained through a simultaneous equation between the parity bits of the searched parity bit parts and the parity bit parts; and determining the value of the parity bit satisfying the condition that the value obtained by multiplying the H matrix by a code word vector. |
| US08392790B1 |
Systems and methods for optimizing a product code structure
Systems and methods for jointly optimizing various parameters of an error-correction code (e.g., a product code or other multi-dimensional code) are provided. In certain embodiments, joint optimization of coverage assignments, configuration assignments, rate assignments, and/or user data length assignments of an error-correction code is performed so as to achieve desired error-protection performance at minimized implementation complexity. In certain embodiments, coverage assignments of an error-correction code are optimized to achieve a desired performance level with minimized implementation complexity. |
| US08392789B2 |
Method and system for decoding low density parity check codes
A method for decoding a codeword in a data stream encoded according to a low density parity check (LDPC) code having an m×j parity check matrix H by initializing variable nodes with soft values based on symbols in the codeword, wherein a graph representation of H includes m check nodes and j variable nodes, and wherein a check node m provides a row value estimate to a variable node j and a variable node j provides a column value estimate to a check node m if H(m,j) contains a 1, computing row value estimates for each check node, wherein amplitudes of only a subset of column value estimates provided to the check node are computed, computing soft values for each variable node based on the computed row value estimates, determining whether the codeword is decoded based on the soft values, and terminating decoding when the codeword is decoded. |
| US08392788B2 |
Transport network system with transparent transport and method of operation thereof
A method of manufacture a transport network system includes: receiving input data having an input encoding; generating encoded data, having a transcode encoding, from the input data; generating an error correction redundancy for the encoded data; and sending an output frame, having the encoded data and the error correction redundancy, for increasing a net coding gain of the output frame based on the transcode encoding and the error correction redundancy. |
| US08392787B2 |
Selective merge and partial reuse LDPC (Low Density Parity Check) code construction for limited number of layers Belief Propagation (BP) decoding
Selective merge and partial reuse LDPC (Low Density Parity Check) code construction for limited number of layers Belief Propagation (BP) decoding. Multiple LDPC matrices may be generated from a base code, such that multiple/distinct LDPC coded signals may be encoded and/or decoded within a singular communication device. Generally speaking, a first LDPC matrix is modified in accordance with one or more operations thereby generating a second LDPC matrix, and the second LDPC matrix is employed in accordance with encoding an information bit thereby generating an LDPC coded signal (alternatively performed using an LDPC generator matrix corresponding to the LDPC matrix) and/or decoding processing of an LDPC coded signal thereby generating an estimate of an information bit encoded therein. The operations performed on the first LDPC matrix may be any one of, or combination of, selectively merging, deleting, partially re-using one or more sub-matrix rows, and/or partitioning sub-matrix rows. |
| US08392786B2 |
LDPC coding systems for 60 GHz millimeter wave based physical layer extension
LDPC coding systems for 60 GHz millimeter wave based physical layer extension. LDPC (Low Density Parity Check) encoding in cooperation with sub-carrier interleaving, in the context of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), and appropriate symbol mapping is performed in accordance with transmit processing as may be performed within a communication device. In a receiving communication device, receive processing may be performed on a received signal based on the type of LDPC, sub-carrier interleaving, and symbol mapping thereof. The LDPC code employed in accordance with such LDPC encoding may have a partial-tree like structure. In addition, appropriate manipulation of the bits assigned to respective sub-carriers may be performed to ensure that the bits emplaced in the MSB (Most Significant Bit) location of various symbols has some desired diversity (e.g., from different codewords, from appropriately different locations within a given codeword, etc.). |
| US08392785B2 |
Method and system for a transmitting antenna selection failure recovery mode
Aspects of a method and system for a transmitting antenna selection failure recover mode are presented. Aspects of the system may include a transmitting mobile terminal that enables selection of a sequence of protocol data units (PDU), for example a sequence of sounding frames, which may be transmitted during an antenna selection procedure. During transmission of the selected PDU sequence, the transmitting mobile terminal may receive an antenna selection failure indication frame. The transmitting mobile terminal may enable retransmission of at least one previously transmitted PDU in the PDU sequence based on the failure indication. Transmission of subsequent PDUs in the PDU sequence may resume after the retransmission. Alternatively, upon receipt of the failure indication frame the transmitting mobile terminal may restart the selected frame sequence from the beginning, or may select a subsequent PDU frame sequence. |
| US08392781B2 |
Hybrid-ARQ (HARQ) with scrambler
Embodiments of the invention provide a system and method of hybrid automatic repeat-request (HARQ) processing. A viterbi decoder is coupled to and follows a descrambler. After the signal has been de-scrambled, it can be stored in a memory in case it needs to be recombined with another packet. This means that the log-likelihood ratios LLRs for each transmitted bit are stored in memory using a finite number of bits (for example, between 4 and 12 bits). If the packet that is currently being processed contains retransmitted information, then the de-scrambled output stored from a previous packet containing the same information can be loaded and combined with the current packet. |
| US08392780B2 |
Communication control method
Methods of controlling peers of a relay ARQ protocol are described. It is proposed to provide a predetermined marking in the payload section of messages of the relay ARQ protocol, such that relay peers along the relay connections can extract information from the payload section. |
| US08392772B2 |
On-chip memory testing
An integrated circuit is described that has a substrate with a memory array with dedicated support hardware formed on the substrate. An access wrapper circuit is coupled to address and data lines of the memory array and to control lines of the dedicated support hardware. The wrapper circuit is configured to provide an access port to the memory array. A test controller is formed on the substrate and coupled in parallel with the access wrapper circuit to the address and data lines of the memory array and to the control lines of the dedicated support hardware, wherein the test controller is operable to perform a test of the memory array by manipulating control signals to the support hardware in addition to those required to write data patterns into the memory array and to read the contents of the memory array. |
| US08392771B2 |
Memory devices and methods for managing error regions
Memory devices and methods are described that include a stack of memory dies and a logic die. Method and devices described include those that provide for repartitioning the stack of memory dies and storing the new partitions in a memory map. Repartitioning in selected configurations allows portions of memory to be removed from use without affecting the rest of the memory device. Additional devices, systems, and methods are disclosed. |
| US08392764B2 |
Methods and systems for identifying and configuring networked devices
Auto-detection and configuring systems and methods for interconnected, position dependent control devices are disclosed. Embedded identification and configuration keys are associated with each of the control devices in a network, such that specific connection nodes for each controller may be determined by electronically reading the identification as the control devices are installed. Hardware and software compatibility issues may be detected and resolved, including self configuring of the control devices with the proper software where possible. Otherwise, error conditions are signaled. |
| US08392762B2 |
System and method for detection and prevention of flash corruption
A non-volatile memory device comprises an application code sector of sufficient size to store a first copy of an application code and a second copy of the application code; and a boot sector having a boot loader code embodied therein. The boot loader code is configured to cause a processor to check the integrity of both the first and second copies of the application code; if the first copy is corrupted, overwrite the first copy of the application code with the second copy; and if the second copy is corrupted, overwrite the second copy of the application code with the first copy. |
| US08392760B2 |
Diagnosing abnormalities without application-specific knowledge
Methods, articles, and systems for determining a probable cause of a component's abnormal behavior are described. To determine the probable cause, a computing device computes, for one or more pairs of components having dependency relationships, a likelihood that behavior of one component of a pair is impacting behavior of the other component of the pair. This computing is based on joint historical behavior of the pair of components. The computing device then determines that one of a plurality of components is a probable cause of the abnormal behavior based on the computed likelihoods. |
| US08392757B2 |
Method and apparatus for processing load instructions in a microprocessor having an enhanced instruction decoder and an enhanced load store unit
A method and microprocessor are described for efficiently executing load instructions out-of-order (speculatively). The microprocessor includes an enhanced load store unit (LSU) and an enhanced instruction decoder. The enhanced LSU receives a plurality of out-of-order value addresses, and sends a resync signal to the enhanced instruction decoder when an execution error associated with a particular load instruction occurs. The enhanced instruction decoder stores a specific address associated with the particular load instruction, and increments a counter value that indicates how many times the resync signal was sent by the resync predictor. When the counter value reaches a predetermined threshold, subsequent load instructions from the specific address are executed in order (non-speculatively). When a future execution of the particular load instruction indicates that the probability of an execution error has been reduced, the counter value is decremented, facilitating newer load instructions associated with the same address to again be executed speculatively. |
| US08392752B2 |
Selective recovery and aggregation technique for two storage apparatuses of a raid
A disk array provided with a RAID group in a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) configuration with redundancy of two, the disk array includes, a data recovery technique selecting unit to select a technique for recovering data from a first failed disk to be recovered first, the technique being selected from among a plurality of techniques based on the type of storage apparatus included in the RAID group, and I/O conditions with respect to the RAID group, when failures occur in two storage apparatus in the RAID group, a data recovering unit to split recovered data from the first failed storage apparatus and writing the recovered data to two recovery storage apparatus in accordance with the data recovery technique selected by the data recovery technique selecting unit, and an aggregating unit to aggregate the recovered data onto one of the two recovery storage apparatus. |
| US08392744B2 |
Clock distribution apparatus, systems, and methods
Apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed that operate to adjust power received by a clock distribution network at least partially based on operating conditions of an integrated circuit. Additional apparatus, systems, and methods are disclosed. |
| US08392743B2 |
Master clock generation unit for satellite navigation systems
A master clock generation unit for satellite navigation systems, comprises a plurality of frequency inputs for receiving a respective atomic clock signal, each having a first or a second reference frequency, and a number of frequency converters each having an input connected to one of the frequency inputs and an output. Each of the frequency converters receives an offset frequency (selected according to the first and second reference frequency at the assigned frequency input) from at least one frequency synthesizer, for providing the same intermediate frequency at each of the converter outputs. A switching matrix is connected to each of the converter outputs for selecting one of the intermediate frequencies as a primary clock provided at a first matrix output, and another of the intermediate frequencies as a secondary clock provided at a second matrix output. A frequency generator having an input connected to the first matrix output and connected to a number of frequency outputs of the master clock generation unit, derives an output reference frequency from the primary clock, and provides it at the frequency outputs. A phase meter having a first meter input connected to the first matrix output and a second meter input connected to the second matrix output, determines a phase difference between the primary and the secondary clock for detecting abnormal behavior. |
| US08392740B2 |
Synchronization of converters having varying group-delays in a measurement system
An analog-to-digital-converter (ADC) timing engine may simplify the use of Delta-Sigma ADCs by compensating for the group-delay of the ADC. The compensation may render the group-delay corresponding to the ADC largely transparent to the end-user of the ADC. Therefore, multiple ADCs may be easily synchronized with each other, even if they have different group-delays, and they may further be synchronized with other types of ADCs that do not have group-delays. The data from the ADCs may also be synchronized with external events. The ADC timing engine (ATE) may be programmed with a number of parameters to set proper delays taking into account not only the group-delays corresponding to the various ADC, but delays stemming from a variety of other sources. Multiple ATEs may be synchronized with each other to ensure that data acquisition by the participating ADCs is started and/or stopped at the same point in time. |
| US08392728B2 |
Reducing idle leakage power in an IC
A method to reduce idle leakage power in I/O pins of an integrated circuit using external circuitry. Initially, I/O pins on a package are subdivided into those that will also remain powered up and those that will power down during idle state. When a system enters a low power mode, a signal is sent to the external circuitry. The signal notifies the I/O pins that always remain powered up to notify the external circuitry to power down the other set of I/O pins. |
| US08392726B2 |
Protection of memory areas
A method for loading a program, contained in at least a first memory, into a second memory accessible by an execution unit, in which the program is in a cyphered form in the first memory, a circuit for controlling the access to the second memory is configured from program initialization data, instructions of the program, and at least initialization data being decyphered to be transferred into the second memory after configuration of the circuit. |
| US08392724B2 |
Information terminal, security device, data protection method, and data protection program
An information terminal that decrypts sealed data without returning program data after update to the state before update. The information terminal includes update certificate storage unit storing an update certificate for certifying update of the program data to be executed by CPU, and a selection unit which, when the CPU is to execute program data, judges whether or not digest of the post-update program data in the update certificate matches digest of the program data to be executed, and selects digest of the pre-update program data in the update certificate when it judges that they match. The CPU executes the post-update program data. The information terminal further includes a security device that stores an extend value of a program data digest when the pre-update program data is executed by the CPU according to a request from the selection unit. |
| US08392721B2 |
Method and system to electronically identify and verify an individual presenting himself for such identification and verification
A method and a system of electronically identifying and verifying an individual utilizing at least one biometric features of the individual is disclosed. The method includes the steps of activating an access apparatus with a means to capture at least one biometric feature of an individual in a secure manner using dynamic encryption, capturing the biometric feature of an individual wherein key features of biometric raw data are extracted, encrypting in a dynamic manner the biometric features, transmitting the encrypted data of the biometric feature to at least one server; and verifying the biometric features captured in the fruit step with a pre-stored biometric feature in the server. Wherein upon positive identification and verification of the individual access is given to an auxiliary means such as but not limited to access to secured doors, database, computer network and servers. |
| US08392718B2 |
Programmable controller system and aid device for control program development therefor
A programmable controller system is formed by connecting a personal computer having an aid device program module installed to serve as an aid device for development of control program to a programmable controller having password protect function. A hardware key storing a specified password code is detachably attached to the personal computer. The aid device program module checks whether or not software module with a function of certifying a hardware key exists and if it is found to exist, it is linked as a part of the aid device program module and the function of certifying the hardware key is caused to operate. |
| US08392717B2 |
Authentication method, system, server, and client
An authentication method is disclosed herein. The method includes: by a server, using a Trigger message nonce to generate a Trigger message, and sending the generated Trigger message to a client so that the client can extract the Trigger message nonce; after determining that the Trigger message nonce is valid, using the Trigger message nonce to generate a digest, and authenticating the Trigger message generated by using the Trigger message nonce; after the authentication succeeds, sending a session request to the server indicated by the Trigger message, where the session request carries a session ID. The corresponding system, server and client are disclosed herein. The present invention makes the authentication process more secure through the client and the server based on the DS or DM protocol. |
| US08392715B2 |
Method and device for identifying objects or documents
The document identification method comprises: a step of marking the document with an anti-copy mark that is identical for a plurality of documents, a step of reading an anti-copy mark, a step of generating an identification mark that can vary from one document to another and according to the reading of the anti-copy mark and a step of marking said document to form said identification mark on said document. In embodiments the method comprises, in addition, a step of printing a uniform area and the step of marking the document to form the identification mark comprises a step of emitting light with a laser in the uniform area.In embodiments the method comprises, in addition, a step of invisibly marking the identification mark on said document. |
| US08392712B1 |
System and method for provisioning a unique device credential
According to one embodiment of the invention, a method for controlling access to a network comprises a first operation of determining one or more device characteristics of an electronic device seeking to join the network. Then, one or more unique device credentials are generated for the electronic device. The format of the unique device credentials are based on the one or more device characteristics of the electronic device. |
| US08392711B2 |
Staged establishment of secure strings of symbols
A multi-stage technique of establishing a plurality of secure strings of symbols is disclosed. In the first stage, the illustrative embodiment establishes a first-stage string of symbols with each other node. The first-stage strings are chosen from a first, small, key space, which means that they can be established more quickly than a highly secure key from a large key space. The advantage of the first-stage strings is that it enables the user to transmit secure messages more quickly than messages secured with highly secure strings. The disadvantage of the illustrative embodiment is that the first-stage strings are not as secure as strings from a larger key space. This disadvantage is mitigated, however, by the fact that the first-stage strings are only used for a short amount of time—until the second-stage strings are established in the second stage. |
| US08392709B1 |
System and method for a single request—single response protocol with mutual replay attack protection
Various embodiments of a system and method for a single request—single response protocol with mutual replay attack protection are described. Embodiments may include a system that receives multiple single request messages, each of which may include a respective nonce, timestamp, and digital signature. The system may create a record of previously received nonces that, at any given time, may include multiple message nonces received within a valid period of time prior to that given time. To validate a given single request message the system may verify the digital signature of the that message, determine that the timestamp of that message indicates a time within the valid period of time prior to the current time, and determine the nonce of the that message is not present within the record of previously received nonces. The system may send a single response message that includes the same nonce as the validated message. |
| US08392705B2 |
Information source agent systems and methods for distributed data storage and management using content signatures
Information source agent systems and methods for distributed content storage and management using content signatures that use file identicality properties are provided. A data management system is provided that includes a content engine for managing the storage of file content, a content signature generator that generates a unique content signature for a file processed by the content engine, a content signature comparator that compares content signatures and a content signature repository that stores content signatures. Information source agents are provided that include content signature generators and content signature comparators. Methods are provided for the efficient management of files using content signatures that take advantage of file identicality properties. Content signature application modules and registries exist within information source clients and centralized servers to support the content signature methods. |
| US08392703B2 |
Electronic signature verification method implemented by secret key infrastructure
An electronic signature verification method implemented by SKI infrastructure adopts a secret key infrastructure (SKI) system for registering a secret key and issuing a signature key and a verification key. After a signer has completed a signature, a signature data, a verification data and a verification key encrypted by the secret key of a signature verification unit are sent to a recipient. After the recipient has received the data, a user needs to send the verification data and the encrypted verification key to a signature verification unit if the user wants to confirm the signature on the signature data. The signature verification unit uses a secret key authorized by the SKI for the decryption to obtain the verification key and uses the verification key to verify the verification data and confirm the existence of the signature of the signature data, so as to authenticate the signature of the signature data. |
| US08392696B2 |
Modular integrated circuit with common software
A modular integrated circuit includes a hub module that is coupled to a plurality of spoke modules via a plurality of hub interfaces. The spoke modules include a plurality of interface circuits each having a hardware address. A memory module stores the hub software and hub data and configuration data. The hub software includes a plurality of driver modules corresponding to the plurality of interface circuits. The processing module executes boot firmware to configure the plurality of driver modules based on the hardware address of each of the plurality of interface circuits. |
| US08392693B2 |
Fast REP STOS using grabline operations
A microprocessor includes a cache memory and a grabline instruction. The grabline instruction specifies a memory address that implicates a cache line of the memory. The grabline instruction instructs the microprocessor to initiate a zero-beat read-invalidate transaction on the bus to obtain ownership of the cache line. The microprocessor foregoes initiating the transaction on the bus when executing the grabline instruction if the microprocessor determines that a store to the cache line would cause an exception. |
| US08392691B2 |
Data management method, memory controller and memory storage apparatus
A data management method, a memory controller and a memory storage apparatus are provided. The method includes grouping physical units of a rewritable non-volatile memory module into at least a data area and a free area. The method also includes configuring logical units for mapping to the physical units of the data area and writing update data belonging to the logical pages of the logical units orderly into the physical pages of physical units gotten from the free area. The method further includes configuring root units for the logical pages, configuring an entry chain for each of the root units and building entries on the entry chains for recording update information of the updated logical pages, wherein each of the logical pages corresponds to a root unit. Accordingly, the table size for storing the update information is effectively reduced and the time for searching valid data is effectively shortened. |
| US08392690B2 |
Management method for reducing utilization rate of random access memory (RAM) used in flash memory
A management method for reducing the utilization rate of random access memory (RAM) while reading data from or writing data to the flash memory is disclosed. A physical memory set is constructed from a plurality of physical memory blocks in the flash memory. A logical set is constructed from a plurality of logical blocks wherein the data stored in the logical set are stored in the physical memory set. Further, the data stored in each of the logical blocks are stored in one number of physical memory blocks. A mapping table is constructed and includes a hash function, a logical set table, a physical memory set table, and a set status table for managing the relationship among the physical memory sets, physical memory blocks, and logical blocks while reading data from or writing data to the flash memory. Further, the management method operates and maintains the physical memory sets, the physical memory blocks, and the logical blocks at a set level so that the utilization rate of random access memory is reduced to decrease the access capacity of the random access memory while operating the physical memory blocks and the logical blocks of the flash memory. |
| US08392688B2 |
Method and apparatus for increasing an amount of memory on demand when monitoring remote mirroring performance
A method and storage system for increasing an amount of memory in a queuing area on. The storage system includes first and second storage subsystems connected to each other via a path. A primary volume in the first storage subsystem and a remote secondary volume in the second storage subsystem are mirrored and operated in the asynchronous mode. A queuing area having memory is provided in the second storage subsystem for temporarily storing data transferred to the second storage subsystem from the first storage subsystem in response to a write input/output (I/O) issued by a host to write data in the primary volume. Data temporarily stored in the memory is retrieved and stored in the remote secondary volume. An unused area of the queuing area is monitored and the memory increased if the unused area becomes less than a predetermined amount. |
| US08392687B2 |
Solid state memory formatting
The present disclosure includes methods and devices for solid state drive formatting. One device embodiment includes control circuitry coupled to a number of memory arrays, wherein each memory array has multiple physical blocks of memory cells. The memory arrays are formatted by the control circuitry that is configured to write system data to the number of memory arrays, where the system data ends at a physical block boundary; and write user data to the number of memory arrays, where the user data starts at a physical block boundary. |
| US08392685B2 |
Arrangements for managing metadata of an integrated logical unit including differing types of storage media
A file system including: a first type storage medium; a second type storage medium; and a processor providing a file system using a first area in the first type storage medium and a second area in the second type storage medium, wherein the processor manages whether metadata is permitted to be stored in each of the first area and second area, stores a first file and first metadata of the first file in the first area, which is managed to permit storing metadata, migrates the first file stored in the file system to the second area, which is managed not to permit storing metadata, and changes the first metadata stored in the first area to point to a location of the first file in the second area. |
| US08392682B2 |
Storage security using cryptographic splitting
Methods and systems for administrative management of a secure data storage network are disclosed. One system includes a secure storage appliance configured to host a plurality of volumes, each volume associated with a plurality of shares stored on a corresponding plurality of physical storage devices and having a plurality of volume management settings, wherein each volume is accessible by a group of one or more users, each user assigned an administrative access level, the volume management settings are editable by a first user from the group of one or more users associated with the volume and assigned an administrative access level sufficient to edit the volume management settings, and the volume management settings are inaccessible by a second user from outside the group of one or more users associated with the volume and assigned an administrative access level at least equal to that of the first user. |
| US08392676B2 |
Management method and management apparatus
A management method and management apparatus that can prevent deterioration of response performance of an entire system is suggested.A management method and apparatus for managing a storage apparatus to which a hierarchical pool configuration technique is applied is designed to: select a migration-candidate virtual volume(s) from among virtual volumes to which a page(s) is allocated from a pool constituted from a storage tier(s) whose number of accesses per unit time has reached a performance threshold and whose used capacity has not reached a capacity threshold; select a pool(s) from which a page(s) is allocated to the virtual volume, as a migration source pool; also select a pool(s) constituted from a storage tier whose number of accesses per unit time has not reached the performance threshold, as a migration destination pool; decide a migration candidate pair(s) by combining the migration-candidate virtual volume(s) with the migration destination pool(s); calculate response performance of the entire system before and after migration respectively; and decide a migration candidate pair which is a migration object, based on the calculation result. |
| US08392675B1 |
System and method for reduced-overhead snapshot creation
Systems and methods for reduced-overhead creation of persistent, point-in-time images (PPIs) are disclosed. The summary map is updated as needed when a block is newly freed or allocated after the latest PPI is taken. Therefore, PPI maps of previously created PPIs do not need to be scanned after PPI creation, thereby eliminating high latency disk reads and memory consumption for scanning. When a PPI is created, the active map and the latest PPI map are identical since the active map depicts the current allocation status of the blocks in the active file system. The active map only diverges from the PPI map when a block is allocated or freed in the active file system. Therefore, the active map can be used to update the status of blocks in the summary map when the status of a block diverges from its status as indicated in the latest PPI map. |
| US08392672B1 |
Identifying unallocated memory segments
A network device that includes a first memory to store packets in segments; a second memory to store pointers associated with the first memory; a third memory to store summary bits and allocation bits, where the allocation bits correspond to the segments. The network device also includes a processor to receive a request for memory resources; determine whether a pointer is stored in the second memory, where the pointer corresponds to a segment that is available to store a packet; and send the pointer when the pointer is stored in the second memory. The processor is further to perform a search to identify other pointers when the pointer is not stored in the second memory, where performing the search includes identifying a set of allocation bits, based on an unallocated summary bit, that corresponds to the other pointers; identify another pointer, of the other pointers, based on an unallocated allocation bit of the set of allocation bits; and send the other pointer in response to the request. |
| US08392669B1 |
Systems and methods for coalescing memory accesses of parallel threads
One embodiment of the present invention sets forth a technique for efficiently and flexibly performing coalesced memory accesses for a thread group. For each read application request that services a thread group, the core interface generates one pending request table (PRT) entry and one or more memory access requests. The core interface determines the number of memory access requests and the size of each memory access request based on the spread of the memory access addresses in the application request. Each memory access request specifies the particular threads that the memory access request services. The PRT entry tracks the number of pending memory access requests. As the memory interface completes each memory access request, the core interface uses information in the memory access request and the corresponding PRT entry to route the returned data. When all the memory access requests associated with a particular PRT entry are complete, the core interface satisfies the corresponding application request and frees the PRT entry. |
| US08392668B2 |
Distributed-state-information-based distributed computing systems and methods and protocols for managing distributed state information
Various embodiments of the present invention are directed to distributed data-storage systems that provide non-distributed-data-storage-device-like interfaces to host computers that access the distributed data-storage systems. Distributed data-storage systems generally rely on state information used for execution of commands, received from host computers, by component data-storage systems. Command-executing component data-storage systems may access and modify state information shared among many or all of the component data-storage systems. Embodiment methods of the present invention provide methods for partitioning state information within a distributed data-storage system as well as communications protocols and methods for managing shared state information among the component data-storage systems within a distributed data-storage system. In certain embodiments of the present invention, state information is partitioned into one or more of: (1) local state information that is managed, accessed, and modified separately by each component data storage system; (2) shared state information that is locally cached on component data storage systems for immediate read access, that is periodically refreshed, but that is kept globally consistent among component data storage systems by distributing state-modifying operations; and (3) continuously consistent, shared state information. |
| US08392663B2 |
Coherent instruction cache utilizing cache-op execution resources
A multiprocessor system maintains cache coherence among processors in a coherent domain. Within the coherent domain, a first processor can receive a command to perform a cache maintenance operation. The first processor can determine whether the cache maintenance operation is a coherent operation. For coherent operations, the first processor sends a coherent request message for distribution to other processors in the coherent domain and can cancel execution of the cache maintenance operation pending receipt of intervention messages corresponding to the coherent request. The intervention messages can reflect a global ordering of coherence traffic in the multiprocessor system and can include instructions for maintaining a data cache and an instruction cache of the first processor. Cache maintenance operations that are determined to be non-coherent can be executed at the first processor without sending the coherent request. |
| US08392655B2 |
Apparatus for reducing accesses to levels of a storage hierarchy in a computing system
An information processing system comprises first and second levels of a storage hierarchy, wherein accessing information in the first level consumes more energy than accessing information in the second level; and a processor for writing information to the second level of storage based on energy-conserving criteria. The energy-conserving criteria comprise a set of heuristics, including system state information and user preferences. |
| US08392651B2 |
Data cache way prediction
A microprocessor includes one or more N-way caches and a way prediction logic that selectively enables and disables the cache ways so as to reduce the power consumption. The way prediction logic receives an address and predicts in which one of the cache ways the data associated with the address is likely to be stored. The way prediction logic causes an enabling signal to be supplied only to the way predicted to contain the requested data. The remaining (N−1) of the cache ways do not receive the enabling signal. The power consumed by the cache is thus significantly reduced. |
| US08392647B2 |
Solid state storage system for controlling reserved area flexibly and method for controlling the same
A solid state storage system includes a flash memory area and a memory controller. The flash memory area includes memory blocks and replacement blocks configured to replace bad blocks occurring within the memory blocks. The memory controller is configured to perform a logical-to-physical address mapping on logical blocks including the replacement blocks, and select the replacement blocks using logical addresses of the logical blocks corresponding to the bad blocks. |
| US08392645B2 |
Switch system, sub-switch and method of controlling switch system
A switch system has a master sub-switch and a slave sub-switch, the master sub-switch having a first bridge for transmitting the received packet via the first bus, a second bridge for transmitting the packet when the address information of the second bridge matches with the address information included in the packet, and a third bridge for receiving the packet from the first bridge and transmitting the packet to the slave sub-switch, the slave sub-switch having a fourth bridge for receiving the packet from the third bridge and transmitting the packet, and a fifth bridge for receiving the packet from the fourth bridge, and transmitting the packet when the address information of the fifth bridge matches with the address information included in the packet, wherein the master sub-switch has a table including address information of the fifth bridge, and transmits the packet to the fifth bridge in reference to the table. |
| US08392644B2 |
System and method for automatic hardware interrupt handling
A processing system is provided consisting of an interrupt pin, multiple registers, a stack pointer, and an automatic interrupt system. The multiple registers store a number of processor states values. When the system detects an interrupt on the interrupt pin the system prepares to enter an exception mode where the automatic interrupt system causes an interrupt vector to be fetched, the stack pointer to be updated, and the processor state values to be read in parallel from the registers and stored in memory locations based on the updated stack pointer, prior to the execution of an interrupt service routine. A method for automatic hardware interrupt handling is also presented. |
| US08392640B2 |
Pre-memory resource contention resolution
Techniques are disclosed relating to resource contention resolution in a pre-memory environment. Prior to system memory being accessible, a resource control processing element controls access to a hardware resource by a plurality of processing elements by granting received requests from the processing elements for access to the resource. The resource control processing element may prioritize requests based on a determined amount of utilization of the hardware resource by individual ones of the processing elements. In one embodiment, processing elements request for information from a bus controller (e.g., an SMBus controller) that is usable to initialize system memory. The resource control processing element may respond to the requests by retrieving the requested information from the controller and providing that information to the processing element or by retrieving the requested information from a cache and providing that information to the processing element. |
| US08392632B2 |
Method and apparatus for data processing in mobile communication system
Provided is a method and an apparatus for processing data at a high speed by a UE for data communication. In the method, received data is divided into a header and payload information, which are then stored in different memories. In the method, header processing and payload data processing can be performed in parallel, and two memory devices can perform parallel processing without sharing a bus. |
| US08392627B2 |
Adaptive semaphore
Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to semaphores. In aspects, a feedback mechanism is described that uses a semaphore to attempt to maximize throughput of a computer system. Throughput is tracked over periods of time. At or after the end of a period of time, the throughput of the period of time together with other data is used to determine whether a max count for a semaphore is to be changed and by how much. This monitoring of throughput and modifying of the max count may continue over subsequent periods of time to attempt to maximize throughput. |
| US08392623B2 |
Guest/hypervisor interrupt coalescing for storage adapter virtual function in guest passthrough mode
A method is described for coalescing input/output (IO) interrupts to a virtual machine (VM) running on a host computer. At a virtualization layer of the host computer that supports execution of the VM receives an IO interrupt in response to a completion of an IO request of the VM, wherein a transmission of the IO request by the VM to an IO device bypasses the virtualization layer. The virtualization layer then determines whether the VM has responded to a most recently delivered IO interrupt to the VM by the virtualization layer, and drops the IO interrupt if the VM has not responded to the most recently delivered IO interrupt, thereby failing to deliver the IO interrupt to the VM. |
| US08392620B2 |
Accelerated access apparatus and reading and writing methods thereof
An accelerated access apparatus and reading and writing methods thereof are described. A processing unit is used to determine whether the continuation state of a plurality of first address parameters of first request signals. Each first request signal has a first address length. When the first address parameters are continuous thereamong, the processing unit converts one of the second request signals into a second reading command which has a second reading address and a second reading address length. The second reading address length is greater than one of the first address lengths. The processing unit executes the second reading command to read data content to be stored in a buffer unit based on the second reading address and the second reading address length for responding to the second request signals. |
| US08392619B2 |
Providing indirect data addressing in an input/output processing system where the indirect data address list is non-contiguous
Systems, methods and computer program products for providing indirect data addressing at an I/O subsystem of an I/O processing system. The computer program product includes a tangible storage medium readable by a processing circuit and storing instructions for execution by the processing circuit for performing a method. The method includes receiving a control word for an I/O operation. The control word includes an indirect data address for data associated with the I/O operation. The indirect data address includes a starting location of a list of storage addresses that collectively specify the data, the list spans two or more non-contiguous storage locations. Data is gathered responsive to the list. The gathered data is transmitted to a control unit in the I/O processing system. |
| US08392618B2 |
Electronic system and a method of providing additional functionality features to an electronic system
There is provided an electronic system (10) comprising one or more functionality devices (16, 20, 21) and an electronic device adapted so that the one or more functionality devices (16, 20, 21) are locatable in proximity to the electronic device. The electronic device is operable to recognize the presence of the one or more functionality devices (16, 20, 21). Upon recognition of said one or more functionality devices (16, 20, 21), the electronic device is operable to perform one or more additional functionality features associated with said one or more functionality devices while said one or more functionality devices are in close proximity to the electronic device. |
| US08392616B2 |
Method and apparatus for transmitting header-compressed packet based on retransmission mechanism
A method for transmitting a header-compressed packet based on a retransmission mechanism is disclosed according to the present disclosure. The method mainly includes: a header compressor of a sending device obtains feedback information of a header-compressed packet in a transmission process; and the header compressor determines a state of the header compressor according to the feedback information, compresses a header for the packet according to the state of the header compressor, and sends the packet to a decompressor of a receiving device. According to the present disclosure, a header compression mechanism is combined with an automatic retransmission mechanism, so that the header compressor obtains feedback information of an automatic retransmission technology, and estimates the decompression information of the decompressor correctly, so as to change a state machine of the header compressor at proper time and improve transmission efficiency of the packet. |
| US08392615B2 |
Dynamic variable rate media delivery system
A method and apparatus for dynamically transcoding and delivering variable bit rate media files delivers media files to client systems. The media server dynamically transcodes a content file to a bit rate requested by a client using an original content file or other transcoded content files. The media server can dynamically select a segment of a content file to transcode. The file format required by the client is determined and the transcoded segment is formatted to the file format. The formatted segment is delivered to the client. |
| US08392614B2 |
Device identifier selection
Systems and methods of device identifier selection are disclosed. In a particular embodiment, a method includes receiving an enumeration message via a host interface of a device operatively coupled to a host device as well as to one or more other devices and identifying the enumeration message as a command originated by the host device or as a response message from one of the other devices. The method includes, in response to identifying the enumeration message as a command, selectively sending an enumeration response message to the host device. The enumeration response message indicates a distinctive device identifier value. The method also includes, in response to identifying the enumeration message as a response message from one of the other devices, reading from the response message an identifier value used by such other device and at least temporarily storing this identifier value at the device to enable the device to select the distinctive device identifier value. |
| US08392613B2 |
Network address assignment
In a non-limiting and exemplary embodiment, a method is provided for network address assignment. A network address request is received with an indication of a specific network address space. A network address belonging to the specific network address space may be assigned in response to detecting the indication in the received request. A response to the network address request is transmitted, the response indicating the assigned network address. |
| US08392609B2 |
Proximity detection for media proxies
A method of detecting proximity between a media proxy and a client uses a proximity probe to query a plurality of media proxies, forcing the media proxies to respond to a proximity server. The proximity server uses an algorithm to determine which media proxy is closest to the client based on the responses. In an alternate embodiment, the same sorts of proximity probes may be used to determine if two media endpoints have a direct connection such that they may bypass a media proxy. |
| US08392606B2 |
Wireless networks and methods using multiple valid network identifiers
A wireless sensor network comprises a plurality of nodes. Each of the plurality of nodes is configured to communicate messages through the wireless sensor network based on a first network identifier identifying the wireless sensor network. Each of the nodes is further configured to communicate messages through the wireless sensor network based on a default network identifier identifying the wireless sensor network, and the first network identifier and the default network identifier are concurrently valid for communicating messages through the wireless sensor network. |
| US08392603B2 |
File transfer
A method and system for file transfer are provided in which a file is transferred between a source client and a destination client via a middle server. The server receives segments of a file from the source client and stores the segments of the file as they are received. The server also forwards the segments of the file to a destination client as they are received, with the exception of one segment. The server combines the segments to form the whole file and applies a process to the whole file. The process may be for example an authorisation process such as an anti-virus check, a confidentiality check, or a content validity check. If the file passes the process, the remaining excepted segment is forwarded to the destination client. |
| US08392602B2 |
Embedding controllers and devices with data to facilitate up-to-date control and configuration information
An industrial automation system comprising a processor with an updating component coupled to automation devices via a network. The updating component reads control information from machine readable representations of the devices and populates a data structure with the control information. The updating component also updates configuration information of a device from data stored in a file object and/or the data structure, further allowing this transfer to be fragmented into a plurality of messages if the configuration information exceeds a threshold. As well, a vendor deployment methodology is provided that embeds devices and firmware for devices with a Device Type Manager (DTM) prior to deployment and can optionally allow post deployment updates to the DTM. |
| US08392600B2 |
Dynamic stream switch control
In general, in one aspect, streaming content is received from a server. A condition indicative of a cycle of switching versions of the streaming content during playback of the streaming content is determined at a client-side application, the versions having different resolutions requiring different network and processing resources. In response to the determined condition, up-switching to a stream version having a bit rate that meets or exceeds a locked out bit rate is prevented. The prevented up-switching is allowed after expiration of a predetermined condition. |
| US08392595B2 |
Method and device for adapting a scalable data stream, corresponding computer program product and network element
The invention relates to a method of adapting a scalable data stream organized in blocks of data units, each comprising at least one basic data unit and at least one enhancement data unit, making it possible to define a plurality of quality and bit rate levels (N1 to N3) depending on the number and the type of data units used, each data unit being initially classified in an initial level selected from said plurality of levels. According to the invention, the method implements a regulation mechanism (8) such that, if a data unit is reclassified in a reclassification level of lower priority than the initial level of said data unit, all the data units that depend on the decoding of said reclassified data unit are also reclassified in reclassification levels where all the data units essential to their decoding are accessible. |
| US08392593B1 |
Multiple control channels for multicast replication in a network
Network devices, such as a router and a downstream multicast distribution device, may use multiple control channels when setting up a multicast stream for a multicast request. For example, first messages may be transmitted using a first protocol to an upstream device over a first channel, the first messages indicating when a first multicast media stream is being requested by at least one of a number of client devices. Second messages may be transmitted using a second protocol over a second channel, the second messages being transmitted on a per-client basis and each identifying a one of the client devices as requesting the first multicast media stream. By using two control channels to convey the multicast channel requests, the router may obtain visibility into the action of the subscriber and can consequently perform per-subscriber operations such as access-control, bandwidth based admission control, statistics, and QoS adjustment for multicast IPTV streams received by the subscriber. |
| US08392592B2 |
Remote operation of process control equipment over customer supplied network
A DCS protocol message addressed to a remote DCS station is generated at a local distributed control system (DCS). The DCS protocol message is received at a local tunneling device. The local tunneling device packages the DCS protocol message into a SCADA protocol message. The SCADA protocol message is transmitted from the local tunneling device to a remote tunneling device. The remote tunneling device receives the SCADA protocol message. The SCADA protocol message is unpackaged into a DCS protocol message at the remote tunneling device, and the DCS protocol message is placed on to a remote DCS such that it flows to the remote station. The DCS protocol message is received at the remote station. |
| US08392589B2 |
Integrating enterprise identity authorization in conferences
Disclosed herein are embodiments for validating a user joining a conferencing session. According to various embodiments, a first identifier is received. A user is identified from a plurality of users based at least in part on the first identifier. A second identifier is received that corresponds to the first identifier and the user and the user is validated based on both the first identifier and the second identifier. The user may then join the conferencing session, with the user's identity being revealed to others attending the conferencing session. |
| US08392588B2 |
Terminal and method for selecting secure device
A mobile terminal and method for selecting a secure device, are discussed. According to an embodiment, the method includes acquiring secure device selection information for each of at least one secure device associated with the mobile terminal; receiving a request for establishing a communication connection with a secure device from a server, the request including at least one of first information and second information, the first information associated with the server, the second information associated with the request or with a content included in the request; comparing the secure device selection information with at least one of the first and second information; and establishing a communication connection between the server and one of the at least one secure device based on the comparison result. |
| US08392585B1 |
Methods and systems for facilitating network connectivity
Methods and systems are provided for connecting an electronic device to a network. In some situations, the electronic device connects to a first network provider and pings a first server having a static internet protocol address and a second server having a dedicated uniform resource locator. If the electronic device receives a response from the first and second server, the electronic device maintains its connection to the first network provider. Otherwise, the electronic device connects to a second network provider and pings the first and second servers. |
| US08392579B2 |
Apparatus and method for transmitting data through a network
A transmitting apparatus comprises a plurality of communication sessions and a transport manager. The transport manager is configured to establish and manage network sockets for communicating between the transmitting apparatus and a network. The transport manager is configured to receive a plurality of session requests respectively corresponding with a plurality of applications that produce data, each of the session requests identifying a respective set of receiving units and a respective transport protocol. The transport manager is configured to select, in response to each one of the session requests, at least one of the sessions to service a corresponding one of the applications. The transport manager is further configured to establish a network socket for each of the selected sessions, wherein the transport manager configures the network socket to communicate, with the set of receiving units identified by the corresponding session request, via the transport protocol identified by the corresponding session request. |
| US08392576B1 |
Browser based redirection of broken links
Provided herein are methods, systems, and computer readable media for providing correct identifiers for web pages to users. A redirect database with original identifiers and redirected identifiers found to be associated with the original identifiers may be established. A processing device may transmit a first request for a resource located at a location specified by an identifier. The processing device may determine that the resource is no longer located at the location, and may receive a redirected identifier for the resource. The processing device may then transmit a second request for the resource to a location specified by the redirected identifier. |
| US08392574B1 |
Providing services based on an environmental metric
Methods, apparatus, systems and articles of manufacture to provide services based on an environmental metric are disclosed herein. An example method disclosed herein to provide a service based on an environmental metric comprises assigning, with a processor, a workload distribution to distribute a processing workload for the service among first and second processing containers to meet an environmental target, the first and second processing containers to provide the service at respective individual environmental metrics, and combining, with the processor and based on the workload distribution, individual costs incurred by the first and second processing containers to provide the service at the respective individual environmental metrics to determine an overall cost to provide the service using the determined workload distribution. |
| US08392573B2 |
Transport of customer flexibility changes in a multi-tenant environment
Transporting of flexibility changes of customer content between tenants in a multi-tenant computing system can be performed by exporting customer content from a first tenant of the multi-tenant computing system, transporting the customer content exported from the first tenant to a second tenant of the multi-tenant computing system, importing the customer content into a staging area in the second tenant to enable a user associated with second tenant to access the customer content via the staging area based on a content extraction trigger, and activating selected customer content from the staging area in a productive component of the second tenant. The content extraction trigger can characterize an extraction of at least some of the customer content from the staging area. Related methods, systems, and articles of manufacture are also disclosed. |
| US08392572B2 |
Method for scheduling cloud-computing resource and system applying the same
Provided is a method for scheduling cloud-computing resource, and a system applying the method is herein disclosed. It is featured that the load history record becomes a basis to obtain a computing pattern for each computing node based on a request. The load history is the basis to predict the future computing capability, and accordingly to distribute the computing task. The cloud-computing capability can therefore be advanced. The method firstly receives a computing request. The request includes a number of computing nodes, a start time of computing, and a length of computing time. A computing resource table is established based on the load history for each node, and used to calculate availability and confidence. After that, a resource expectation value is obtained from the availability and confidence. After sorting the expectation values, one or more computing nodes are selected for further task distribution. |
| US08392570B2 |
Method and arrangement for suppressing duplicate network resources
A duplicate suppression protocol is introduced in order to suppress duplicate entries from appearing in a list of available network resources. With the duplicate suppression protocol of the present invention, a computer that wishes to query for network resources also asks for duplicate suppression information from the responding network resources. The duplicate suppression information for a particular network resource specifies identifiers associated with that network resource for various protocols. Thus, if a particular network resource responds to more than one network resource request from a single requesting entity, that requesting entity will be able to locate duplicate network resource information. Thus, a single unified list of network resources available for various different protocols may be presented with all duplicate network resources removed. |
| US08392559B2 |
Multiple phase distributed reduction
A method and system for metric information processing is disclosed in one embodiment. Metric information is gathered with a plurality of points of presence (POPs) geographically distributed across the Internet. The metric information is processed in a hub-and-spoke fashion with a metric reduction occurring in the POPs and another metric reduction in a kernel application server according to predetermined schemes. The two-stage metric reduction generates a result set including a data structure. The result set can be processed according to a query to generate a report. The data structure and reports have metric information that is recent and updated regularly without use of a database. |
| US08392558B1 |
System and method for determining overload state for service requests
A computer system that provides services to clients may be configured to determine whether it is operating in an overloaded state based on the percentage of client-specified quality of service (QoS) expectations that are not met. For example, if the percentage of service requests in a group of recently serviced requests for which client-specified expectations of a maximum response time were not met is greater than a pre-determined overload threshold, the system may be considered to be in an overloaded state. The overload threshold may be configurable. The overload state may be determined periodically by determining the percentage of service requests in a moving window of time for which client-specified QoS expectations were not met. In response to determining that the system is operating in an overloaded state, it may be configured to throttle at least a portion of incoming service requests in an attempt to exit the overloaded state. |
| US08392557B2 |
Analyzing a communication performance of an IED
A communication stack performance of an Intelligent Electronic Device (IED) is analyzed in a communication network of a Substation Automation (SA) system. The IED processes network messages that are transferred with, or belonging to, a specific configurable SA communication service. A plurality of application level scenarios corresponding to a high communication load is executed. Among all network messages captured or intercepted during the scenario, the network messages destined to the IED and sent by the IED in response are identified. A number of the identified messages, a number of specific communication protocol elements or data items related to a service-specific property, and a number of changed protocol elements, which are indicative of an SA event, for which the value of the data item has changed compared to the value of the same data item in a previous message, are determined. An IED-intrinsic processing time of the identified messages is likewise determined, based on which parameter values of a service specific processing time model are calculated. |
| US08392555B2 |
Push-back mechanism for pub/sub brokers
A method and system for controlling message throughput rates of clients connected to a broker device in a publish/subscribe network are disclosed. The broker device determines a maximum allowable message throughput for each client connected to the broker device. If a message-producing rate of a client exceeds the maximum allowable message throughput of the client, the broker device sends a negative acknowledgement (NACK) packet to the client and messages from the client are not accepted at the broker device. The NACK packet includes a maximum allowable message throughput of the client, so the client can adjust its message-producing rate based on the maximum allowable message throughput of the client. The present invention can be applied to a publish/subscribe network as well as a TCP/IP network. |
| US08392552B2 |
System and method for providing configurable security monitoring utilizing an integrated information system
A system and method for implementing an integrated information system are provided. A premises server is in communication with a variety of information sources that produce monitoring data for a premises. The premises server collects, presents, and transmits the monitoring device data to a central server capable of processing data from multiple premises servers. The central server receives the data and traverses one or more logical rule sets to determine whether the inputted data violates the rules. Based on an evaluation of the rules, the central server generates outputs in the form of communication to one or more authorized users via a variety of communication mediums and devices and/or the instigation of a variety of acts corresponding to the evaluation of the rules. |
| US08392550B2 |
System and method to discover clients associated with local domain name server using sampling
A content delivery system includes an analyzer module, a content request data collection module, and a domain name server. The collection module receives request sent to a tracking address, collects information about the request, and provides the information to the analyzer. The server receives an address request from a local domain name server associated with an autonomous system for the cache server address, provides the tracking address to the local server because the local server is associated with the second autonomous system, collects address request information about the address, and provides the address request information to the analyzer module. The analyzer module receives the address request and content request information, and determines information about clients served by the autonomous system based on the address request and content request information. |
| US08392544B2 |
Remote interrogation and remote maintenance of a communications module
The disclosure relates to a remote query and remote maintenance of a communications module. To this end, the invention provides a method and device is provided for querying data by means of a data call between a service facility and a communications module over a communications network. A data query of a first interface unit sent by a service facility and received via the communications network is forwarded to another interface unit of a communications module, where the data query is interpreted in the interface unit and the interpretation result is evaluated by an evaluation unit. Response data for the data query is, based on the interpretation result from the evaluation unit, sent via the first interface unit to the service facility. |
| US08392541B2 |
Distributed control technique for RPL topology
In one embodiment, a distributed control technique may enable management of a monolithic routing topology of nodes in a computer network by apportioning the monolithic routing topology into a plurality of regional routing topology domains, each represented by a directed acyclic graph (DAG). The regional topology domains may include a super topology domain that is established as a super-DAG of intermediate nodes interconnected with leaf nodes and rooted by a master node of the computer network. The regional topology domains may further include at least one local topology domain that is established as a local-DAG of intermediate nodes interconnected with leaf nodes and rooted by a local root node of the computer network. Notably, a super node of the computer network may be configured to participate in both the super topology domain as an intermediate node of the super-DAG and the local topology domain as the local root node of the local-DAG. |
| US08392540B2 |
Service specific service oriented architecture shared services solution
An approach for designing a service specific service oriented architecture (SOA) shared services solution is provided. In one embodiment, there is a service solution tool, including a refinement component configured to receive a set of service requirements for a set of SOA shared services that are developed as part of a potential SOA shared services project, and refine the set of service requirements for the set of SOA shared services. A design component is configured to design a service specific SOA shared services solution based on a refined set of service requirements for the set of service requirements for the set of SOA shared services. |
| US08392539B1 |
Operating system banking and portability
A user is able to save his operating system settings to a web server. The user may then download these known, clean operating system over the Internet to the same computer in the future or to a different computer. Or, a user is able to save a known, good restore point to a secure site on the web. If the user suspects that his computer has been compromised by malware, the user downloads this original restore point from over the Internet. The computer is then restored to a known, good state prior to the malware infection. In addition, an entire operating system is present on a USB drive and the user runs his computer from the USB drive. The USB drive is inserted into a publicly-accessible computer. Drivers and network settings from the computer are installed on the USB drive and the operating system on the USB drive then reboots and executes on the computer. |
| US08392538B1 |
Digital image and content display systems and methods
Disclosed herein are systems and methods for displaying images and contextually relevant content on a digital content platform, such as a web page. In one embodiment, for example, the systems and methods include: (1) providing a publisher of the image with a reference script for publication with the image, wherein the reference script is a computer-readable instruction that causes an end-user device to call to a content server; and (2) configuring the content server to (a) receive a request for content from the end-user device, (b) identify content that is contextually relevant to the image, (c) deliver the content to the end-user device, and (d) deliver a computer-readable instruction that causes the end-user device to perform an animation that modifies the image and displays the content in a spatial relationship with respect to the image as originally published. |
| US08392537B2 |
Device configuration and data extraction using a portable transaction format
Method for performing a data transaction (200) with a server (108) using a portable computer (106). The method includes receiving (402) in the portable computer a portable transaction file (104-1, 104-2, 104-3, 104-n) in a predetermined portable transaction file format (500) that includes two or more data fields. The data fields can contain a set of transaction parameters that define a type specific server protocol for a data transaction session with a particular server type (108-1, 108-2, 108-3, 108-n). By using a generic data transaction engine (302, 303) a data transaction session can be performed with any type of server for which a portable transaction file has been provided. |
| US08392531B2 |
Unified device management method and system
A unified device management method and system for unified management of a fixed and mobile device includes a command execution controller which receives a device management command, sends a query message to the device, receives a response message transmitted by the device, creates a command execution policy based on the settings contained in the response message, and executes the device management command according to a policy, the device which generates and sends the response message to the command execution controller according to user inputs, and a remote access server which connects the device and the command execution controller by using a remote access protocol. |
| US08392528B2 |
Architecture for sharing podcast information
A communication construct used for sharing podcast information associated with a podcast can include a link sent to a remote device (103) while playing the podcast, appended metadata to the link, and a communication packet enabling a user to transfer the link and the appended metadata while the user is playing the podcast. The link can be a universal record locator (URL) to the podcast and the appended metadata can include constructs having start times or end times for the podcast, bookmarks for portions of the podcast, digital rights management information, display description, podcast category, or relevant images. The appended metadata can also include URLs for mobile blogging, a sender's weblog, a video blog, a social contact site, contact information from a sender, or a vCard record. The communication constructs enable podcatcher software in a user's computer or remote device to automatically download the podcast associated with the link. |
| US08392521B2 |
Device and method for managing data between communication facilities to obtain a mobile service
The invention concerns a device dedicated to the management of data between at least one user mobile station (MS) equipped with a communication module (1), stationary terminals (3) associated with at least one service, and a plurality of mobile service means (8) equipped with a communication module (9) and adapted to ensure said service. Said device comprises i) first control means (2) designed to be implanted in the user mobile station (MS) and adapted, upon the user's instruction to generate a primary request including data defining a request for obtaining a service selected at a terminal (3) installed proximate to the mobile station (MS) and associated with the service, ii) second control means (7) adapted, upon reception of a primary request, to generate a secondary request including data defining a request for ensuring the selected'service at the terminal (3), and iii) third control means (10) implanted in each of the mobile service means (8) and adapted, upon reception of a secondary request by the associated communication module (9), to order stoppage of the associated mobile service means (8) at the terminal (3), so as to ensure the service requested by the user of the mobile station (MS). |
| US08392517B2 |
Electronic communication clarification system
A computer implemented method and system is provided for clarifying electronic communication between an originator and a recipient. The originator declares characteristics of an originating message by specifying intent and linguistic type of communication using an application software provided on an originator communication device. The originator transmits the originating message to the recipient via a communication network. The application software on the recipient communication device recognizes the properties and declared characteristics for classification and categorization of the transmitted originating message. The application software determines requirement of a first response message as a reply to the transmitted originating message and generates response message templates that declare characteristics of the first response message based on the categorization. The recipient creates the first response message by selecting one of the response message templates and transmits the first response message to the originator. The communication loop continues until the electronic communication is declared complete. |
| US08392513B2 |
Reducing email size by using a local archive of email components
A mechanism for reducing electronic mail (email) sizes by using a local archive of email components is provided. The mechanism receives the email file, the email file specifying a sender identifier of a sender of the email file, a recipient identifier of a recipient of the email file, and common component information for a common component included in the email file, the common component being a component of the email file that is common amongst a plurality of email files sent from the sender. The mechanism identifies the common component of the email file and determines whether to remove the common component from the email file before forwarding the email file to the recipient based on at least the sender identifier. Based on the determination, the common component is either removed or kept in the email file that is subsequently transmitted to the recipient computer. |
| US08392511B2 |
Embedding a unique serial number into the content of an email for tracking information dispersion
The present invention discloses a solution for tracking email dispersion through content substitution. In the solution, a set of entities to receive an email can be identified, where the email can contains textual content. A subset of words contained within the textual content can be programmatically selected. A set of replacement words for each of the determined words can be determined. For each email receiving entity, at least one replacement word can be programmatically substituted for it's equivalent to generate an entity specific message. Each entity specific message can contain a unique combination of substitutions so that no two entity specific message are identical. A record of which email receiving entities are associated with which entity specific message can be maintained. The entity specific messages can be sent to the associated set of email receiving entities. |
| US08392510B2 |
Personal video recording with machine learning for messaging
Machine learning for control of a personal video recorder (“PVR”), including providing records of transmissions of messages; identifying a message point in operation of a PVR; selecting, in dependence upon the message point, a message to be transmitted; and determining in dependence upon the records of transmissions of messages whether to transmit the selected message. Embodiments include determining whether to transmit the selected message in dependence upon a frequency with which the message is transmitted to a user. Embodiments include transmitting to users messages prompting for responses identifying commands; storing records of transmissions of messages, including storing records of responses; and selecting a message to be transmitted in dependence upon the records of responses to messages. Embodiments include structuring the selected message in dependence upon the records of responses to messages, including inserting in the selected message choices for a set of sequenced commands. |
| US08392507B2 |
Image validation system for remote displays
Systems, methods and devices are disclosed that provided for providing remote video feedback. The disclosure herein includes a transmitting computing device that is configured to produce an image frame encoded with metadata and to transmit the encoded image frame over a network to a remote display device. The remote display device includes a viewing screen contained in a chassis with bevel. The viewing screen includes an information validation pixel with the chassis extending over and covering the image validation pixel. The chassis also includes a photo sensor positioned on the under side of the bezel so as to be in operational view of the image validation pixel. The system also includes a sensor electronics module that is configured to detect the metadata when the metadata is displayed by the information content pixel and is received by the photo sensor. The sensor electronics module also generates image frame feedback information based upon the detecting. A remote computing device is included that is configured to receive the encoded image frame from the transmitting computer, render the encoded image frame upon the viewing screen and re-transmit the image frame feedback information to the transmitting computer from the sensor electronics module. |
| US08392505B2 |
Collaborative playlist management
Systems, methods, and computer program products are provided for collaboratively managing a playlist of media items including a communications interface. The communications interface may be configured to receive a user feedback from each of a plurality of portable media devices and may include a processor configured to generate an updated playlist based on the user feedback. The user feedback may be related to a queued media item in a playlist. |
| US08392502B2 |
System and method for effecting conference calling
A system for effecting conference calling in a telecommunication network includes: (a) a plurality of subscriber units coupled with the telecommunication network; and (b) a conference control unit coupled with the telecommunication network. The conference control unit responds to a request message from a requesting subscriber unit to effect coupling of a conference-set of subscriber units in a conference calling configuration. The conference control unit controls inclusion in the conference-set by respective subscriber units. The system may provide that the conference control unit provides and controls conferencing services for the conference-set of subscriber units. |
| US08392500B2 |
Method and apparatus for location-based, just in time social networking
In one embodiment, the present disclosure is a method and apparatus for location-based, just in time social networking. In one embodiment, a method for providing a social network includes receiving a request from a first user of the social network to provide information from a location of interest specified by the first user, and locating a group comprising at least one other user of the social network, where each of the at least one other user is currently at the location of interest and has volunteered to provide information from the location of interest, wherein the group is selected from a larger group of other users who are at a plurality of locations of interest. |
| US08392499B2 |
System and method for relating aborted client accesses of data to quality of service provided by a server in a client-server network
A system and method are provided for relating aborted client accesses of server information to the quality of service provided to clients by a server in a client-server network. According to one embodiment, a method comprises determining performance data for at least one aborted client access of information from a server in a client-server network, and using the performance data to determine whether the aborted client access(es) relate to the quality of service provided to a client by the server. |
| US08392498B2 |
Distribution of content and behavior to disparate platforms
The invention generally relates to the delivery of content to devices of disparate platforms in executable format. The invention provides a way to create and deliver content and functionality to a number of different electronic devices having different platforms. In certain aspects, the invention provides an apparatus configured to receive a client application and a content application including functionality. |
| US08392497B2 |
Systems and algorithm for interfacing with a virtualized computing service over a network using a lightweight client
Systems and algorithm for controlling a virtualized computer service remotely through a client includes defining a virtual infrastructure in which a plurality of virtual machines are running on a hypervisor with at least one of the virtual machine executing an image processor algorithm. The image processor algorithm is configured to receive a connection request from the client for controlling the virtualized computer service (or simply, virtual service) available at a specific virtual machine. The request includes a plurality of connection parameters that describe the connection requirements of the client and is received at the virtual machine that is equipped with the image processor algorithm. The connection parameters are interrogated using the image processor algorithm to identify a specific virtual machine that provides the requested virtualized computer service. A framebuffer data for the identified virtual machine located in virtual memory is accessed and read directly through a hypervisor. The framebuffer data is processed into a plurality of image data packets using the image processor algorithm and transmitted to the client for presenting on a display device associated with the client. The image data packet grammar is tailored to the client and represents an image of the virtual machine display for the identified virtual machine. |
| US08392494B2 |
Method and apparatus for performing efficient side-channel attack resistant reduction using montgomery or barrett reduction
A time-invariant method and apparatus for performing modular reduction that is protected against cache-based and branch-based attacks is provided. The modular reduction technique adds no performance penalty and is side-channel resistant. The side-channel resistance is provided through the use of lazy evaluation of carry bits, elimination of data-dependent branches and use of even cache accesses for all memory references. |
| US08392493B2 |
Noise canceling device, weighing device, method of canceling a noise, and method of designing a digital filter
It is an object of the present invention to provide techniques which allow for easier change in filter characteristics of a digital filter. Then, in order to attain this object, in a weighing device according to the present invention, a filter coefficient calculator (6) calculates a filter coefficient using a predetermined mathematical expression and outputs the result to a signal processor (5). The signal processor (5) carries out a filtering process on a weight signal (DS) of a digital signal using the filter coefficient. The mathematical expression includes a first parameter which specifies an amount of attenuation in at least one attenuation band where attenuation should be locally intensified in a stopband of amplitude characteristics of the filtering process, a second parameter which specifies the band position of the at least one attenuation band, and a third parameter which specifies a starting frequency of the stopband. |
| US08392487B1 |
Programmable matrix processor
A matrix processor and processing method, the processor including a data encoder for receiving an input data stream; a data controller coupled to the data encoder for arranging the input data in an operand matrix, at least one processing unit for processing the data in matrix form by Boolean matrix-matrix multiplication with a selected operator matrix, and an output control module coupled to the processing unit for outputting desired results therefrom. |
| US08392479B1 |
Method and apparatus for optimizing storage space allocation for computer data
A method and apparatus for optimizing storage space allocations, using at least one processor, for computer data in distributed file systems is described. In one embodiment, the method includes processing input/output activity that is associated with computer data to determine a current state of at least one file in a distributed file system, at flush time, combining various storage space allocation decisions applied over at least one network protocol to determine a plurality of file system operations that define storage space, based on the current state of the at least one file, for the computer data and executing the plurality of file system operations on the computer data stored in the storage space. |
| US08392477B2 |
Seamless remote traversal of multiple NFSv4 exported file systems
A method for transparently navigating through exported file system namespaces on a server using a single mount. When an exported file system is mounted onto a client, the client creates a file system ID structure for the exported file system, wherein the file system ID structure is populated with unique properties of the exported file system, and wherein the unique properties include a file system ID. The client also creates an internal virtual file system structure for the exported file system ID structure, wherein the internal virtual file system structure includes a virtual file system ID. Once the file system and virtual file system structures are created, the client links the file system objects created within the mount to the file system ID structure until a user moves from one exported file system to a second exported file system and a new file system ID is detected. |
| US08392473B2 |
Fast hierarchical enrichment
A method of generating computer instructions for creating instances of a hierarchical data format from a flat record stream, the flat record stream containing data in a flat format and containing at least some data redundancy. The method uses a computing device having at least a processor, a memory, a display device and an input device. The method includes allowing a developer to use the input device to create a graphical representation of the hierarchical data format, and allowing a developer to use the input device to create a graphical representation of a mapping between the flat format and the hierarchical format. The method further includes generating, at the processor, computer instructions which when executed on a computer cause the computer to create from the flat record stream instances of the hierarchical format, wherein the instances of the hierarchical format remove the data redundancy. |
| US08392471B2 |
Multidimensional database data updating system
An information processing apparatus hosting a multidimensional database software application receives a batch of data values to be updated from an external client computing apparatus running a data entry application. The multidimensional database software application identifies a second batch of data values previously stored that have been flagged during prior updates to remain unchanged. The multidimensional database software application then combines these two batches of data values and calculates final data updates. The calculation method ensures that the final data changes committed to the database represent a best, if not exact, match to both the first batch of data values to be updated as well as the second batch of existing data values flagged to remain unchanged. |
| US08392469B2 |
Model based distributed application management
Aspects of the subject matter described herein relate to model based application management. In aspects, models are defined that include structural and behavioral characteristics, rules, relations, and so forth between entities of an application. An instruction regarding a management function is received. The models are used to generate actions that when executed manage the application in accordance with the instruction. |
| US08392466B2 |
Method and apparatus for automated processing of a data stream
A method, system, and article for automated processing of a data stream are provided. Stream processing is applied to a hierarchical self describing data stream. As the data stream is processed, some elements therein are associated with a selected path expression. The selected path expressions are ordered based upon the hierarchy, and a tree structure is created that corresponds to the hierarchy. Each leaf node of the tree is associated with a logical operator or an expression to be applied to data processed from the data stream to the leaf node. |
| US08392463B2 |
GPU enabled database systems
Methods for parallel query execution of a database operation on a database utilizing a graphics processing unit (GPU) are presented including: receiving query by a host, the query including database relations; starting a GPU kernel, where the GPU kernels include a GPU memory; hash partitioning the database relations by the GPU kernel; loading the partitioned database relations into the GPU memory; loading keyed partitions corresponding the hash partitioned database relations into the GPU memory; building a hash table for a smaller of the hash partitioned database relations; and executing the query. In some embodiments, methods further include returning a result of the query. In some embodiments, methods further include when the query is a long query including a number of operators, parsing the long query into a number of sub-queries; for each of the sub-queries, starting one of the GPU kernels such that the sub-queries are processed in parallel. |
| US08392455B2 |
Multi-interval heuristics for accelerating target-value search
Methods and systems for solving a target value search problem using a multi-interval heuristic are presented. The methods and system identity a path, or paths, in a graph, whereby a connection graph is created and range sets are generated for each vertex in the connection graph. Range sets include one or more intervals. Thereafter, a best search is performed to identify a path, or paths, from a starting vertex to a goal vertex having a path value closest to a target value. |
| US08392446B2 |
System and method for providing vector terms related to a search query
The present invention relates to providing vector terms for use in formulating search requests in response to a user query. The method according to one embodiment comprises receiving a search query from a client and identifying links to one or more content items corresponding to the search query. One or more term vectors are then generated corresponding to the content items and one or more vector terms are selected from the term vectors. The links to the one or more content items and selected vector terms are combined to form a final result page. |
| US08392443B1 |
Refining search queries
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program products, for refining search queries. In one implementation, a method includes obtaining a submitted search query, and in response to obtaining the search query: obtaining search results responsive to the search query; selecting a document from a group of documents identified by the search results; generating from a subset of one or more entities associated with the document one or more candidates for refined search queries, including: identifying one or more terms in the search query, where the one or more terms occur in the search query in a particular order relative to each other, and combining the one or more terms with the entity to generate a candidate, where the one or more terms occur in the particular order relative to each other; and identifying one or more of the candidates as being refined search queries for providing with the search results. |
| US08392441B1 |
Synonym generation using online decompounding and transitivity
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on computer storage media, for query synonym expansion. One method includes receiving a query including a first compound term, and in response to receiving the query, performing the following operations: generating one or more splits of the first compound term, assigning a score to each subterm of each split, determining an overall score for each split from the scores for the subterms of the split, selecting a first split from the one or more splits according to the overall score for each split, and augmenting the query with a first synonym phrase that is a synonym of a first subterm of the first split. |
| US08392438B2 |
Method and apparatus for identifying synonyms and using synonyms to search
A method and an apparatus for identifying synonym and utilizing such synonym to conduct search is disclosed. The disclosed method includes: obtaining arbitrary two words to be identified; determining whether a shortest edit distance between the two words less than or equal to an edit distance threshold; determining whether the two words to be identified exist in a preset knowledge database, and if an answer is yes then searching a smallest granularity type with highest weight value for each word in the knowledge database; and if the two word have the same smallest granularity type with highest weight value, then determining such two words are synonyms, or non-synonym otherwise. The disclosed techniques greatly improve accuracy of synonym identification and guarantee effect of synonym identification. |
| US08392435B1 |
Query suggestions for a document based on user history
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer program products, for presenting search query suggestions. In an aspect, content of a resource that is determined to be responsive to a search query is received, and a candidate set of search query suggestions for the search query is suggested based, in part, on search history data associated with the search query. A final set of search query suggestions based on the search history data and the content of the resource and provided for display on a client device. |
| US08392433B2 |
Self-indexer and self indexing system
An improved self-indexer comprising a find function that caches a last found position and occurrence count of a symbol on each node level of a word-based wavelet tree for a particular symbol lookup and only uses a select function to call on data to the right of the position. |
| US08392431B1 |
System, method, and computer program for determining a level of importance of an entity
A system, method, and computer program product are provided for determining a level of importance of an entity. In use, an identifier of an entity is identified. Additionally, at least one source publishing entity information is searched for the identifier to determine at least one source publishing information associated with the entity. Further, the information associated with the entity is identified from the at least one source publishing the information associated with the entity. Still yet, the information is scored utilizing at least one predefined algorithm to generate at least one score, each score generated for a different one of the at least one predefined algorithm. Moreover, a value indicative of a level of importance of the entity is calculated, utilizing the at least one score. |
| US08392424B2 |
Method for hierarchical signal quantization and hashing
An inner product if formed from an input signal and a hashing vector, to which a dither scalar is added. A binary digit is produced according to a quantization function, wherein the binary digit is zero or one, and wherein the quantization function is non-monotonic and subject to a sensitivity parameter. The steps are iterated while decreasing the sensitivity parameter until a termination condition is reached. |
| US08392423B2 |
Data set index record preservation
Various embodiments for preserving data set information in a computing storage environment are provided. In one such embodiment, at least one of a selected portion of an index record of the dataset is stored as a record in a subindex data set. The at least one component of the subindex data set is recoverable into the index record in an event of an error detected within the index record. |
| US08392414B2 |
Hybrid audio-visual categorization system and method
Meta-data (tags) for an audiovisual file can be generated by producing an initial estimate of the tags and then revising the estimate (notably to expand it and/or render it more precise) based on the assumption that the relationships which hold between the different tags for a set of manually-tagged training examples will also hold for the tags of the input file now being tagged. A fully-automatic method and system is a hybrid between signal-based and machine-learning approaches, because the initial tag estimate is based on the physical properties of the signal representing the audiovisual file. The initial tag estimate may be produced by inferring that the input content will have the same tags as those files of the same kind, in the training database, which have a global similarity to the input audiovisual file in terms of signal properties. |
| US08392412B2 |
Technique for confirmation of dominancy relationship
A method includes: classifying sampling points (SPs) into ranks so as to satisfy a condition such as a condition that no SP belonging to a certain rank is dominated by another SP belonging to a rank higher than the certain rank; determining, in ascending order from a lowest rank, whether a first SP belonging to a first rank dominates a second SP belonging to a second rank higher than the first rank. When the first SP dominates, while changing the rank from a rank immediately lower than the first rank to the lowest rank, the first SP and SPs dominating the first SP and included in a first set of the first SP are added to a dominating source set of the second SP, and the first SP and SPs in the first set are excluded from SPs for which the determining is executed with respect to the second SP. |
| US08392411B2 |
Automatic routing of search results
In general, the subject matter described in this specification can be embodied in methods, systems, and program products for providing search results automatically to a user of a computing device. A spoken input provided by a user to a computing device is received. The spoken input is transmitted to a computer server system that is remote from the computing device. Search result information that is responsive to the spoken input is receiving by the computing device and in response to the transmitted spoken input. An alert is provided to the user that the device will connect the user to a target of the search result information if the user does not intervene to stop the connecting of the user. The user is connected to the target of the search result information based on a determination that the user has not intervened to stop the connecting of the user. |
| US08392410B2 |
Linear combination of rankers
Described herein is a system that includes a receiver component that receives first scores for training points and second scores for the training points, wherein the first scores are individually assigned to the training points by a first ranker component and the second scores are individually assigned to the training points by a second ranker component. The apparatus further includes a determiner component in communication with the receiver component that automatically outputs a value for a parameter α based at least in part upon the first scores and the second scores, wherein α is used to linearly combine the first ranker component and the second ranker component. |
| US08392409B1 |
Methods, systems, and user interface for E-mail analysis and review
Methods and systems for searching e-mails are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method for displaying information associated with electronic messages includes receiving information associated with a plurality of e-mails in response to a search query. Each e-mail in the plurality of e-mails is categorized according to a set of categories. Relevance is determined of each e-mail in the plurality of e-mails. The plurality of e-mails are then displayed using a graphical user interface according to the set of categories and the relevance of each e-mail. Input may be received from a user indicative of a tag. The tag may be associated with at least one of the plurality of e-mails and displayed to assist in review. |
| US08392407B2 |
Method, apparatus and system of searching and downloading mobile telephone file
A method of searching for and downloading a mobile telephone file is disclosed, and in the method, a server in a domain where a mobile terminal is located receives a keyword in a searching request, searches for resources in the mobile communication network, and returns a list of resources searched out to the mobile terminal; the mobile terminal receives data resource information selected by a user according to the list of the resources the mobile terminal sends a request for downloading resources to the server in the domain, and the server sends the resources to the mobile terminal. An apparatus of searching for and downloading a mobile telephone file is provided also, which includes a storage module, a receiving module, a sending module, a query module, and can also include a data base, a communication interface and a statistic module. A system of searching for and downloading a mobile telephone file is provided. |
| US08392406B1 |
Determining a height-balanced histogram incrementally
A table-level histogram is maintained incrementally without requiring rescanning of the entire table when new data values are added to the table. A table has multiple partitions of data values. A histogram for data values of the partitions is generated. When a new partition of data values is added to the table, a histogram for only the new partition is generated. To generate a histogram for the entire table, the histograms for the previously generated and newly added partitions are used without needing to refer to the underlying data. A similar approach is applicable when modifying data values in a partition. |
| US08392404B2 |
Dynamic query and step routing between systems tuned for different objectives
A virtual regulator monitors and manages a plurality of database systems in a domain. Each of the database systems is tuned for a particular type of workload, and the virtual regulator or multiple virtual regulators running in parallel routes a set of one or more queries to a particular database system within the domain based on a cost function for each database system. |
| US08392400B1 |
Method and apparatus for stress management in a searchable data service
Method and apparatus for stress management in a searchable data service. The searchable data service may provide a searchable index to a backend data store, and an interface to build and query the searchable index, that enables client applications to search for and retrieve locators for stored entities in the backend data store. Embodiments of the searchable data service may implement a distributed stress management mechanism that may provide functionality including, but not limited to, the automated monitoring of critical resources, analysis of resource usage, and decisions on and performance of actions to keep resource usage within comfort zones. In one embodiment, in response to usage of a particular resource being detected as out of the comfort zone on a node, an action may be performed to transfer at least part of the resource usage for the local resource to another node that provides a similar resource. |
| US08392399B2 |
Query processing algorithm for vertically partitioned federated database systems
Querying data stores in a federation of data stores. A first search filter is accessed. The first search filter is constructed with one or more nested logical AND, OR, or NOT operands. The first search filter is normalized to a normalized search filter that is logically equivalent to the first search filter. The normalized search filter includes 3 or 4 levels. All first level operands are logically ORed. All second level operands are logically ANDed. All third level operands are at least one of parameters or logical NOTs. Any fourth level operands are parameters. The normalized search filter is used to search a plurality of data stores in a federation of data stores for information by searching different data stores for at least two or more of the top level operands. |
| US08392398B2 |
Query optimization over graph data streams
A method for executing a query on a graph data stream. The graph stream comprises data representing edges that connect vertices of a graph. The method comprises constructing a plurality of synopsis data structures based on at least a subset of the graph data stream. Each vertex connected to an edge represented within the subset of the graph data stream is assigned to a synopsis data structure such that each synopsis data structure represents a corresponding section of the graph. The method further comprises mapping each received edge represented within the graph data stream onto the synopsis data structure which corresponds to the section of the graph which includes that edge, and using the plurality of synopsis data structures to execute the query on the graph data stream. |
| US08392394B1 |
Merging search results
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for merging search results. In one aspect, a method combines search results responsive to a query that are obtained from a local search engine and a universal search engine such that the combined search results are ordered and presented in a way that emphasizes certain business entities in the results. |
| US08392386B2 |
Tracking file contents
A method, system, and computer usable program product for tracking file contents are provided in the illustrative embodiments. A content inode corresponding to a content is created, the content being in a file, the file being stored in a computer memory, and the file being locatable using a file system executing under an operating system in a data processing system. An operation, a component, an application, or a combination thereof, is detected operating with respect to the content. A descriptor and a location corresponding to the operation, the component, the application, or the combination thereof, is determined and added to the content inode. A location identifier corresponding to the location is added to the content inode. The content inode with the added descriptor and location identifier enables an application to learn about the operation, the component, the application, or the combination thereof, having operated with respect to the content. |
| US08392382B2 |
On-line transaction processing (OLTP) compression and re-compression of database data
A computer is programmed to compress data of a database in response to database modification language (DML) statements generated by on-line transaction processing (OLTP) systems. In several embodiments, data that is initially added to a database block is left uncompressed until a predetermined condition is satisfied, which happens infrequently (relative to OLTP transactions on the block). When satisfied, the computer automatically compresses all uncompressed data in the block, which increases the amount of unused space in the block. New data is thereafter added uncompressed to the partially compressed block, until satisfaction of a predetermined condition whereby the partially compressed block is again compressed, i.e. re-compressed. Adding of new data to a partially compressed block and its compression are repeated unless another predetermined condition is met, in response to which the block is not further re-compressed, thereby to recognize a limit on the benefit from compression. |
| US08392381B2 |
Systems and methods for reservoir sampling of streaming data and stream joins
Algorithms and concepts for maintaining uniform random samples of streaming data and stream joins. These algorithms and concepts are used in systems and methods, such as wireless sensor networks and methods for implementing such networks, that generate and handle such streaming data and/or stream joins. The algorithms and concepts directed to streaming data allow one or more sample reservoirs to change size during sampling. When multiple reservoirs are maintained, some of the algorithms and concepts periodically reallocate memory among the multiple reservoirs to effectively utilize limited memory. The algorithms and concepts directed to stream joins allow reservoir sampling to proceed as a function of the probability of a join sampling operation. In memory limited situations wherein memory contains the sample reservoir and a join buffer, some of the stream join algorithms and concepts progressively increase the size of the sampling reservoir and reallocate memory from the join buffer to the reservoir. |
| US08392379B2 |
Method and system for preemptive scanning of computer files
A computer program product embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium that reduces computer file system access time associated with on-access scanning in a computing facility by receiving file access information describing a pattern of access of each accessed computer file, processing the file access information to generate a file access performance cost statistic for each of the accessed computer files, maintaining the file access performance cost statistic for each of the files, generating a file access performance cost mapping of the computing facility's file system relating to the computer files, generating a locality statistic from the performance cost map of a probability that the second computer file will be accessed near the time that the first computer file is accessed, and pre-scanning the second computer file when the probability is high that the second computer file will be accessed when that first computer file has been accessed. |
| US08392373B1 |
Systems and methods for retaining an executable environment during a data archive process
A computer-implemented method for retaining an executable environment during a data archive process is described. An executable file that is associated with an archived data file is identified. The executable file is part of a virtualization application layer. An identifier is archived that identifies the virtualization application layer. The identifier is associated with the archived data file. The virtualization application layer is provided when the archived data file is restored. The restored data file is accessed with the executable file. |
| US08392371B2 |
System and method for identifying and mitigating redundancies in stored data
In an example of an embodiment of the invention, a repeating pattern is identified within stored data comprising a plurality of data files, each data file comprising at least a header section and a data section stored in an unknown format. At least one occurrence of the repeating pattern is identified as a header section of a respective data file, and a data section of the respective data file is identified based, at least in part, on a location of the at least one occurrence of the repeating pattern. The identified data section of the respective data file is backed up. Systems are also disclosed. |
| US08392367B2 |
Map updating system
A map updating system that stores map data and a priority sequence table, acquires first update data and second update data of the map data according to the priority sequence table, and updates the map data based on the first update data and second update data according to the priority sequence table. |
| US08392363B2 |
Master data management system for centrally managing core reference data associated with an enterprise
A computer-implemented system of centrally managing core enterprise reference data of an enterprise that includes one or more processing units and one or more memory units, the system includes a storage medium having stored therein a process layer that implements one or more business configuration processes of one or more enterprise-level business workflows. The system further includes a storage medium having stored therein a service layer underlying the process layer that provides services that enable process tasks for the one or more business configuration processes and a storage medium having stored therein a data layer underlying the service layer and storing in a repository, core enterprise reference data that is received from one or more external data sources using a staging strategy that reduces data transfer time between the core enterprise reference data repository and the one or more external data sources. |
| US08392362B2 |
Systems and methods associated with hybrid paged encoding and decoding
According to some embodiments, a system, method, means, and/or computer program code are provided to facilitation a compression of information. In some cases, uncompressed data may be divided into a plurality of portions. A first data density value may be determined for a first portion, and a second data density value may be determined for a second portion. Based on the first data density value, the first portion may be encoded using a first encoding technique. Similarly, the second portion may be encoded using a second encoding technique based on the second data density value. A compressed representation of the uncompressed data may then be stored in accordance with results of said encodings of the first and second portions. |
| US08392351B2 |
System and computer-implemented method for generating temporal footprints to identify tasks
A system and computer-implemented method for generating temporal footprints to identify tasks is provided. One or more events performed by a user during execution of a task is recorded. Patterns including sequences of two or more of the events are identified. Each pattern occurs at a plurality of occurrences. A determination of whether each pattern is significant is made. A temporal distance between the events in each pattern occurrence for each pattern is identified. A pattern value is determined for each pattern based on a number of occurrences and the associated temporal distance. The pattern value is applied to a significance level. At least one of the patterns is determined to be significant when the pattern value satisfies the significance level. A temporal footprint is generated for the executed task and includes the significant patterns. |
| US08392350B2 |
System and method for assigning pieces of content to time-slots samples for measuring effects of the assigned content
Systems and methods provide for assigning pieces of content to time-slots samples for measuring effects of the assigned content. Systems and methods provide for receiving pair-wise content relatedness data that identifies each piece of content as experimental content or control content relative to other pieces of content, and algorithmically assigning experimental or control content pieces to time-slot samples using the content relatedness data, wherein additional content pieces assigned to a particular time-slot sample exclude non-identical related experimental content pieces defined relative to an experimental content piece previously assigned to the particular time-slot sample. |
| US08392349B2 |
Global adaptation atlas and method of creating same
A method and system that provides an “atlas” on global adaptation providing mapping, analysis, and reporting for scientists and decision-makers, of the best-available science on climate impacts and up-to-date information on adaptation projects. The atlas may be web-based. A method of displaying climate change data includes: collecting existing climate data; consolidating the collected data by designed attribute categories; filtering the collected data by attribute(s); presenting climate data to a user based on selected attribute categories; and archiving climate data. |
| US08392347B2 |
Coating color database creating method, search method using the database, their system, program, and recording medium
The subject invention provides a method of creating a database for searching for a paint color having a desired texture, a search method using the database, and systems, programs, and recording mediums for carrying out the method and the search. The method for creating a database includes a step (S11) for storing spectral reflectance data and micro-brilliance data of a plurality of paint colors after associating each spectral reflectance data and each micro-brilliance data with a paint color code; a step (S13) for storing texture evaluation values of sample paint colors after associating the each texture evaluation value with the paint color code; a step (S14) for calculating characteristic quantities of the paint colors expressing textures using the spectral reflectance data and the micro-brilliance data, and storing the characteristic quantities after associating the each characteristic quantity with the paint color code; a step (S15) for carrying out a process for training a neural network using the characteristic quantities and the texture evaluation values of the sample paint colors as training data; and a step (S16) for inputting characteristic quantities of the paint colors other than the sample paint colors into the neural network after the training process, and storing output data after associating the each output data with the paint color code. |
| US08392344B2 |
Systems, devices, and methods for providing multiple services to premises over communication networks
Methods, systems, and devices for providing one or more virtual networks for a plurality of services are disclosed. The device may include a secure access node coupled to a wide area communication network and a premises communication network. The secure access node may have a node software platform, one or more node processors, a node storage device, and one or more node communication interfaces. Further, the secure access node may receive a plurality of data packets through one of the one or more node communication interfaces. The node software platform may execute on one of the node processors and may include a node deep packet inspection engine, a node rules generation engine, a node rule check and notification generation engine, a node service segregation engine, a node communication software application, and a node service adapter software application. |
| US08392339B2 |
Cargo tracking apparatus, system and method
A system for tracking a location of at least one item is described. The system includes a tag associated with the at least one item during a shipping journey. The tag detects shipping information, including temperature, humidity, shock, etc. The tag sends the shipping information to a master unit. The master unit also detects certain shipping information. The master unit communicates with a central processor to provide the shipping information to the central processor. The central processor relies on the shipping information to determine one of a condition or a location of the item. |
| US08392336B1 |
Assessing an ability to leverage a network
Systems and methods are provided for determining an individual's ability to leverage a network of connections. For example, the systems and methods can be used to assess an entertainment professional's ability to leverage his network of connections with other entertainment professionals to obtain opportunities to work on movie projects. An entertainment professional's ability to leverage his network of connections may correspond to the entertainment professional's success in the entertainment profession. Accordingly, by assessing an entertainment professional's ability to effectively leverage his network of connections with other entertainment professionals, the systems and methods may be able to make observations regarding the success of the entertainment professional. |
| US08392329B2 |
Method and apparatus for facilitating purchase transactions across a network
A local computer system that records information to facilitate a purchase transaction across a network. In one embodiment, the local system operates by receiving a request for billing information relating to a purchase transaction from a remote computer system. The local system then retrieves the billing information from its local store, and sends the billing information to a remote system. After the remote system completes the purchase transaction, the local system receives confirmation information from the remote system. The local system then records this confirmation information in the local store which enables a user of the local system to subsequently look up the confirmation information based on a purchase transaction identifier. Methods associated with the local computer system are also disclosed. |
| US08392328B2 |
Methods and apparatus for funding transactions using debit cards issued by one institution and funds from accounts at other institutions
Methods, apparatus, and systems for funding transactions disclosed herein may operate to: receive, for a transaction, a request to debit a first amount from a primary funding source; determine that a second amount of funds available from the primary funding source is less than the first amount requested for the transaction; compare a maximum backup funding amount with a total amount debited from a backup funding source to fund previous transactions associated with the primary funding source, with the maximum backup funding amount being previously set as an amount available from the backup funding source; and to provide an indication that at least part of a difference between the first amount and the second amount can be drawn from the backup funding source based on determining that the total amount has not reached the maximum backup funding amount. |
| US08392319B2 |
Controlling an order slicer for trading a financial instrument
In one aspect, the present invention provides an order slicer that receives an order that to trade a financial instrument. The order associates a trading strategy with said order. The trading strategy is replaceable. In another aspect, an interface accepts a trading strategy of an order to trade a financial instrument. A transmitter transmits the trading strategy to an order slicer. |
| US08392312B2 |
Adaptive scheduling of storage operations based on utilization of a multiple client and server resources in a distributed network storage system
Scheduling operations such as asynchronous file system operations in a network storage system is accomplished by applying a bid-price online auction methodology, in which bid (willingness-to-pay) values and price (cost) values are dynamically set by storage clients and a storage server, respectively, based on utilization of computing resources. The system provides a framework for adaptively scheduling asynchronous file system operations, managing multiple key resources of the distributed file system, including network bandwidth, server I/O, server CPU, and client and server memory utilization. The system can accelerate, defer, or cancel asynchronous requests to improve application-perceived performance. Congestion pricing via online auctions can be employed to coordinate the use of system resources by clients, so clients can detect shortages and adapt their resource usage. |
| US08392310B1 |
Systems for automated identification and processing of qualifying expenses for tax-advantaged accounts and automated initiation of related account transactions
Systems and methods are disclosed for automated identification and processing of qualifying expenses for tax-advantaged accounts and automated initiation of related account transactions for automated management of those tax-advantaged accounts. In part, the disclosed embodiments: identify expenditures which are eligible for tax-advantaged payment, withdrawal or reimbursement from a limited-purpose tax-advantaged account; store records with relevant details of expenditures to demonstrate eligibility for favorable tax treatment; calculate the amount of and executing contributions to limited-purpose tax-advantaged accounts as a function of account holder preferences, statutory limits and prospective or prior qualifying expenditures from other accounts; identifying withdrawals from limited-purpose tax-advantaged accounts which do not qualify for the tax advantage and restoring those monies to the account or offsetting them against amounts otherwise reimbursable from the account; and automatically reimbursing the account holder from his limited-purpose tax-advantaged account as a function of account holder preferences, information about qualifying expenditures made from another account or contributions to the account. |
| US08392309B2 |
Equity-indexed annuity for group savings programs
A Group Equity-Indexed Annuity (GEIA) with a guaranteed minimum equity related return for a set of individuals are provided. An algorithm sets a “participation rate” of a GEIA contract as well as the carrier margin, risk and opportunity for recovery. The carrier is held accountable to the participation rate produced by the model investment portfolio in the formula and subject to the guaranteed minimum. The selection of the participation rate is entirely visible to a GEIA contract-holder. A “hedge budget” is based on a formula-driven amortization process that blends old and new money. Underlying assets are also managed to a “constant” duration, such as the duration of a bond index selected by the GEIA contract-holder. |
| US08392302B2 |
Computer-aided process for inflation-immunized derivatives
A computer system converts real-valued, inflation-immunized derivative terms to nominal-valued, non-inflation-immunized data. A stipulated index is considered in this conversion as a function of time. At an input device, real-valued, inflation-immunized derivative terms and a stipulated index as a function of time are received. Also received at the input device are input values corresponding to the real-valued, inflation-immunized derivative terms, wherein the input values include at least a quantity value and data from the stipulated index at a corresponding time. The computer processes these real-oriented, inflation-immunized derivative terms with the stipulated index and thereby produces nominal-valued, non-inflation-immunized data corresponding to the real-valued, inflation-immunized derivative terms. Nominal-valued, non-inflation-immunized data is presented by the computer at an output device for the computer. The inflation-immunized derivatives can be of various forms. The stipulated index cam comprise an infill index. The infill index can indicate an agreed upon approach to interpolate data for days missing from the stipulated index. |
| US08392299B2 |
Transfer account systems, computer program products, and associated computer-implemented methods
Embodiments of the present invention include transfer account systems, computer program products, and associated computer-implemented methods of providing prioritized payments from the proceeds of automatic or direct deposits. Embodiments of the present invention include routing automatic deposit information to a financial institution computer managing a prioritized payment program and formulating an outgoing ACH file with both an entry for an automatic deposit destined for a customer account and an entry for a pre-authorized prioritized payment to a select creditor, so that the automatic deposit is credited to the customer account and relatively instantaneously any prioritized payment is debited from the customer account. According to embodiments of the present invention, the customer account can be a prepaid card account so that a customer has effective access on the prepaid card only to a net value of funds. |
| US08392296B2 |
Active container management system
A system for monitoring chain of custody of contents of a container includes a lock mechanism configured to lock at least one door of the container in a closed position, a housing enclosing at least a portion of the lock mechanism, and a lock circuit at least partially enclosed within the housing. The lock circuit includes a memory, a lock controller, a wireless module configured to receive information from at least one sensor associated with the container, the information regarding at least one property of the contents of the container, wherein the wireless module is configured to store the information in memory, wherein at least one of the wireless module or the sensor is powered wirelessly, and a lock controller configured to receive commands related to operation of the lock mechanism, to monitor the stored information to identify a change of state of the at least one sensor, and to generate chain of custody data to be transmitted to a remote location via the wireless module. The chain of custody data includes at least two of sensor data, an authentication code associated with the sensor, and/or an authentication code associated with the lock mechanism. |
| US08392294B2 |
Computer implemented finance management routing system
Broadly, the present invention relates to data processing in general and more particularly to a finance management system or “system” (5) relating to the auto industry (25) that provides a gateway for vehicle purchase lead management tools to seamlessly integrate the auto sales process with the auto finance process, and enables sellers (25) to initiate, process, and decision loan transactions with financial institutions (100). The financial management system (5) described herein preferably includes, among other things, credit filters, (20), auto population of documents, and a decision engine (105) that retrieves or collects and combines or merges the borrower's credit file(s) (110) with an applicant's information (115), processes the information or data to a specific vehicle (145) and finance structure (160), matches the data against a lender's proprietary mix of loan programs, pricing, credit policies and/or custom scoring models (120) to determine if a borrower (30) has qualified for a loan, and makes a result presentation (155) of a finance level of acceptability available to the auto dealer (25). |
| US08392292B2 |
Method and process for managing inbound and outbound merchandise shipments
A computer program, method, and systems for monitoring inbound documents. Each of these inbound documents, which concerns the delivery of inbound merchandise to a processing center, itemizes one or more available products included in the inbound merchandise. Outbound documents, each of which concerns the shipping of outbound merchandise from the processing center, are also monitored. These outbound documents each itemize one or more needed products to be included in the outbound merchandise. The available products itemized in one or more inbound documents are compared to the needed products itemized in one or more outbound documents to determine if a match occurs. If such a match occurs, the matched available and needed products are linked, such that an outstanding order for a needed product is fulfilled with an available product. |
| US08392286B2 |
Electronic commerce rule-based multi-selection gifting
A method for multi-selection gifting, including identifying a multi-selection gift, the multi-selection gift including a plurality of items of merchandise, and at least one selection rule governing selection of at least two of the items of merchandise, and interactively guiding a gift recipient in selecting at least one item of merchandise in accordance with the at least one selection rule, wherein each selection rule is a member of the group including allowing the gift recipient to select up to a specified total number of items of merchandise in the multi-selection gift, allowing the gift recipient to select items of merchandise in the multi-selection gift up to a specified total cost, and allowing the gift recipient to select items of merchandise in the multi-selection gift up to a specified total measure. A system and a computer-readable storage medium are also described and claimed. |
| US08392285B2 |
Multi-supplier transaction and payment programmed processing approach with at least one supplier
In an example embodiment, a computer-based contract-management approach processes transactions involving at least one supplier (i.e., seller or sellers) fulfilling one or more sub-components of the transaction. Each of the suppliers (e.g., as well as other transaction parties) reference the transaction when communicating transaction information such as invoices, regardless of which sub-component of the transaction the seller is involved with. The invoices are associated with the transaction using the transaction referenced in each invoice and each supplier is accordingly paid for its performance of the sub-component of the transaction with which it is involved. From a buyer's perspective, the transaction is processed in accordance with the sub-components associated with the at least one supplier. Per each supplier, the transaction is processed generally two-dimensionally (via buyer and via suppliers), thus generally isolating (where desirable) each supplier from the sub-components of the transaction for which it is not a participant. |
| US08392279B2 |
Ordering system for printed products and method for ordering a printed product
The invention relates to an ordering system for printed products, by means of which a printed product can be defined in a selection module of the ordering system and ordered from a supplier for the printed products, wherein printed products of the same product type are made of product components of the same product component types, and wherein each product component is defined precisely by a combination of a value for parameters such as page format, number of pages, coloration, type of paper, type of binding, processing, and finishing. The invention further relates to a method for ordering a printed product by means of an ordering system, wherein the ordering system determines a list of selectable values for the parameter such as page format, number of pages, coloration, type of paper, type of binding, processing, and finishing of a product component of the printed product, and wherein the ordering system orders the printed product based on the defined values after a value has been defined for each of the parameters by a buyer. In order to simplify the data management of the ordering system for printed products, it is proposed that each individual possible value for each of the parameters is defined as an article in an article database of the ordering system, and that the printed product can be defined in the selection module by successive selection from the articles, and that the ordering system determines the selectable values for the product component from an article database in which each possible value of each of the parameters is defined as an article. |
| US08392276B1 |
Facilitating transactions involving buying items from and selling items to users
Techniques are described for facilitating transactions involving items and users in various ways. In some situations, item transactions are coordinated by an automated Item Transaction (or “IT”) system provided via one or more computing systems, such that users of the IT system who have available items are matched with other users of the IT system who desire those items. The types of items being involved in transactions via the IT system may vary, and in some situations may include items such as music CDs, video DVDs, computer games, computer software, etc. The operation of the IT system may be enhanced in various ways via interactions with one or more external item marketplaces, such as by automatically obtaining and using information related to users of the IT system from those marketplaces, and/or by acquiring additional items from those marketplaces for use by the IT system. |
| US08392275B2 |
Identifier-based charge on delivery transaction
Guaranteed funds from a buyer are held until a delivery to the buyer is confirmed by a payment provider. The funds are then released to the seller immediately upon confirmation. Confirmation may be accomplished by the buyer entering an identifier upon delivery or some other confirmation by the shipper, where the identifier was provided to the buyer during the transaction with the seller. In other embodiments, the identifier generated by the payment provider is provided partially to the buyer and partially to the seller. Upon receiving a match of the identifier from the buyer and seller on delivery, buyer funds are released to the seller. |
| US08392273B2 |
Marketplace payments
Described herein is a virtual marketplace via which buyers and sellers can conclude transactions for the sale of goods and services. To facilitate payments for goods and services, and to encourage use of the marketplace, the system facilitates the establishment of interest bearing accounts, via which a buyer can fund transactions. |
| US08392267B1 |
System, method, and software application for dynamically generating a link to an online procurement site within a software application
The present invention provides a system, method, and software application for providing a link to an online procurement site from within a supported software application. In one embodiment, when a user starts up a supported software application on a client computer, the client computer sends a request to a server for the Universal Resource Locator (URL) to use in the link. The server, which may be a server associated with a software vendor or the supported client application, determines whether or not the user of the client computer is associated with a business that has a procurement site from which the user can purchase a related application. If the server determines that the user is associated with a business that has a procurement site from which the user can purchase a related software application, then the server provides the client computer with the URL for the procurement site, and the supported client application generates a link to the procurement site. |
| US08392265B2 |
Systems and methods for collecting television viewing data and television interactivity
A system for collecting viewing data (or viewing habits) and automatically measuring the size of an audience viewing or watching a broadcast at any particular time is provided. In the system, a remote control device may be adapted to collect and manage the collection of the viewing data on television audiences, including requests for the data from third parties. The data may be collected using a remote control device and then transmitted to a remote computer where it may be stored and accumulated, so that over time, the viewing habits of the User may be identified. The remote control device may also be used to allow a User to interact with the television to order a product, monetize advertising, participate in an auction and/or rate a television program. |
| US08392263B2 |
Method and system for selecting and conveying relevant and personalized gifts using online personal gift profile
A method and system selects and conveys relevant and personalized gifts using an online personal gift profile having personal preference data. The method includes providing, by a conveying user, the identity of a receiving user. The method includes selecting, by the conveying user, a gift-class. The method includes identifying the personal gift profile of the receiving user from the identity of the receiving user and retrieving the personal preference data of the receiving user from the personal gift profile. The method includes sending the selected gift item to the receiving user's physical address. |
| US08392259B2 |
Methods and apparatus to obtain transaction confirmation
Methods and apparatus to obtain transaction confirmation are described. One example method includes emulating a payment method using a close-proximity communication device of a mobile device, establishing a close-proximity communication link using the close-proximity communication device of the mobile device, transferring payment information from the mobile device using the close-proximity communication device, switching the close-proximity communication device of the mobile device to an information receiving communication mode, and receiving a transaction confirmation at the close-proximity communication device of the mobile device. Other implementations are possible. |
| US08392256B2 |
System and method for identifying and retrieving targeted advertisements or other related documents
A computer system, computer program, and related methods product for selecting one or more targeted advertisements to be displayed along with a set of search results. In general, a computer system and database storage system store one or more campaigns associated with a set of documents and at least one advertisement. The computer system is programmed with an ad targeting module to: identify all campaigns that have at least one document relating to a search result set; analyze the search results set to calculate at least one intersection score between the search result set and at least one of the one or more campaigns; select a matching campaign from the one or more campaigns based on the at least one intersection score, select at least one advertisement from the matching campaign; and cause the at least one advertisement selected from the matching campaign to be displayed with the search result set. |
| US08392253B2 |
Neuro-physiology and neuro-behavioral based stimulus targeting system
A system performs stimulus targeting using neuro-physiological and neuro-behavioral data. Subjects are exposed to stimulus material such as marketing and entertainment materials and data is collected using mechanisms such as Electroencephalography (EEG), Galvanic Skin Response (GSR), Electrocardiograms (EKG), Electrooculography (EOG), eye tracking, and facial emotion encoding. Neuro-physiological and neuro-behavioral data collected is analyzed to select targeted stimulus materials. The targeted stimulus materials are provided to particular subjects for a variety of purposes. |
| US08392251B2 |
Location aware presentation of stimulus material
A system identifies the location of a user and presents location aware stimulus material to the user. Discounts, promotions, and advertising can be delivered to the user on a wireless device based on location and path information. Stimulus material on in store monitors, billboards, and displays are modified based on information about individuals near the monitors and displays. In particular embodiments, neuro-response data is collected using a portable electroencephalography (EEG) headset while a user is exposed to stimulus materials to allow the effectiveness of the stimulus material to be determined. Stimulus materials presented can also be evaluated for neuro-response effectiveness prior to presentation to users in a location aware and personalized manner. |
| US08392250B2 |
Neuro-response evaluated stimulus in virtual reality environments
A system presents stimulus materials such as products, product packages, displays, services, offerings, etc., in virtual reality environments such as market aisles, store shelves, showroom floors, etc. Sensory experiences output to the user via the virtual reality environment elicit user interactivity. User activity and responses are used to modify marketing materials and/or virtual reality environments. Neuro-response data including electroencephalography (EEG) data is collected from users in order to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing materials in virtual reality environments. In particular examples, neuro-response data is used to modify marketing materials and virtual reality environments presented to the user. |
| US08392242B1 |
Computer-implemented methods for compensating entities that cooperatively provide access to content on web sites
Computer systems and associated payment models are disclosed for compensating content providers, such as web site operators, that cooperatively provide user access to content. In one embodiment, when a user selects a link provided by an “originator” entity (e.g., on a web site of the originator entity) to access a “target” entity's content (e.g., content displayed on the target entity's web site), the user is charged a small transaction fee, such as 0.1 cents. A portion of this fee is paid to the originator, and a portion is paid to the target. An additional portion may be retained by a service provider that processes the link selection transaction. Embodiments are also disclosed involving different flows of monetary compensation between the user, the originator, the target, and the service provider. |
| US08392241B2 |
Publisher ad review
A review for an advertisement is received, the advertisement to be provided to recipients over a distribution network with content provided by content publishers. An aggregated approval score for the advertisement is generated based on the received review and other reviews for the advertisement. The aggregated approval score is provide to a content publisher. An indication to accept or reject the advertisement for presentation with content provided to recipients by the content publisher is received from the content publisher. The indication is received after providing the aggregated approval score to the content publisher. |
| US08392240B2 |
System and method for determining outsourcing suitability of a business process in an enterprise
A system and method for determining outsourcing suitability of at least one business process in an enterprise. The method comprising screening at least one business process in the enterprise to obtain a first set of business processes, wherein the first set of business processes can potentially be outsourced. The method further comprising evaluating each potential-business-process corresponding to the first set of business process on a predefined criterion to obtain a second set of business process, wherein the second set of business processes can be outsourced. Also, a migration plan is prepared corresponding to potential-business-processes corresponding to the second set of business processes. |
| US08392238B2 |
Interest profiles for audio and/or video streams
A method includes receiving at least one criterion to identify at least one media item. The method includes determining one or more media items that satisfy the at least one criterion. The method includes determining a group interest profile for each of the one or more media items. A particular group interest profile indicates a portion-varying level of group interest toward the at least one media item. The particular group interest profile is based on a plurality of ratings input by a plurality of members of a group for a plurality of portions of the at least one media item. The method includes determining a plurality of high-interest portions of the at least one media item based on the plurality of group interest profiles. The method also includes creating a high-interest media item that combines the plurality of high-interest portions. |
| US08392237B2 |
Compliance methodology
Methods, computer readable media, and apparatuses for evaluating compliance with laws, regulations, and/or policies are presented. A metric definition for a metric may be received, the metric measuring an aspect of a business process. The measured aspect may represent a compliance concern. A first sigma score for the metric may be determined based on a number of opportunities and a number of defects. A second sigma score for the business process may be determined. A third sigma score for a business unit may be determined, the business unit implementing the business process. A fourth sigma score for a business segment may be determined, the business segment managing the business unit. A report may be generated, the report including the first sigma score, the second sigma score, the third sigma score, and the fourth sigma score. |
| US08392235B1 |
Performing automated price determination for tasks to be performed
Techniques are described for facilitating interactions between task requesters who have tasks that are available to be performed and task performers who are available to perform tasks, such as for use by an electronic marketplace for the tasks. In some situations, the electronic marketplace automatically determines prices to be paid for performance of tasks, such as in accordance with pricing-related criteria specified by task requesters who submit groups of numerous related tasks to be performed. Such pricing-related criteria may include various types of information about a desired pace of task performance for tasks of a group, and if so the electronic marketplace performs the automated price determination in such a manner as to accommodate the desired pace, such as by dynamically modifying prices when monitoring of an ongoing actual pace of performance of tasks differs sufficiently from a desired pace of performance. |
| US08392233B2 |
Rolling stock scheduling apparatus and method
A rolling-stock-scheduling apparatus includes a creation unit creating a graph from an initial day to a target day, the graph including nodes representing initial-day sites, target-day sites, and first operations, the first operations being defined by a departure time, a departure site, an arrival time, and an arrival site, the graph including arcs each of which indicates nodes' connectability, a setting unit setting paths that connect second operations on each day from the initial day to the target day, an exchange unit exchanging, if there is a first car which does not exist at the target-day site on the target day, each arc so that all the cars exist at target-day sites on the target day, and an output unit outputting, if second paths on which all the cars exist at the target-day sites are found, third operations corresponding to each of the second paths as a car-operation. |
| US08392232B2 |
Healthcare resource management system
A system determines patient acuity information to identify required staff competencies to meet a workload and supports role based reporting, notification, and escalation when acuity nears or reaches a predetermined saturation threshold. A system predicts healthcare worker workload using an acquisition processor to acquire multiple data items associated with care requirements of a particular patient from multiple different sources. A data processor determines an acuity score of the particular patient by determining a single score comprising a combination of weighted individual score values derived from corresponding individual items of the multiple data items. A translation processor interprets determined acuity score to provide an estimated healthcare worker workload for meeting the care requirements of the particular patient by using predetermined translation data associating acuity score with corresponding healthcare worker workload. |
| US08392229B2 |
Activity-centric granular application functionality
A system that can enable the atomization of application functionality in connection with an activity-centric system is provided. The system can be utilized as a programmatic tool that decomposes an application's constituent functionality into atoms thereafter monitoring and aggregating atoms with respect to a particular activity. In doing so, the functionality of the system can be scaled based upon complexity and needs of the activity. Additionally, the system can be employed to monetize the atoms or activity capabilities based upon respective use. |
| US08392227B2 |
Consistency checks for business process data using master data vectors
A business process master data vector for a business process of an organization can include master data coordinates corresponding to a plurality of business object node fields of a plurality of business objects involved in the business process. Values of the master data coordinates can indicate whether a corresponding business object node field is mandatory for successful execution of the business process. Master data instance vectors corresponding to the plurality of business objects can be evaluated such that a master data instance vector includes instance coordinates indicating whether a corresponding business object node field contains a master data value. The business process can be analyzed using the business process master data vector and/or the master data instance vectors. Related systems, processes, and articles of manufacture are also described. |
| US08392226B1 |
Controlling meta-data of information resources
Controlling information resources involves accessing a control definition of a number of control definitions associated with a first party and a second party. The first party has a first information resource and the second party has a second information resource, where the first information resource is in communication with the second information resource. The control definitions define a practice for monitoring the second information resource, where each control definition has a condition and a consequence. Meta-data is received from a second monitor of the second information resource, where the meta-data describes operation of the second information resource. The condition is applied to the meta-data in order to monitor the second information resource. |
| US08392222B1 |
Method and apparatus to facilitate determining insurance policy element availability
A computing platform (201) of choice can be configured and arranged to access (102 and 103) a first memory (202) that stores attributes which specifically characterize a particular candidate insurance entity and a second memory (203) that stores mappings which relate insurance policy element availability for a plurality of insurance policy elements to various corresponding insurance entity characterizing attributes. The aforementioned attributes, by one approach, correspond to respective end user-configurable dimensions. This platform can then serve (104) as a matching component by automatically using the aforementioned mappings to determine available insurance policy elements for the particular candidate insurance entity as a function of these attributes and then automatically using (105) those available insurance policy elements to configure an insurance policy consistent with these mappings. |
| US08392221B1 |
Method of providing health care insurance to consumers
A method of providing insurance (including professional malpractice liability insurance) to consumers against unfavorable outcomes resulting from services, methods of rating risks associated with services, and a method of reducing the risk of unfavorable outcomes. In the twelfth preferred embodiment, hand-held (or other) electronic data processing devices are used throughout a process of providing health insurance. The patient (or another person) inputs initial information into the device. The cost of insurance for a first office visit is determined, and a menu of coverages is outputted. The patient then selects a particular coverage for a first office visit, and pays the premium for it. The doctor (or other health care provider) then evaluates the patient. Complete information is then inputted. The cost of insurance for one year is then determined, and a menu of coverages is outputted. The patient then selects a particular coverage for one year, and pays its premium. |
| US08392220B2 |
Medication management system and method
A system and method of facilitating a patient's care transitions both into and upon subsequent discharge from an in-patient medical facility utilizes three points of health care provider intervention. The system and method utilizes a cloud-based medication management system applying rules to determine whether the patient's medications, clinical lab results, genomic information, or other relevant considerations would, in combination, amount to an adverse health outcome. If an adverse health outcome is predicted based on an application of the pre-programmed rules, health care intervention is sought. |
| US08392219B1 |
Systems and methods for streamlined patient enrollment for one or more healthcare programs
Systems and methods are provided for supporting and validating patient enrollment in one or more healthcare programs. The systems and methods may include receiving a prescription claim request from a pharmacy computer, where the prescription claim request includes at least (i) a first product identifier identifying with a prescribed product for a patient, and (ii) patient information associated with the patient; determining, based at least in part upon the first identifier, that patient is subject to a requirement to enroll in one or more required healthcare programs prior to the prescription product being released to the patient; extracting enrollment information from the prescription claim request, the extracted enrollment information including at least a portion of the patient information from the prescription claim request; and automatically utilizing the extracted enrollment information to complete at least a portion of an enrollment process for the one or more required healthcare programs. |
| US08392218B2 |
Sequential control and execution of medical applications at different workstations
A process, a system and a computer program product and computer readable medium are disclosed for the sequential control and execution of a medical task. In at least one embodiment, the task is processed with the aid of a plurality of different, computer-implemented, medical-technical, stateful applications. In at least one embodiment, the invention uses a 3-layer software architecture including a data layer, a business logic layer, and presentation layer. With the aid of a central server, the option is provided of a one-time loading of the extensive datasets for a task and the applications for a task, so that the datasets and the applications are subsequently preserved for a user of the medical task. As a result, multiple waiting periods for the user are avoided. |
| US08392217B2 |
Disease management system and method including preview mode
A system and method for allowing a patient to access an automated process for managing a specified health problem called a disease. The system performs disease management in a fully automated manner, using periodic interactive dialogs with the patient to obtain health state measurements from the patient, to evaluate and assess the progress of the patient's disease, to review and adjust therapy to optimal levels, and to give the patient medical advice for administering treatment and handling symptom flare-ups and acute episodes of the disease. The medical records are updated, the progression of the disease is stored and tracked, and the patient's preferences for treatment are stored and then used to offer medical advice based on the current state of the disease. A prestored general disease trend curve is compared against a patient specific disease trend curve, and the system makes an automated response such as adjusting therapy. |
| US08392214B1 |
Systems and methods for facilitating claim rejection resolution by providing prior authorization assistance
Systems and methods are provided for providing prior authorization support. The systems and methods may include receiving a first request for prior authorization assistance from a pharmacy computer, wherein the request for assistance includes claim identification information for a prior healthcare claim transaction; identifying a stored transaction history record for the prior healthcare claim transaction, where the stored transaction record is identified based at least in part on the claim identification information, where the stored transaction history record indicates a denial of coverage by a payor of a drug or product for a patient; delivering, to a prior authorization assistance computer, a second request for prior authorization assistance, where the information included in the second request enables the prior authorization assistance computer to initiate a process for completing a prior authorization form and for delivering the completed form to the payor; and delivering, to the pharmacy computer, a response indicating acceptance of the first request for assistance. |
| US08392213B2 |
Medical claims fraud prevention system including historical patient locating feature and associated methods
A medical claim fraud prevention system includes a first controller positioned at a medical facility and a second controller positioned at a patient information collection center and adapted to be in communication with a data center having historical location information relating to a patient locating device. The first controller may transmit a first signal to the second controller responsive to an occurrence of a predetermined event. The second controller may transmit an indication to the first controller in response to the first signal received from the first controller regarding the historical location of the patient locating device and whether the patient locating device was within a predetermined vicinity of the medical facility during a predetermined time period. |
| US08392212B2 |
Medical claims fraud prevention system including patient identification interface feature and associated methods
A medical claim fraud prevention system includes a first controller positioned at a medical facility and including a user interface and a second controller positioned at a patient information collection center and adapted to be in communication with the first controller. The first controller may send a first signal to the second controller responsive to an occurrence of a predetermined event. The second controller may request identification information from a patient in response to the first signal received from the first controller, and the patient may enter the identification information using the user interface in communication with the second controller to verify their location. The second controller may transmit an indication to the first controller in response to the first signal received from the first controller regarding whether the patient is within a predetermined vicinity of the medical facility based on the identification information entered by the user using the user interface to verify their location. |
| US08392209B1 |
Systems, methods, and apparatuses for barcoded service requests and responses associated with healthcare transactions
Systems, methods, and apparatuses are provided for supporting barcoded service requests and responses. The systems, methods, and apparatuses can support receiving, from a pharmacy computer, a claim request that identifies at least a patient and a prescribed product; determining, based upon the claim request, that a service request is available, the service request indicating an opportunity for one or more services to be provided by the pharmacy to the patient; storing claim information in association with a bar code, the claim information including information from the claim request, the bar code associated with the service request; automatically directing a delivery of the service request to the pharmacy, the service request including the bar code; and receiving a response to the service request, wherein the response includes the bar code, where the bar code is utilized, at least in part, to obtain at least a portion of the claim information for documentation of the one or more provided services. |
| US08392208B1 |
Method and system for health expense verification and processing
A method and system for health care expense verification and reimbursement processing includes a process for health care expense verification and reimbursement processing whereby electronic data including data representing health care expense transactions is collected. The electronic data is then analyzed and health care expense transactions that are potentially eligible for reimbursement from a health care expense account are identified. The identified health care expense transactions are then verified as eligible health care expense transactions based on the electronic data collected and/or the source of the data. Data representing the verified health care expense transactions is then electronically and automatically made available to a health care expense account program administrator for immediate reimbursement processing. |
| US08392207B2 |
Method and system for managing appeals
A system and method for managing insurance claim denials. The system and method reviews a denial of claim from an insurer and a patient medical record received from a healthcare provider to determine if an appeal should be filed for the denial. It prepares an appeal to the denial comprising an appeals overturn letter and supporting document and submits the appeal to the insurer if it determines that an appeal should be filed. The system then tracks and monitors the progress of the appeal and process the appeal determination received from the insurer. The system utilizes these tracking and monitoring information to streamline and improve the insurance claim process of the healthcare provider, such as developing and implementing claim denial reduction program. |
| US08392205B2 |
Personalized plan development based on one or more reported aspects' association with one or more source users
A computationally implemented method includes, but is not limited to: providing one or more relevant reported aspects associated with one or more source users that are relevant to achieving one or more target outcomes, the providing of the one or more relevant reported aspects being based, at least in part, on the one or more relevant reported aspects' association with the one or more source users; and developing one or more personalized plans designed to facilitate an end user to achieve the one or more target outcomes when one or more emulatable aspects indicated by the one or more personalized plans are emulated, the development of the one or more personalized plans being based, at least in part, on the providing In addition to the foregoing, other method aspects are described in the claims, drawings, and text forming a part of the present disclosure. |
| US08392203B2 |
Encoding method and system
An encoding system includes a sampling unit, a computing unit, a comparing unit, a quantifying unit, and an encoding unit. The sampling unit obtains first sample data of a current sampling point and second sample data of a previous sampling point. The computing unit computes a data difference between the first sample data and the second sample data. The data difference includes a numeral and a sign. The comparing unit determines whether the data difference is more than or equal to 0 and outputs a determining result. The quantifying unit quantifies the numeral of the data difference. The encoding unit encodes the numeral of the data difference with or without the sign according to the determining result. |
| US08392198B1 |
Split-band speech compression based on loudness estimation
A frame is received that has the wideband audio signal. The low band audio signal is encoded to generate an encoded low band signal. The high band signal is analyzed to determine whether the high band signal is perceptually relevant to the low band signal. If the high band signal is not perceptually relevant to the low band signal, the low band signal is encoded and provided in a frame to the decoder without including parameters corresponding to characteristics of the high band signal. If the high band signal is perceptually relevant, the high band signal is encoded to generate an encoded high band signal. The resultant frame that is sent to the decoder will include a combination of the encoded low band signal and the encoded high band signal. |
| US08392190B2 |
Systems and methods for assessment of non-native spontaneous speech
Computer-implemented systems and methods are provided for assessing non-native spontaneous speech pronunciation. Speech recognition on digitized speech is performed using a non-native acoustic model trained with non-native speech to generate word hypotheses for the digitized speech. Time alignment is performed between the digitized speech and the word hypotheses using a reference acoustic model trained with native-quality speech. Statistics are calculated regarding individual words and phonemes in the word hypotheses based on the alignment. A plurality of features for use in assessing pronunciation of the speech are calculated based on the statistics, an assessment score is calculated based on one or more of the calculated features, and the assessment score is stored in a computer-readable memory. |
| US08392189B2 |
Speech recognition using speech characteristic probabilities
A speech recognition module includes an acoustic front-end module, a sound detection module, and a word detection module. The acoustic front-end module generates a plurality of representations of frames from a digital audio signal and generates speech characteristic probabilities for the plurality of frames. The sound detection module determines a plurality of estimated utterances from the plurality of representations and the speech characteristic probabilities. The word detection module determines one or more words based on the plurality of estimated utterances and the speech characteristic probabilities. |
| US08392187B2 |
Dynamic pruning for automatic speech recognition
Methods, speech recognition systems, and computer readable media are provided that recognize speech using dynamic pruning techniques. A search network is expanded based on a frame from a speech signal, a best hypothesis is determined in the search network, a default beam threshold is modified, and the search network is pruned using the modified beam threshold. The search network may be further pruned based on the search depth of the best hypothesis and/or the average number of frames per state for a search path. |
| US08392181B2 |
Subtraction of a shaped component of a noise reduction spectrum from a combined signal
A system and methods of subtraction of a shaped component of a noise reduction spectrum from a combined signal are disclosed. In an embodiment, a method includes identifying a selected frequency component using a corresponding frequency component of a noise sample spectrum. A noise set is comprised of the noise sample spectrum. The method further includes forming a shaped component of a noise reduction spectrum using a processor and a memory based on a combined signal spectrum and the selected frequency component. The method also includes subtracting the shaped component of the noise reduction spectrum from the combined signal spectrum. |
| US08392178B2 |
Pitch lag vectors for speech encoding
A method of encoding speech, the method comprising: receiving a signal representative of speech to be encoded; at each of a plurality of intervals during the encoding, determining a pitch lag between portions of the signal having a degree of repetition; selecting for a set of said intervals a pitch lag vector from a pitch lag codebook of such vectors, each pitch lag vector comprising a set of offsets corresponding to the offset between the pitch lag determined for each said interval and an average pitch lag for said set of intervals, and transmitting an indication of the selected vector and said average over a transmission medium as part of the encoded signal representative of said speech. |
| US08392177B2 |
Method and apparatus for frequency encoding, and method and apparatus for frequency decoding
Provided are a method and apparatus for encoding the frequency of a continuation sinusoidal signal and a method and apparatus for decoding the same. In the encoding method, a continuation sinusoidal signal successive to a sinusoidal signal in a previous section is extracted from a current section; a frequency of the continuation sinusoidal signal at the boundary between the current and previous sections is changed to a first frequency, based on representative frequencies of the continuation sinusoidal signal and at least one sinusoidal signal that belongs to a section adjacent to the current section and is successive to the continuation sinusoidal signal; and the first frequency is encoded. |
| US08392176B2 |
Processing of excitation in audio coding and decoding
In an apparatus and method, time-varying signals are processed and encoded via a frequency domain linear prediction (FDLP) scheme to arrive at an all-pole model. Residual signals resulted from the scheme are estimated and transformed into a time domain signal. Through the process of heterodyning, the time domain signal is frequency shifted toward the baseband level as a downshifted carrier signal. Quantized values of the all-pole model and the frequency transform of the downshifted carrier signal are packetized as encoded signals suitable for transmission or storage. To reconstruct the time-varying signals, the encoded signals are decoded. The decoding process is basically the reverse of the encoding process. |
| US08392175B2 |
Phrase-based document clustering with automatic phrase extraction
Meaningful phrases are distinguished from chance word sequences statistically, by analyzing a large number of documents and using a statistical metric such as a mutual information metric to distinguish meaningful phrases from groups of words that co-occur by chance. In some embodiments, multiple lists of candidate phrases are maintained to optimize the storage requirement of the phrase-identification algorithm. After phrase identification, a combination of words and meaningful phrases can be used to construct clusters of documents. |
| US08392174B2 |
Method and apparatus for lexical analysis using parallel bit streams
One embodiment of the present invention is a method for lexical analysis of a character stream including: (a) generating one or more parallel property bit streams in response to the character stream; (b) generating one or more lexical item streams in response to the one or more parallel property bit streams; and (c) generating one or more token streams in response to the one or more lexical item streams. |
| US08392170B2 |
Emulation system and method for a no longer available microcontroller
An emulation system and emulation method for a no longer available microcontroller, having a supplyable microcontroller and emulation software able to be run thereon, and having an interpreter, the emulation software forming a software layer between the hardware of the available microcontroller and an operating software of the no longer available microcontroller, and the software being adapted in such a way that the hardware of the available microcontroller in conjunction with the additional emulation software behaves like the hardware of the no longer available microcontroller, and the interpreter is adapted in order to represent address, code and data information of the operating software of the no longer available microcontroller to functionally equivalent address, code and data information of the available microcontroller. |
| US08392169B2 |
Simulating virtual optical disc recorder by using a storage device and method for the same
Generating a virtual CD recorder by using a storage device is proposed. The storage device includes a first data sector for storing auto-run data and a second data sector for storing table of content (TOC) information data. When the storage device is connected to a host, a detecting module of the host detects whether the TOC information data exists in the second sector. When the TOC information data exists or could be accessed, a reading module can read a first disc image file based on the TOC information data. A burning module can record data into a second disc image file and update the TOC information data associated with the second disc image file in the second sector. |
| US08392162B2 |
Vehicular supplemental restraint device simulation using finite element modeling
A method and system for modeling an inflatable supplemental restraint device for a vehicle includes operating a simulation system according to a first step in which the restraint device is modeled in a fully inflated configuration using a finite element model. The modeled airbag is then deflated and flattened. The flattened airbag is subjected to simulated folding using a finite element model. Inputs drawn from the results of successive portions of the simulation are used in the later modeling steps. |
| US08392150B2 |
Smart content and placement in a computer-aided design application
A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture provide the ability to manipulate a graphical representation of a real-world object in a computer drawing application. A semantic behavior is defined for the real-world object. A graphical representation of the real-world object (referred to as a subject object) is obtained. The semantic behavior is assigned to the subject object. The subject object is placed into a drawing. When placed, the subject object automatically, without additional user input, places itself into the drawing based on the semantic behavior. |
| US08392146B2 |
Signal processing circuit for rotation detector
A signal processing circuit for a rotation detector includes a normal-rotation pulse request holding portion, a reverse-rotation pulse request holding portion, a resetting portion, and a waiting time switching portion. When an output of one of a normal-rotation pulse and a reverse-rotation pulse is finished and a waiting time elapses, the resetting portion resets an output request signal of the one of the normal-rotation pulse and the reverse-rotation pulse held by one of the pulse request holding portions. The waiting time switching portion sets the waiting time to a first waiting time when one of the pulse request holding portions holds the output request signal, and the waiting time switching portion sets the waiting time to a second waiting time longer than the first waiting time when both the pulse request holding portions hold the output request signals. |
| US08392143B2 |
Fixed-source array test station for calibration of a semi-active laser (SAL) seeker
A fixed-source array test station provides a cost-effective high-throughput test bed for testing optical sensors that require stimulus at fixed angular positions. A SAL seeker requires stimulus at fixed angular position across its FOV to calibrate its spatial transfer function (STF). An array of fixed collimated sources at different angular positions is aligned so that their beams overlap the entrance pupil of the sensor under test. Each source may comprise an inexpensive light emitting diode (LED) or vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) and collimator. To simplify alignment the sources may be positioned on and perpendicular to the surface of a sphere with the seeker's entrance pupil located at the center of the sphere. The sources are activated in accordance with an activation profile in order to calibrate or otherwise test the sensor. |
| US08392140B1 |
System and method for calibrating a location determined by an inertial navigation unit
A method, system and inertial navigation unit are provided in order to facilitate location determination by calibrating a location determined by an inertial navigation unit. The method may receive a magnetic pulse, such as a magnetic pulse generated by a lightening strike, with a plurality of first magnetometers and with a second magnetometer co-located with the inertial navigation unit. The method may also compare a representation of the magnetic pulse received by the plurality of first magnetometers to a respective representation of the magnetic pulse received by the second magnetometer. Further, the method may correct the location determined by the inertial navigation unit as a result of the comparing of the representation of the magnetic pulse received by the plurality of first magnetometers to the respective representation of the magnetic pulse received by the second magnetometer. |
| US08392136B2 |
In-place management of semiconductor equipment recipes
Systems and methods for managing optical inspection target components are disclosed. A method may include, but is not limited to: storing at least one external recipe component at an inspection tool node; associating at least one proxy component with the at least one external recipe component; associating the at least one external recipe component with at least one optical inspection target recipe; and storing the at least one optical inspection target recipe including the at least one proxy component in a recipe distribution server. A method may include, but is not limited to: receiving a selection of at least one recipe associated with an optical inspection target to be inspected at a first inspection tool node; and determining whether one or more external recipe components associated with the recipe are stored on at least one of the first inspection tool node and a second node. |
| US08392134B2 |
Antenna testing device and antenna testing method using the same
An antenna testing device includes an analyzer, a transmission probe electrically connected to the analyzer, a receiving probe electrically connected to the analyzer, and a shielded box having a cutoff frequency. The analyzer generates a test signal the frequency of which is lower than the cutoff frequency, the transmission probe receive the test signal and sends the test signal to the shielded box. The antenna is coupled with the transmission probe and generates a coupled signal, the receiving probe receives the coupled signal and sends the coupled signal to the analyzer. The analyzer analyzes the coupled signal and the test signal, the analyzer calculates the return loss of the antenna. |
| US08392133B1 |
Method for measuring shear wavespeed in an isotropic plate
Using a mechanical shaker test the shear wavespeed in a plate is estimated by applying a cyclical point force to the plate, measuring normal velocity of waves caused by the force, transforming temporal domain measurements with a Fourier transform into a frequency domain, transforming spatial domain measurements into a {kx,ky} wavevector domain spectra using Fourier transforms, determining propagation wavenumbers for given Lamb waves from peaks within the {kx,ky} spectra, and determining shear wavespeed by applying a Newton-Raphson gradient method using the propagation wavenumbers to Raleigh-Lamb dispersion curve equations. |
| US08392130B2 |
High voltage power line communication system using an energy harvesting power supply
A communication and control system for a high voltage power line using an energy harvesting power supply to avoid batteries in the communication components maintained at line voltage. The energy harvesting power supply utilizes scavenged backscatter power received from a transceiver maintained at ground potential or a power supply with a super-saturating magnetic flux core, such as a mu-metal core, to harvest electromagnetic field energy from the power line. The communication equipment maintained at line voltage communicates information to the transceiver maintained at ground potential by modulating backscatter energy reflected from the beam transmitted by the ground level transceiver to minimize the power requirement of the communication equipment maintained at line voltage. Response equipment includes capacitors, voltage regulator, voltage sag supporter, circuit interrupter, remote communication equipment, reporting and analysis system. |
| US08392127B2 |
Methods and gene expression signature for assessing growth factor signaling pathway regulation status
Methods, biomarkers, and expression signatures are disclosed for assessing the regulation status of growth factor pathway signaling in a cell sample or subject. More specifically, several aspects of the invention provide a set of genes which can be used as biomarkers and gene signatures for evaluating growth factor pathway deregulation status in a sample; classifying a cell sample as having a deregulated or regulated growth factor signaling pathway; determining whether an agent modulates the growth factor signaling pathway in sample; predicting response of a subject to an agent that modulates the growth factor signaling pathway; assigning treatment to a subject; and predicting evaluating the pharmacodynamic effects of cancer therapies designed to regulate growth factor pathway signaling. |
| US08392123B2 |
Food content detector
A system may include utensil means for portioning a foodstuff into a first portion and a second portion, a means for detecting a first portion size for the first portion with the utensil means, a means for detecting a second portion size for the second portion with the utensil means, and a means for determining a cumulative amount of portioned foodstuff based upon the first portion size and the second portion size. |
| US08392118B2 |
System and method for locating a vehicle
The invention comprises a method of locating a vehicle, comprising: a) connecting a removable locator device to the vehicle, said locator device automatically noting when it has been connected to the vehicle and then using locating technology to retrieve, at regular intervals, location coordinates for the current location of said locator device, said location coordinates approximating the location of the vehicle; b) sensing a loss of connection between the locator device and the vehicle; c) automatically storing, as a waypoint on the locator device, the last location coordinates retrieved prior to sensing said loss of connection; and, d) removing the locator device from the vehicle to enable use of the locator device to return to the stored waypoint, wherein the stored waypoint represents the approximate location of the vehicle. |
| US08392115B2 |
Road surface division mark recognition apparatus, and lane departure prevention apparatus
A road surface division mark recognition apparatus includes: a vehicle-mounted camera that takes an image of a road surface ahead of a vehicle; an image processing portion which has a plurality of image processing modes that correspond respectively to a plurality of kinds of road surface division marks, and which recognizes a road surface division mark in a selected image processing mode; a temperature measurement portion that measures the temperature of the vehicle-mounted camera; and a restriction portion that restricts the action of the vehicle-mounted camera if the temperature measured by the temperature measurement portion is higher than or equal to a threshold value. The threshold value differs between the image processing modes. |
| US08392113B2 |
Method and apparatus for accounting for user experience in pedestrian navigation routing
The subject matter disclosed herein relates to a system and method for determining navigation instructions within a pedestrian navigation environment. For example, a system and method are provided for determining an optimal path to a destination. An optimal path may be determined based at least in part on a measurement of similarity between one or more points of interest and one or more destinations. Such a measurement of similarity may be based at least in part on predefined criteria between the one or more destinations and one or more points of interest. |
| US08392112B2 |
Dynamic determination of optimal route delivery method
A method and system for dynamic determination of optimal route delivery receives a point of interest location, a current vehicle location, and a date of first set of route directions from a telematics unit over a wireless network by a software application running on a navigation server. The application accesses the first set of route directions and a second set of route directions from a database located on a telematics service provider premises. Both the first and second set of route directions are between the current vehicle location and the point of interest. If there is a traffic obstacle along a route between the current vehicle location and the point of interest location and the traffic obstacle was implemented after the first set of directions, a live advisor sends a notification to a user and provides the user with an alternate method of delivering route directions over the wireless network. |
| US08392109B2 |
Methodology and system for routing optimization in GPS-based Navigation, combining dynamic traffic data
Disclosed is a methodology for the collection, processing and distribution of traffic data and delivering more accurate routing in GPS-based Personal Navigation Assistants (PNAs). The methodology includes a) Data Collection Methodology (DCM), b) a Data Incorporation Methodology (DIM), and c) a Routing Methodology (RM). The DCM regards the collection of information related to the traffic flow in each road. The DIM includes a procedure executed at a central system (CS), outside the PNA, performing the incorporation of the “trace data” (i.e. user-submitted route-related information, including a list of periodically collected, time-stamped GPS samples, augmented with other parameter values defining the vehicle-type, weather-conditions, road-type, holiday-type), collected by the DCM. The RM determines, by means of suitable PNA software, the shortest route from a starting point to a final destination, through the combining the static data from existing maps residing inside the PNA, with the dynamic (time-variant) data derived by the DIM. |
| US08392107B2 |
Sub-room-level indoor location system using power line positioning
Disclosed is an indoor location system that uses an electrical power line, power line signal injection devices, and portable position receivers (tags) to generate location data relating to positions of the tags in a structure such as a residence or business. The indoor location system fingerprinting of multiple signals transmitted along the power line to achieve sub-room-level localization of the positioning receivers. Details regarding power line positioning are described along with how it compares favorably to other fingerprinting techniques. |
| US08392099B2 |
Method of providing detail information using multimedia based traffic and travel information message and terminal for executing the same
There is disclosed a method of providing detailed information using a multimedia based traffic and travel information message and a terminal for executing the same. A method of providing detailed information using a multimedia based traffic in accordance with this document may comprise receiving transport protocol expert group (TPEG) information, comprising a road traffic message and a multimedia based traffic and travel information message and comprised of a hierarchical structure, displaying one or more events comprised in the road traffic message, allowing a request for detailed information about any one of the events to be input, and receiving detailed information of a multimedia type from a multimedia data providing server through specific one of bearer information comprised in the multimedia based traffic and travel information message and providing the received detailed information. |
| US08392098B2 |
Abnormality diagnosis device of internal combustion engine
An engine has a PCV passage connected to an intake system for recirculating a blow-by gas to the intake system and an air flow meter provided upstream of a connection between the PCV passage and the intake system in the intake system for sensing an intake air flow rate. An electronic control unit (ECU) performing various types of control of the engine diagnoses a clogging abnormality of the PCV passage based on pulsation width of the intake air flow rate sensed with the air flow meter. A thermal type sensor having a heating section and a temperature sensing section provided on a semiconductor substrate is used as the air flow meter. |
| US08392096B2 |
Cylinder combustion performance monitoring and control
An engine control system includes a disturbance module, a misfire threshold determination module, a disturbance ratio module, and a spark control module. The disturbance module determines a disturbance value for a past combustion stroke of a cylinder based on rotation of a crankshaft. The misfire threshold determination module determines a jerk value indicative of a misfire within the cylinder. The disturbance ratio module determines a disturbance ratio for the past combustion stroke based on the disturbance value and the jerk value. The spark control module determines a spark timing for a future combustion stroke of the cylinder, determines a spark timing correction for the future combustion stroke based on the disturbance ratio, determines a corrected spark timing based on the spark timing and the spark timing correction, and generates spark during the future combustion stroke based on the corrected spark timing. |
| US08392095B2 |
Spark ignition type internal combustion engine
In an internal combustion engine, a variable compression ratio mechanism able to change a mechanical compression ratio, a variable valve timing mechanism able to control the closing timing of the intake valve, and an electronic control unit that predicts the temperature of the catalyst arranged in the engine exhaust passage are provided. When it is predicted that the temperature of the catalyst will fall to less than the activation temperature, the actual expansion ratio is lowered while maintaining the actual compression ratio the same or while increasing the actual compression ratio. |
| US08392094B2 |
Control apparatus for an internal combustion engine
A control apparatus for an internal combustion engine includes: an abnormal combustion detection unit for detecting an abnormal combustion due to self-ignition occurring; a pre-ignition determination unit for detecting abnormal combustion occurrence timing based on abnormal combustion detection information to determine whether or not the abnormal combustion is the pre-ignition based on comparison between pre-ignition determination timing and the abnormal combustion occurrence timing; a heat-source pre-ignition determination unit for determining whether the pre-ignition is the heat-source pre-ignition or the compression pre-ignition based on comparison between the abnormal combustion occurrence timing set by the pre-ignition determination timing and heat-source pre-ignition determination timing; a first avoidance unit for avoiding the heat-source pre-ignition in a case where the pre-ignition is determined as the heat-source pre-ignition; and a second avoidance unit for avoiding the compression pre-ignition in a case where the pre-ignition is determined as the compression pre-ignition. |
| US08392091B2 |
Using GPS/map/traffic info to control performance of aftertreatment (AT) devices
A method for managing an exhaust aftertreatment system within a vehicle including a catalyst device includes monitoring a digital map device providing a predicted vehicle operating condition through a travel route, and determining a predicted exhaust gas temperature profile based upon the monitoring of the digital map device. Operation of the catalyst device is controlled based upon the predicted exhaust gas temperature profile. |
| US08392089B2 |
Method of estimating an available grip margin of a tire when rolling
A method of estimating the available grip margin of a tire of a vehicle rolling on a ground involves: estimating a quantity Rslip ca, i.e., the ratio of the slip contact area and the total contact area of the tire on the ground; determining, in a signal processing unit, the grip potential used Pμ,used and/or the available grip margin of the tire Pμ,avail from the quantity and pre-established data corresponding to the type of the tire, where Pμ,avail=1−Pμ,used; and recording in a memory the grip potential used and/or the available grip margin of the tire. |
| US08392088B2 |
Brake assist driver command for vehicles
A method for controlling a braking system in a vehicle during a panic braking event includes the steps of determining a magnitude of force applied to the brake pedal, determining a first level of braking that would result from the magnitude of force applied to the brake pedal if there were no panic braking event, and applying a second level of braking equal to the lesser of the following: the maximum braking capacity, and the level of braking that would result from the magnitude of force applied to the brake pedal if there were no panic braking event, multiplied by a predetermined constant. |
| US08392087B2 |
Vehicle control system
When a vehicle is started on an uphill road, slip may easily occur between vehicle wheels and a sloping road surface. When vehicle condition is changed from its stopping condition to its traveling condition on the uphill road, vehicle acceleration is controlled in a feed-back operation in such a manner that a target acceleration is made smaller as road gradient becomes larger or coefficient of friction becomes smaller. |
| US08392085B2 |
Method and device for controlling a motor vehicle comprising an electronically controlled brake system with driving dynamics control
A motor vehicle includes an electrohydraulic brake system with driving dynamics control, a master brake cylinder (1), wheel brakes (75-78), and at least one pressure fluid supply device (94, 95) actuated by an electronic control unit. The pressure can be applied to the wheel brakes (75, 76, 77, 78) of the vehicle which are also connectable to the master brake cylinder (1) by way of a closable hydraulic connection (73, 74). A device for detecting a brake application includes a magnet (35) as a signal transmitter and a sensor element (36). The sensor element (36), upon piston movement of the master cylinder (1), senses a change in the magnetic field and outputs a digital signal and an analog signal. The two signals are passed on to an electronic control unit and are evaluated in the electronic control unit. |
| US08392084B2 |
Increasing all-wheel drive system calibration efficiency through hardware-in-the-loop simulation techniques
A method and system for generating a torque map operating a vehicle's all-wheel drive (“AWD”) system are disclosed. A model describing how an all-wheel drive (“AWD”) electronic control unit (“ECU”) included in the vehicle processes data received from one or more sensors or vehicle subsystems is generated and executed on a computing device so that the computing device emulates operation of the AWD ECU. The computing device captures data from a controller area network (“CAN”) included in the vehicle and data from the vehicle describing wheel torque while emulating operation of the AWD ECU. A raw torque value is generated by the computing device from the data from the CAN and wheel torque. The raw torque value is used to generate a torque value associated with an engine speed and with an intake air pressure obtained from the data captured from the CAN. |
| US08392082B2 |
Control device and control method for automatic transmission
A control device for an automatic transmission having a torque converter includes: a determining means for determining whether to set a friction element in an engaged condition or a disengaged condition on the basis of an operating condition of a vehicle; a control means for outputting an engagement command or a disengagement command on the basis of a determination result of the determining means; and an oil pressure control means for performing control to engage the friction element upon reception of the engagement command by performing a precharge control for the friction element and then controlling the supplied oil pressure to a predetermined oil pressure and to disengage the friction element upon reception of the disengagement command by draining the oil pressure supplied to the friction element, wherein the control means comprises a prohibiting means for prohibiting output of the disengagement command in relation to the friction element following control of the friction element from the disengaged condition to the engaged condition until a predetermined condition is established. |
| US08392081B2 |
Method for assisting with hill maneuvers
A method for assisting with hill maneuvers for a vehicle, including a propulsion unit connected to the drive wheels by a gearbox and a clutch or torque converter, and an assisted parking brake. In the method a threshold breakaway torque is determined as a function of longitudinal forces between the wheels of the vehicles and the ground. During a degraded operation, when a signal corresponding to a characteristic of the slope is received that cannot be used and/or when a computer does not have available a signal characteristic of an engaged gear ratio, a threshold value for the breakaway torque is determined without taking account of an actual value of the characteristic of the slope and/or of the characteristic of the gear ratio. |
| US08392079B2 |
Vehicle, control method and control apparatus for vehicle
Damping control, by which an engine is controlled to output torque for reducing up-and-down vibrations such as pitching and bouncing of a vehicle, is performed. When the damping control is interrupted, the behavior of engine torque after the damping control is interrupted is predicted. Shift of an automatic transmission is controlled in accordance with the predicted behavior of the engine torque. |
| US08392076B2 |
Control device of vehicular automatic transmission
In a control of a vehicular automatic transmission, an engaging device provided in a power transmission path between an engine and driving wheels is brought into a slipping state or a release state when a certain neutral control condition is satisfied while a shift lever is placed in a running position, the engaging device is engaged so as to increase a torque transmission capacity thereof when a certain neutral control cancellation condition is satisfied during neutral control under which the engaging device is in the slipping state or the release state, and an engaging pressure of the engaging device is held at a constant pressure level for a given period of time when an accelerator pedal is depressed while the engaging device is engaged so as to increase the torque transmission capacity thereof. |
| US08392074B2 |
Automatic controller for powered retractable sun visor
A system and method for controlling a vehicle sun visor that uses commonly existing onboard sensors and systems to provide all necessary inputs. The method uses GPS and solar almanac data to determine the location of the sun relative to the vehicle, driver side view mirror angle data to determine the position of the driver's eyes within the vehicle, and an existing outside light metering device to determine whether the sun is actually shining on the vehicle, and uses this information to calculate the optimum position of the sun visor. If a forward-looking camera is available on the vehicle, camera images can be used to improve the estimate of the sun position relative to the vehicle. |
| US08392072B2 |
Vehicle rollover detection
A system and method for detecting a rollover of a vehicle that includes at least one wheel reaction force sensing device for transmitting wheel reaction force signal indicative of an amount of force exerted on at least one wheel of the vehicle is provided. The system includes a controller operably coupled to the at least one wheel reaction force sensing device and including at least one accelerometer sensor for transmitting the acceleration signal. The controller is configured to determine a first force index in response to the wheel reaction force signal, determine a first lateral acceleration of the vehicle in response to the acceleration signal, compare the first force index to a threshold force index and the first lateral acceleration to a threshold lateral acceleration, and deploy a restraint system based on the comparison. |
| US08392070B2 |
Method and apparatus for controlling an actuatable safety device
A method for determining a crash condition of a vehicle comprises the step of sensing crash acceleration in a first direction substantially parallel to a front-to-rear axis of the vehicle and providing a first acceleration signal indicative thereof. The method also comprises the step of sensing crash acceleration in a second direction substantially parallel to a side-to-side axis of the vehicle and near opposite sides of the vehicle and providing second acceleration signals indicative thereof. The method further comprises the steps of determining a transverse crash value functionally related to the second acceleration signals and comparing the determined transverse crash value against a safing threshold. The method still further comprises the step of determining a crash condition of the vehicle in response to (a) the comparison and (b) the first acceleration signal. |
| US08392068B2 |
Vehicle behavior control device
A vehicle behavior control device (S) determines, by using a vehicle velocity (V), a transmission function (K(s)) which is determined based on a specification of the vehicle, receives as an input a wheel turning speed (ω) obtained by differentiating a wheel turning angle (δ) of left and right front wheels (FW1, FW2) with respect to time, and outputs a target yaw moment (My). The device (S) also calculates, by using the determined target yaw moment (My), a left-wheel-side forward/backward force (FxCL) imparted to a left wheel side (left front wheel FW1 and left rear wheel RW1) of a vehicle (10) and a right-wheel-side forward/backward force (FxCR) imparted to a right wheel side (right front wheel FW2 and right rear wheel RW2) of the vehicle (10). Then, the device (S) performs control to drive brake units (14-17) and in-wheel motors (IWMfl, IWMfr, IWMrl, IWMrr) depending on a turning direction of the vehicle (10), with the left-wheel-side forward/backward force (FxCL) serving as a braking force (or driving force) and the right-wheel-side forward/backward force (FxCR) serving as a driving force (or braking force). It is thus possible to ensure directional stability and responsiveness when the vehicle turns, taking into account a frequency response characteristic of a motion state amount generated on the vehicle (10). |
| US08392065B2 |
Leader-follower semi-autonomous vehicle with operator on side
The illustrative embodiments provide a method and apparatus for controlling movement of a vehicle. User input selecting a path for the vehicle is received from an operator. The vehicle responds to the user input by moving along the selected path in a manner that maintains the operator on a side of the vehicle. The illustrative embodiments further provide a method and apparatus for improved machine control. The vehicle receives a power-up command, instructions to execute a planned path, and information identifying a leader. The leader is an operator. The vehicle then executes the planned path using the information identifying the leader in order to follow a path of the leader. The vehicle moves along the path in a manner that maintains the leader in a position proximate to a side of the vehicle. |
| US08392063B2 |
Systems and methods for determining an absolute rotational position of a vehicle handwheel
Systems and methods for determining an absolute rotational position of the vehicle handwheel are provided. In one exemplary embodiment, a method includes determining a slope value based on the delta torque value associated with the vehicle steering system and the delta rotational position value associated with a vehicle handwheel. The method further includes setting an absolute position value indicating the absolute position of the vehicle handwheel equal to a predetermined steering travel limit of the vehicle handwheel when the slope value is within a predetermined slope range. |
| US08392062B2 |
Method and device for avoiding and/or reducing the consequences of collisions upon evasion with respect to obstacles
A method and a device for assisting a driver of a vehicle to avoid collisions with obstacles are provided, in which method at least one obstacle is detected by way of at least one surroundings sensor, and data of the obstacle are ascertained. On the basis of the data of the obstacle and data of the vehicle, a vehicle deceleration that is favorable for assistance of an evasive operation is ascertained, and the vehicle is correspondingly decelerated. |
| US08392056B1 |
Diagnostic connector assembly (DCA) interface unit (DIU)
In a diagnostics system for use on vehicles, wherein the improvement comprises a connector assembly that translates diagnostic connector assembly signals into a digital format suitable for computer based analysis and fault diagnosis on an individual vehicle and vehicle fleet basis. |
| US08392054B2 |
Automatic engine oil life determination adjusted for volume of oil exposed to a combustion event
A method is provided for determining remaining oil life prior to an oil change in an internal combustion engine that uses a body of oil. The method includes transferring the body of oil to the engine and determining a volume of the transferred body of oil. The method also includes determining a factor representative of a volume of oil from the transferred body of oil that is exposed to a combustion event in the engine. Additionally, the method includes determining the remaining oil life based on the determined volume of the body of oil and the determined factor representative of a volume of oil that is exposed to a combustion event. Moreover, the method includes activating an oil change indicator when the remaining oil life reaches a predetermined level. A system for determining a number of engine revolutions permitted on a volume of oil is also disclosed. |
| US08392053B2 |
Graphing device and method
To display patient information, a computing device receives a set of diagnostic values for a patient, a processor of the computing device compares the set of diagnostic values with a set of predetermined normal values, and a video image is displayed having a graphical depiction of the diagnostic values in comparison to the related normal values. The related set of normal values is displayed at a predetermined region of the video image and the set of diagnostic values is displayed on the video image in relation to the certain region of the normal values. Varying levels of relative health of the patient are indicated according the placement of an icon relative to areas of the graphical depiction of the diagnostic values. The video image is a plurality of concentric circles with the diagnostic values being displayed relatively closer to a center of the display in response to the diagnostic values being relatively closer to the values of the related normal values. |
| US08392047B2 |
System for preventing damage to a vehicle
A system for preventing damage to a vehicle, such as a truck, is provided. A sensor may be operable to measure a parameter relating to a component in a vehicle and to provide a parameter signal indicative of the measured parameter. A processor may be in communication with the sensor and operable to receive the parameter signal from the sensor. The processor may be further operable to analyze the parameter signal. The processor may be further operable to initiate a damage prevention process including a reduction of heat generation in the vehicle based on the parameter. |
| US08392042B2 |
Method for driving a hybrid traction chain based on the battery charge state
The control method for a hybrid drive system of a vehicle includes (1) acquiring the driver's acceleration desire for determining the power for the corresponding wheel (Pwheel), the charge level of the battery (SOC) between a minimum (SOCmin) and a maximum (SOCmax) thresholds for a predetermined traction mode, and the available braking power (Pfrein) for deciding between electric or dissipative braking; (2) managing the charge (SOC) for, based on a first (SOC1 bmin) and a second (SOC2 bmin) minimum thresholds of the charge (SOC) and the driver's requested wheel power (Pwheel), either imposing a battery recharge or setting input parameters for the traction mode selection; and (3) selecting the traction mode, based on the battery power actually available (Pbat), the driver's requested wheel power (Pwheel), and the maximum power available at the thermal engine output (Pmthmax), for selecting the traction mode most adapted to the actual situation of the vehicle. |
| US08392041B2 |
Hybrid vehicle
A hybrid vehicle includes an engine that is an internal combustion engine, a motor generator that is a rotating electric machine used together with the engine for driving the vehicle, an output shaft transmitting power to a wheel, a transmission member coupled to the output shaft, a power split device splitting the output from the engine to the motor generator and transmission member, a detection device detecting irregularities on a road, and a control unit reducing, when the detected result by the detection device indicates generation of periodic torque variation at the output shaft, the output from the engine based on the detected result. Accordingly, a hybrid vehicle that does not require a torque limiter is provided. |
| US08392040B2 |
Method and apparatus for controlling water-jet driven marine vessel
A system for controlling a marine vessel having first and second waterjets, corresponding first and second steering nozzles and corresponding first and second reversing buckets. The system comprises a speed control device for providing a first vessel control signal that corresponds to a speed to be provided to the marine vessel, a processor configured to receive the first vessel control signal and that is configured to provide at least one first actuator control signal coupled to the first and second waterjets, and at least one second actuator control signal coupled to the first and second steering nozzles and the first and second reversing buckets. The system any of improves upon turns provided by conventional waterjet propulsion systems, improves upon slowing down or stopping marine vessels as is done by conventional waterjet propulsion systems, and improves upon the controllability of the waterjet propulsed marine vessel at low vessel speeds. |
| US08392038B2 |
Method of constructing a vertical profile in the event of depressurization in an area with risks and associated devices
The method of generating a secure flight plan portion in the event of depressurization corresponding to a time-conditioned descent profile that may include a succession of levels, comprises: a step of defining a first point of the flight plan, called non-return point, denoted NRP, and a second point of the flight plan, called EOZ, the two points delimiting a portion of the flight plan plotted above an area identified as “with risks”; a step of defining two radials in the horizontal plane respectively passing through the first and the second points; a step of determining a first flight plan portion comprising the definition of a lateral offset angle from the original flight plan; a step of determining a vertical descent profile; a step of displaying time markers indicating the exhaustion of the oxygen reserve. |
| US08392035B2 |
System and method for cooling an electronic device
A system for cooling an electronic device having a heat-generating component includes a passive cooling device having a cooling ability designed to expire after a predetermined amount of heat is absorbed from the heat-generating component and an active cooling device configured to at least one of dissipate heat generated by the heat-generating component and cool the passive cooling device, when the active cooling device is activated. The system also includes a controller configured to activate the active cooling device after a determination that a predetermined threshold condition has occurred, wherein the predetermined threshold condition is selected to occur after the passive cooling device cooling ability has substantially expired, to thereby substantially minimize power consumption of the active cooling device in cooling the heat-generating component. |
| US08392029B2 |
Odor blender, odor recorder, odor reproducer, and odor recording and reproducing system
An odor blender is provided in which a number of component odor gases may be increased without increasing the number of carrier gas containers while ensuring a single odor gas concentration is not reduced. The odor blender includes N odor containers, M less than N) carrier gas containers, a blend line leading to a blend part for blending the odor gases, a bypass line for discharging odor gases, and solenoid valves for switching the containers between the blend line and the bypass line. A computer sets the number of odor containers connected to the blend line at the same time to M or less, connects the same number of carrier gas containers to the bypass line as the number of odor containers connected to the blend line, and controls timing of connection of odor containers to the blend line based on a predetermined mixing ratio of the component odor gases. |
| US08392026B2 |
Air conditioner
Disclosed is an air conditioner with functions for deciding room shape by determining, based on a temperature difference, information between the room's floor and walls occurring during operation, a human body detection position log, and a capacity zone of the air conditioner. In an embodiment, an infrared sensor detects a temperature of an area of the room by scanning the area and a control unit acquires thermal image data of the area scanned by the sensor and then controls the air conditioner based on the thermal image data. The control unit sets a boundary line between a wall and floor of the room at a position on the thermal image data, calculates a temperature difference between vertically adjacent pixels located above and below the boundary, corrects a position of the boundary based on temperature difference, and determines that areas parted by the boundary correspond to the wall and floor, respectively. |
| US08392024B2 |
Power assist device and method of controlling the power assist device
A method of controlling a power assist device that includes an operating handle, a force sensor, a robot arm, an actuator that drives the robot arm, and a conveying portion for conveying the robot arm. When a body in motion, the conveying portion is controlled to move in synchronization with the body, and when the motion of the body is stopped or has resumed, the drive of the robot arm is stopped for a predetermined time, and does not resume until after a predetermined time has elapsed. |
| US08392023B2 |
Photo-interrupter based force sensing handle and method of use
A robotic system includes a robot for moving a payload in response to a calculated input force. Sensors in respective sensor housings are connected to a handle, each sensor including a light emitter and receiver. The sensors measure a light beam received by a respective receiver. A controller calculates the calculated input force using received light. Each sensor housing modifies an interruption of the light beam in a sensor when the actual input force is applied, and the controller controls the robot using the calculated input force. A method of controlling the robot includes emitting the light beam, flexing a portion of the sensor housing(s) using the actual input force to interrupt the light beam, and using a host machine to calculate the calculated input force as a function of the portion of the light beam received by the light receiver. The robot is controlled using the calculated input force. |
| US08392021B2 |
Autonomous surface cleaning robot for wet cleaning
An autonomous floor cleaning robot includes a transport drive and control system arranged for autonomous movement of the robot over a floor for performing cleaning operations. The robot chassis carries a first cleaning zone comprising cleaning elements arranged to suction loose particulates up from the cleaning surface and a second cleaning zone comprising cleaning elements arraigned to apply a cleaning fluid onto the surface and to thereafter collect the cleaning fluid up from the surface after it has been used to clean the surface. The robot chassis carries a supply of cleaning fluid and a waste container for storing waste materials collected up from the cleaning surface. |
| US08392020B2 |
Automated precision small object counting and dispensing system and method
A small object dispenser adapted to receive a canister of objects such as pills, the canister being coupled atop it through a secure, bar-code matched gate operated by a central controller. A hopper below the gate directs smaller quantities of objects into a charge block adapted to measure out a select number of objects into an angularly disposed, circular counter where they accumulate atop a movable plate forming the bottom of the counter. The plate bears slots around its perimeter adjacent the cylindrical walls of the counter. As the central controller operates a servo motor to rotate the plate in measured increments, it urges a precise count of objects from the bottom of the counter to a port through which they fall one at a time into a receptacle such as a prescription bottle. Orientation means on the interior of the walls orient objects so that only a single object may fall into each slot, thereby preventing overfilling. A separate sensor counts the objects as they fall to verify quantity and guard against underfilling due to empty slots. |
| US08392019B2 |
Modular vending with centralized robotic gantry
A vending arrangement for computerized vending machines, retail displays, automated retail stores, utilizes a centralized, robotic gantry associated with companion modules for vending a plurality of selectable products. The modularized design enables deployment of half-sized or larger, full sized machines. The robotic gantry is deployed in a centralized module disposed adjacent display and inventory modules. Inventory modules can be fitted to both gantry sides, and doors can be fitted to the gantry front or rear. The gantry comprises an internal, vertically displaceable elevator utilizing a central conveyor for laterally, horizontally moving selected items from associated display and inventory positions to a vending position. Computerized software enables the display and vending functions, and controls elevator movement to dispense products from twin sides of the gantry by appropriately controlling the conveyor. |
| US08392018B2 |
Apparatus and method for distributing ophthalmic lenses
The present invention provides apparatus for dispensing ophthalmic lens packages. A plurality of ophthalmic lens packages are loaded into the apparatus and the apparatus determines an identity of each ophthalmic lens package. A housing stores the ophthalmic lens packages and records a location and identity of each of the lens packages and dispenses a particular ophthalmic lens package. |
| US08392017B2 |
Apparatus and method for grouping units
Apparatus for grouping a number of units, such as packaging units, when palleting the units, comprising a feed belt for conveying the units (10) and a grouping belt, which defines a grouping plane, said feed and grouping belts being driven for movement parallel to one another, and a robot, which is designed to group the units by positioning and orienting the units on the grouping plane. At least one part of the feed belt (1) runs beside and adjacent to the grouping belt (2). The robot (3) is a multi-axial industrial robot having a robotic arm on which a pusher element (5) is arranged, rotatable about an axis (6) perpendicular to the grouping plane, in order to allow the transfer of at least one unit from the feed belt to the grouping belt under a pushing action supplied by the pushing element, together with orientation and positioning of the unit on the grouping belt. |
| US08392015B2 |
Processing method for a workpiece
A method for processing a workpiece in which a tool smaller than the workpiece is caused to scan the workpiece includes the steps of dwelling a tool on a dummy work for a predetermined time to process the dummy work, measuring the dummy work to determine a unit removal shape, causing the tool to scan the dummy work, and processing the dummy work while continuously changing a dwell time of the tool so that the dwell time is a linear function with respect to a scanning position of the tool. Additional processing steps include measuring a change of a depth or volume of a removal shape processed in the dummy work, to thereby determine a removal rate corresponding to a continuous change of the dwell time of the tool, determining a tentative dwell time to dwell the tool at respective processed points from a target removal shape of the workpiece and the unit removal shape, determining the removal rate corresponding to the tentative dwell time at the respective processed points, and determining a true dwell time at the respective processed points from the removal rate at the respective processed points. The tool dwells for the true dwell time at the respective processed points to process the workpiece. |
| US08392014B2 |
Designing drilling pattern for excavating rock cavern
A method and a storage device including a software product for designing a drilling pattern, and further a rock drilling rig, in the control unit of which a software product may be executed for designing the drilling pattern. For a group of holes of the drilling pattern, at least one master hole can be determined which comprises at least one dominating factor. The properties of at least one other drill hole are determined on the basis of the dominating properties of the master hole. A master hole may be a hole location master, hole depth master or hole direction master. |
| US08392010B2 |
Method for controlling critical dimension in semiconductor production process, and semiconductor manufacturing line supporting the same
A critical dimension controlling method in a semiconductor production process includes determining whether a model is to undergo a discontinuous production process when a run is inserted in a semiconductor manufacturing line, applying an offset for said model or a common offset for a model group including said model according to the determination, executing a production process in dependence upon a process variation along with the offset for the model or the common offset for the model group, and measuring an actual critical dimension in the production process. The offset for the model is calculated based on a previously measured actual critical dimension, and the calculated offset for the model is applied to the calculation of the common offset for the model group. |
| US08392007B1 |
Mobile device audio playback
This disclosure is directed to providing audio playback to a mobile device user. According to one aspect of this disclosure, a mobile device may be to modify audio playback in response to detecting an inclination of the mobile device (and thereby a user) with respect to a reference plane. According to another aspect of this disclosure, a mobile device may be configured to automatically identify an audible sound that may be motivational to a user, and store an indication of the audible sound in response to the identification. According to another aspect of this disclosure, a mobile device may automatically play back a previously identified motivational song in response to detection of user movement. |
| US08392002B2 |
Hybrid machine control incorporating fast-tool servos
Presently disclosed is a method and system for processing standard part description programs in real time into the tool position control data appropriate to a CNC machine's standard and high bandwidth mechanisms, respectively. The result is precise tool tip control that tracks the programmed path at all times while maintaining the appropriate feed rates and accelerations for each type of mechanism. In one exemplary embodiment, a hybrid mechanism employing a high bandwidth mechanism mounted on and moved by a standard mechanism is employed. The command vector for the high-bandwidth mechanism is computed by subtracting the tool tip vector filtered to comprise only the tool tip positions and trajectories realizable by the standard mechanism from an ideal tool tip trajectory vector that represents the complete programmed path. These calculations produce a synchronous set of movements for both standard and high bandwidth mechanisms. |
| US08391999B2 |
Auto device skew manufacturing
A system and method for manufacturing semiconductor devices is disclosed. An embodiment comprises using desired device parameters to choose an initial manufacturing recipe. Once chosen, the initial manufacturing recipe may be modified by determining and applying an offset adjustment based on previous manufacturing to tune the recipes for the particular equipment to be utilized in the manufacturing process. |
| US08391998B2 |
Method for controlling and/or regulating an industrial process
The invention relates to a method for controlling and/or regulating an industrial process for producing or processing products, wherein a physicomathematical model of the industrial process is formed, with which control parameters for controlling or regulating the industrial process are calculated during the production or processing of the product, a number of measurement values is detected, and the model is corrected with a number of primary correction factors, the number of primary correction factors being equal to the number of measurement values. The method is characterized in that the model is corrected with a number of secondary correction factors, such as with a correction factor reflecting the speed of the phase conversion in the rolling mill to be cooled, and in that the number of all correction factors is greater than the number of all measurement values, wherein at least the secondary correction factors are calculated numerically. |
| US08391997B2 |
Extendable/retractable lead with improved distal seal
An implantable lead may have a distal assembly including a coupler, a fixation helix secured to the coupler and a housing in which the fixation helix and the coupler are disposed. The distal assembly may include an annular seal that is disposed between the coupler and the housing and that provides an at least substantially fluid-tight seal between the coupler and the housing. |
| US08391996B2 |
Catheter-based tissue remodeling devices and methods
Devices and methods utilizing a catheter to remodel soft tissue of a patient and, in a preferred embodiment, to reduce the volume of the left ventricle of a heart. In some embodiments, one or more sutures are passed through a wall of the ventricle. The ends of the one suture and, more preferably, the multiples sutures are drawn together to draw tissue portions towards one another. In some embodiments, a tissue remodeling clip is implanted into a wall of the ventricle. Ends of the clip are resiliently biased to move relative to one another to draw tissue portions towards one another. In some embodiments, a tissue remodeling anchor includes a base and a plurality of legs attached to the base. The legs of the tissue anchor are implanted into a wall of the ventricle and moved toward one another to draw tissue portions toward one another. |
| US08391995B2 |
Cardiac pacing using the inferior nodal extension
A device and method for providing stimulation to an inferior nodal extension of a heart. The method includes providing a lead comprising an electrode, positioning the electrode proximate an inferior nodal extension of a heart, and effecting at least one of activation, deactivation, or modulation of the electrode to provide stimulation to the inferior nodal extension. |
| US08391993B2 |
Using interaction to measure neural excitation
Assessment of neuron excitation is implemented by quantifying the interaction between focused and unfocused stimulation applied to a cochlear array. By applying focused and unfocused stimulation to the electrode array and comparing the difference in the responses to the two types of stimulation the interaction may be determined. The magnitude of the interaction may be related to neural excitation and using this data a neural excitation profile may be determined. |
| US08391990B2 |
Modular antitachyarrhythmia therapy system
This document discusses, among other things, a modular antitachyarrhythmia therapy system. In an example, a modular antitachyarrhythmia system includes at least two separate modules that coordinate delivery an antitachyarrhythmia therapy, such as a defibrillation therapy. In another example, a modular antitachyarrhythmia therapy system includes a sensing module, an analysis module, and a therapy module. |
| US08391986B2 |
Apparatus for managing a neurological disorder
A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, a Neuro Sensing and Stimulation Device having a conductive lead for implanting in a brain of a living entity, a sensor coupled to the conductive lead for collecting data associated with one or more electrical signals detected in the conductive lead, a stimulator coupled to the conductive lead to apply one or more electrical signals thereto, and a controller. The controller can be operable to collect data associated with one or more electrical signals detected in the conductive lead, determine a stimulation sequence from the collected data, and direct the stimulator to apply on the conductive lead one or more electrical signals determined from the stimulation sequence. Additional embodiments are disclosed. |
| US08391984B2 |
Method and device for detecting and treating depression
A system is described for detecting and/or treating depression that may be incorporated into an implantable device such as a cardiac rhythm management device. The device may determine that depression is present by analysis of heart rate variability measured using the cardiac sensing channels of the device and/or by detection of blood-borne factors that are associated with depression. If depression is detected, the device may be configured to automatically delivery therapy such as neuromodulation and/or drug delivery. |
| US08391982B2 |
Lead with lead stiffener for implantable electrical stimulation systems and methods of making and using
A lead includes a plurality of electrodes disposed on the distal end of the lead, a plurality of contact terminals disposed on the proximal end of the lead, a plurality of conductor wires extending along the lead to couple the electrodes electrically to the contact terminals, a central lumen defined by the lead and extending from the proximal end of the lead towards the distal end of the lead, and a tubular stiffener disposed in the proximal end of the central lumen. The tubular stiffener is configured and arranged to facilitate insertion of the proximal end of the lead into a connector. |
| US08391981B2 |
Cross-band communications in an implantable device
An ambulatory monitoring device includes a sensor to monitor a physiological signal and a battery power source. The device also includes a wireless receiver adapted to monitor a first frequency band having frequencies below 1 MHz and configured to detect and receive, using less than 10 micro-amps of current from the battery power source when operating, wireless communications within the first frequency band from a remote device at least one meter away. The device further includes a wireless transmitter adapted to transmit—after receipt from the remote device of a first wireless communication within the first frequency band that includes an invitation for further communication—a second wireless communication in a second frequency band having frequencies above 10 MHz, the second wireless communication comprising data indicative of the physiological signal as sensed by the sensor. |
| US08391977B2 |
Measurement of cardiac information for CRT optimziation in the presence of conduction dysfunction or atrial arrhythmia
An exemplary method includes delivering a cardiac pacing therapy that includes an atrio-ventricular delay and an interventricular delay, providing a paced propagation delay associated with delivery of a stimulus to a ventricle, delivering a stimulus to the ventricle, sensing an event in the other ventricle caused by the stimulus, determining an interventricular conduction delay value based on the delivering and the sensing, determining a interventricular delay (ΔSur) based on the interventricular conduction delay and the paced propagation delay and determining an atrio-ventricular delay based at least in part on the interventricular delay (ΔSur). Other exemplary methods, devices, systems, etc., are also disclosed. |
| US08391976B2 |
System and method for cardiac resynchronization therapy with optimization of effort-based rate-responsive pacing
An active implantable medical device for cardiac resynchronization therapy with effort based rate-responsive pacing is described. The device calculates a rate-responsive stimulation frequency based on output signal of an effort sensor between a base frequency (fbase) and a maximum frequency (fmax). The device determines a target stimulation frequency based on the difference between a first frequency and the maximum frequency (fmax). The first frequency is the higher frequency of the base frequency (fbase) and the spontaneous frequency of the patient. The device calculates a stimulation frequency that has an immediate increase in the pacing rate from the higher of the initial value of the current stimulation frequency, or the spontaneous frequency to the target stimulation frequency, within a predetermined time, or a predetermined number of cardiac cycles. A plurality of consecutive effort zones (Z1-Z4) is defined over the extent of the dynamic range of the output signal of the effort sensor. |
| US08391975B2 |
Telemetry of combined endocavitary atrial and ventricular signals
A method for use in an implantable medical device system, comprising: selecting a first sensing electrode operatively disposed in a first heart chamber; setting a first sensing window corresponding to cardiac electrical events occurring in a second heart chamber; enabling a first sense amplifier coupled to the first sensing electrode during the first sensing window; sensing a first signal corresponding to cardiac electrical events occurring in the second heart chamber during the first sensing window using the first sensing electrode; and transmitting the first signal from an implantable medical device to an external monitor. |
| US08391972B2 |
Safety control system for implantable neural stimulator
A neural stimulation system includes a safety control system that prevents delivery of neural stimulation pulses from causing potentially harmful effects. The neural stimulation pulses are delivered to one or more nerves to control the physiological functions regulated by the one or more nerves. Examples of such harmful effects include unintended effects in physiological functions associated with autonomic neural stimulation and nerve injuries caused by excessive delivery of the neural stimulation pulses. |
| US08391961B2 |
Spectral imaging
Apparatus and methods are provided for the imaging of structures in deep tissue within biological specimens, using spectral imaging to provide highly sensitive detection. By acquiring data that provides a plurality of images of the sample with different spectral weightings, and subsequent spectral analysis, light emission from a target compound is separated from autofluorescence in the sample. With the autofluorescence reduced or eliminated, an improved measurement of the target compound is obtained. |
| US08391958B2 |
Method and arrangement relating to testing objects
The invention relates to an arrangement (100, 200, 500) and a method for testing a hold (120, 220, 520), such as an implant, attached to an object (130, 230, 530), such as a bone, the method comprising the steps of: bringing a member (110, 210, 510) into contact with said hold, contactlessly detecting at least one resonance frequency of said member (110, 210, 510) when it is in contact with said hold (120, 220, 510); and interpreting the detected resonance frequency in terms of the degree of attachment of the hold with respect to the object. |
| US08391956B2 |
Medical device location systems, devices and methods
Methods, devices and systems for one or both of two- or three-dimensional location of the disposition of a sensor coil in a subject including: an array of electromagnetic drive coil sets, each set having two or three dimensionally oriented drive coils; a sensor coil being electromagnetically communicative with the array of electromagnetic drive coil sets; and, a system controller communicative with and adapted to energize one or more of the electromagnetic coils in the array of electromagnetic drive coil sets, the energizing of the one or more of the electromagnetic coils including one or more of energizing the coils singly, or in pairs of x-y and y-z or x-z coils, or in triplets of x-y-z coils while measuring the response of the sensor coil; whereby the system uses the measurements of the responses of the sensor coil to calculate the location and orientation of the sensor coil relative to said drive coil sets. |
| US08391953B2 |
Energy transfer amplification for intrabody devices
Apparatus for driving current in a power circuit of a medical device inserted into a body of a subject includes a power transmitter, which is adapted to generate, in a vicinity of the body, an electromagnetic field having a predetermined frequency capable of inductively driving the current in the power circuit. A passive energy transfer amplifier, having a resonant response at the frequency of the electromagnetic field is placed in proximity to the medical device so as to enhance the current driven in the power circuit by the electromagnetic field. |
| US08391952B2 |
Coil arrangement for an electromagnetic tracking system
An electromagnetic tracking system comprising at least one electromagnetic transmitter assembly or at least one electromagnetic receiver assembly with two coils attachable to a trackable object to be tracked. The two coils including a first large coil and a second small coil, with the second small coil positioned asymmetrically with respect to the first large coil. The electromagnetic tracking system enables a medical professional to continually track the position and orientation of the object during a medical procedure. |
| US08391951B2 |
Magnetic resonance imaging apparatus and program
A magnetic resonance imaging apparatus includes a gradient coil for applying a gradient pulse, a transmitting coil for transmitting an RF pulse, and a coil control device for controlling the gradient coil and the transmitting coil in such a manner that a pulse sequence for (A) making an absolute value of longitudinal magnetization of a first background tissue and an absolute value of longitudinal magnetization of a second background tissue longer in T1 value than the first background tissue smaller than an absolute value of longitudinal magnetization of body fluid of a subject, (B) acquiring magnetic resonance signals from the subject, and (C) flipping transverse magnetization of the second background tissue to longitudinal magnetization is repeatedly executed. |
| US08391947B2 |
Catheter with sheet array of electrodes
A medical device has a flexible elongated body, a handle connected to the elongated body, at least one spine connected to the elongated body, and a flexible sheet attached to the at least one spine. The flexible sheet has a plurality of electrodes thereon, wherein the flexible sheet and the plurality of electrodes define a mapping assembly for mapping electrical information in tissue, and wherein the at least one spine and the flexible sheet is movable from a collapsed configuration to a deployed configuration. |
| US08391944B2 |
Implantable medical device with adaptive signal processing and artifact cancellation
A medical device includes one or more sensors used to acquire a multi-dimensional signal. In one embodiment, principal component analysis is performed on the multi-dimensional signal to produce signal data. The principal component analysis results are used to cancel signal artifact in one embodiment. A medical device controller produces one of a therapy control and a diagnostic output in response to the signal data. |
| US08391943B2 |
Multi-wavelength photon density wave system using an optical switch
Multi-wavelength photon density wave (PDW) medical systems, methods, and devices are provided. In one embodiment, a multi-wavelength system may include a sensor, a sensor cable, and a patient monitor. The sensor may have an emitter and a detector configured to pass a multi-wavelength PDW input signal into a patient and receive a resulting multi-wavelength PDW output signal. The sensor cable may couple to the sensor and include two optical cables for transmitting and receiving the multi-wavelength PDW signals. The patient monitor may couple to the sensor cable and generate several single-wavelength PDW input signals by modulating a plurality of light sources. The monitor may include an optical switch configured to time-division multiplex the several single-wavelength PDW wave input signals by selecting one of the single-wavelength PDW signals at one time to produce a multi-wavelength PDW signal which is output from the monitor to the sensor via the sensor cable. |
| US08391942B2 |
Method and apparatus for determining cerebral desaturation in patients undergoing deep hypothermic circulatory arrest
A method and apparatus for determining cerebral oxygen saturation in a subject is provided. The method comprises the steps of: a) determining tissue oxygen saturation values using a NIRS type oximeter over a period of time; b) modeling a rate of change in the tissue oxygen saturation values; and c) determining an amount of time until a predetermined tissue oxygen saturation value is reached using the modeling of the tissue oxygen saturation values. |
| US08391941B2 |
System and method for memory switching for multiple configuration medical sensor
A system is provided that includes a monitor, a multiple configuration sensor having a first configuration and a second configuration, and a sensor connector. The sensor connector includes a first memory device and a second memory device, such that the first memory device is accessible by the monitor in the first sensor configuration and the second memory device is accessible by the monitor in the second sensor configuration. Another system is provided that includes a sensor adaptor having a processing circuit that reads a memory of a multiple configuration sensor and provides a first set of calibration data of a first sensor configuration and a second set of calibration data for a second sensor configuration. |
| US08391938B2 |
Transportable rapid deployment superconducting transformer
A transformer including: a transformer housing having an interior, a superconducting wire winding disposed within the housing interior, a dry dielectric medium in contact with a superconducting wire winding, and a temperature control device in heat exchange communication with the dry dielectric medium, adapted to utilize a gaseous medium for controlling the temperature of the superconducting wire winding. |
| US08391936B2 |
Magnetic levitation device
A magnetic levitation device includes at least two superconductor molded bodies with stored magnetic field configurations above a magnetic guide track. The at least two superconductor molded bodies have at least one of a stored magnetic field configuration with different vertical spacing from the guide track and a stored magnetic field configuration with different horizontal position with respect to the guide track. The at least two superconductor molded bodies are mechanically held in a position deviating from their stored position above the guide track and connected to one another. This abstract is not intended to define the invention disclosed in the specification, nor intended to limit the scope of the invention in any way. |
| US08391934B1 |
Customized hardware selection for a mobile phone
A mobile phone is provided. The mobile phone includes a shell and a hardware component coupled to the shell, wherein the hardware component is selected from a set of interchangeable components having substantially the same size but different functions. |
| US08391929B2 |
User interface
An electronic device comprising: a display; a housing enclosing the display and defining an exterior surface region adjacent to the display, the exterior surface region having a plurality of surface zones indicated thereon, the surface zones being capable of being written on by a user to save a written marking thereon; a memory; and user input apparatus; the device having: a first mode in which the device performs a function in respect of a subject entity and in which in response to operation of the user input apparatus to indicate one of the zones the device stores the entity in the memory in association with that zone; and a second mode in which in response to selection of a zone by means of the user input apparatus the device performs a function in respect of an entity stored in association with the selected zone. |
| US08391928B2 |
Simultaneously multi-networked handheld multimedia gateways
A user may simultaneously access sources of multimedia information via multiple wireless networks using a handheld multimedia gateway. A user interface may support the selection of information services that are each provided separate, but possibly overlapping, viewing spaces. Circuitry in the multimedia gateway manages the operation of the multiple wireless communication paths, and enables the display of visual information through two or more display devices. The user may customize the display, the size, and the location within a display of regions in which the information is presented. |
| US08391927B2 |
Multiple mode RF transceiver and antenna structure
An antenna structure includes first and second antennas. The first antenna has a first geometry corresponding to a first frequency. The second antenna has a second geometry corresponding to a second frequency. The second antenna is proximal to the first antenna and utilizes electrical-magnetic properties of the first antenna to transceive signals at the second frequency. |
| US08391924B2 |
Add-on device for a network device
A system for connecting an add-on device to a network device is provided. The system includes a network device, an additional network module, and a socket cover. The additional network module may be disposed in an add-on module of the network device. The add-on module may be separate from a network module that supports a network device circuit of the network device. The socket cover may include an add-on device that is operated by the additional network module. |
| US08391922B2 |
Subscriber identification module card and portable wireless terminal using the same
A Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card for a portable wireless terminal is provided. The SIM card includes a SIM contact pad group which is exposed to an outer surface of the SIM card, and is electrically connected when the SIM card is placed in the portable terminal so as to identify subscriber information; a battery cell which is embedded in the SIM card, and is electrically connected when the SIM card is placed in the portable terminal so as to be used as an auxiliary power source; and a battery contact pad group which is electrically connected to the battery cell and is exposed to the outer surface of the SIM card; and a mode change element which is disposed to a lateral side of the SIM card and by which either an auxiliary battery function or a SIM function is selected by a user's manipulation. |
| US08391920B1 |
Communication device
The communication device remotely controlling system which remotely controls a communication device comprising a voice communication implementer, a stereo audio data output implementer, a photo quality setting implementer, and a multiple language implementer. |
| US08391919B2 |
Personal lifestyle device
A method and apparatus for advertising a service on a wireless device. The method includes: storing authentication information in the wireless device; using the authentication information to establish communication between the wireless device and a service provider; and subsequent to the communication being established between the wireless device and the service provider, advertising, on the wireless device, context-specific information about a service associated with the service provider based on at least one of (i) an ambient temperature, (ii) a body temperature of a user of the wireless device, and (iii) a heart rate of the user. |
| US08391916B2 |
Wireless communication terminal apparatus and computer readable medium therefor
A wireless communication terminal having a radio section that performs switching between a first communication system and a second communication system to execute wireless communication by a shared antenna, and a control section for controlling the wireless communication executed by the radio section, wherein the control section monitors an incoming call in the second communication system during communication by the first communication system, when the incoming call is detected, the control section switches from the first communication system to the second communication system for a predetermined first time in which communication by the first communication system is not disconnected, and after the predetermined first time elapses, the control section switches from the second communication system to the first communication system to resume the communication by the first communication system. |
| US08391913B2 |
Software-defined radio support in sequestered partitions
A software-defined radio (SDR) capability may be provided in a general purpose, many core processing system by sequestering one or more partitions running on one or more cores and instantiating a communications capability by having discrete SDR functions performed by the sequestered partitions. Each SDR module embodied in a sequestered partition may be independently upgraded without modifying the hardware of the underlying processing system. By executing SDR modules in cores not accessible by application programs and/or an operating system (OS), a better Quality of Service (QoS) may be provided for wireless communications on the general purpose, multi-core processing system. An embodiment comprises isolating a core of a many core processing system as a sequestered partition, loading a software-defined radio module onto the core, and executing the software-defined module to implement wireless communications. |
| US08391909B2 |
Social networking system which provides notification of user location based on distance
Systems, methods, apparatus and software have been discovered for use by individual users to monitor the geographic location of other people or assets with some relationship to the user. Once some manner of location information is determined, users have the ability to describe that location in various ways and control how that information is shared with other users. |
| US08391906B2 |
Basing neighbor list updates on a radio link failure
Aspects relate to allowing a mobile device to discover missing neighbor cell relations when there is a radio link failure. At substantially the same time as connecting to a new cell that utilizes the same radio link technology, the failure is reported. If a connection is reestablished with a cell that utilizes a different radio link technology, the radio link failure information (and related missing neighbor information) is retained and reported later when a connection with a cell that utilizes the same radio link technology is established. |
| US08391901B2 |
System and method of controlling delivery of multimedia messages
A system and method concerned with supporting or implementing functionality to provide efficient delivery of MMS messages to a plurality of recipients. In at least one arrangement the delivery status of already transmitted MMS messages is monitored; for a plurality of messages having a delivery status indicating that the messages are undeliverable to the intended recipient, a new set of recipients is selected and MMS messages transmitted to the new set of recipients. In this way delivery of a desired quota of deliverable MMS messages is effected with greater efficiency than is possible with conventional methods. |
| US08391900B2 |
Method for operating a cellular telecommunications network, and method for operating a personal cellular telecommunications device
For use in a cellular telecommunications network including a plurality of individually addressable Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) providing bidirectional signal coverage over a predefined geographical area, capable of transmitting Point-To-MultiPoint (PTMP) messages over a Point-To-MultiPoint Service (PTMPS) functionality, and capable of transmitting Point-To-Point (PTP) messages, streaming of a substantially continuous stream of mostly different content, at least some interactive display messages on at least one personal cellular telecommunications device prior to their automatic discarding irrespective of their having been displayed or not. |
| US08391898B2 |
System and method for enhanced message routing
Coincident with the evolution, maturation, etc. of (e.g., Short Message Service, Multimedia Message Service, IP Multimedia Subsystem, etc.) wireless messaging ecosystems an infrastructure that provides, in new and creative ways, enhanced message routing capabilities. The dynamic, flexible, and extensible nature of the enhanced message routing capabilities support, among other things, very large volumes of messaging traffic, numerous billing paradigms, different Quality of Service levels and possible charges for same, improved troubleshooting and problem investigation capabilities, etc. The infrastructure may optionally leverage the capabilities of a centrally-located Messaging Inter-Carrier Vendor. |
| US08391896B2 |
Method and apparatus for providing a geo-predictive streaming service
A method for providing geo-predictive streaming services may include receiving, at a mobile terminal, an indication of network performance parameters associated with a corresponding time and location of a projected route of the mobile terminal, determining, at the mobile terminal, whether a portion of the projected route corresponds to an outage event with respect to data being streamed to the mobile terminal, and, in response to a determination that the outage event corresponds to the portion of the projected route, causing communication of at least one of a geo-predictive next application data unit and an estimated capacity vector to a streaming server to a streaming server providing the data being streamed to cause a modification to a data transmission rate at which data is to be streamed to the mobile terminal. A corresponding computer program product, system and apparatus are also provided. |
| US08391895B2 |
Method and apparatus for providing location-based information
A method and apparatus for providing location-based information to a wireless communication device is disclosed. The wireless communication device receives its geographic position information and provides its geographic position information to a web server while accessing a web service provided by the web server. Based on the geographic position information received from the wireless communication device, the web server provides geographic coordinates of locations relevant to the web service in the form of web geo-cookies. The wireless communication device maintains a database of the received geographic coordinates. When the wireless communication accesses a geographic map of a route or region, the wireless communication device determines if the geographic coordinates in the database lie within boundaries of the accessed map. The geographic coordinates that lie within boundaries of the received map are annotated and displayed on the wireless communication device. |
| US08391893B2 |
Devices, systems and methods for SMS-based location querying
The disclosure provides devices, systems, and methods for determining a position of a mobile communication device by communicating with the device via a Short Messaging System (SMS). A location query is submitted to an SMS center, which formats a first SMS message for delivery to the device. The first SMS message is delivered to a designated SMS port on the device. A location logic on the device receives the SMS via the SMS port, extracts the location query, and attempts to calculate a location from received satellite signals. The calculated location is submitted back to the SMS server, either to be forwarded to the location server, or to a network element or device that submitted the location query to the SMS center in the first place. Assistance data may additionally be delivered to the mobile communication device via the SMS port. |
| US08391891B2 |
System and method for providing location information for a mobile handset
A system that facilitates determination of a location of a mobile handset. The system includes three or more location measurement units that each correspond to a sector of the cell site. The location measurement units transmit location related information to a computation component. The computation component receives the location related information and performs a triangulation calculation on the information to define the location of the mobile handset. |
| US08391890B2 |
Method and apparatus for geo-locating mobile station
A method for estimating a geographic location of a mobile station within a coverage area of a wireless network includes: determining a radial distance of the mobile station from a serving base station based on a round trip measurement and calculating an angular position of the mobile station in relation to the radial distance based on a first signal strength measurement, a second signal strength measurement, and an angular position reference that extends outward from the serving base station. The signal strength measurements representative of power characteristics of RF signals received by the mobile station from first and second sector antennas of the serving base station. An apparatus associated therewith includes a distance module to perform the determining and an angular position module to perform the calculating. The apparatus may be implemented in a base station, a geo-location service node, a network management node, or other communication nodes. |
| US08391884B2 |
System and method for managing created location contexts in a location server
A system and method for handling a location request for a target device using a location uniform resource identifier (“URI”). A location request may be received for a target device from a requesting entity, the target device having a location context information represented by a location URI and including starting information, initial validating information and policy information. The form of the location URI may be verified by a location information server (“LIS”), the form including at least an encrypted context string. This string may be extracted and decrypted by the LIS and it may be determined whether the request can continue as a function of the policy information. If the request can continue, then an estimated location of the target device may be determined as a function of the starting information. Additional validating information may be collected and correlated the initial validating information. If these validating information correlate, then the estimated location of the target device may be provided to the requesting entity. |
| US08391881B2 |
Method and apparatus to operate a cognitive radio in a crowded collaborative system
In a cognitive radio environment with at least three cognitive radio terminals, terminals 1 and 2 have an active link. Terminal 3 estimates the link quality, and if it is deemed good terminal 3 transmits over the frequency band in use on the link. Terminal 3 then monitors the link between terminals 1 and 2 to quantify its interference on it. If no interference is detected terminal 3 can increase its power. If terminals 1 and 2 change their modulation terminal 3 deems its interference too severe and either reduces power or finds another frequency band. Terminal 3 can use blind modulation detection for the link between terminals 1 and 2, and estimate link quality based on the type of modulation in use. |
| US08391875B1 |
Method and system for extending MIMO wireless service
Disclosed herein is a method and system for extending MIMO service in a wireless communications system. The system comprises a base station, a remote system, and a host system communicatively coupled to the base station and the remote system. The base station is configured to generate, from a baseband signal, a downlink signal comprising a plurality of downlink signal streams, including at least a first downlink signal stream and a second downlink signal stream. Accordingly, the base station may include a first and a second antenna that are configured to transmit the first and second downlink signal streams, respectively. The remote system provides wireless service in a remote coverage area. Further, the remote system is configured to transmit a downlink signal as a plurality of downlink signal streams. The host system is communicatively coupled to the base station and to the remote system and configured to relay the downlink signal streams from the base station to the remote system. |
| US08391871B2 |
Method of handling proximity information transmission and related communication device
A method of handling proximity information transmission for a mobile device in a wireless communication system is disclosed. The method comprises initiating a handover procedure triggered by receiving a handover command or an radio resource control (RRC) connection re-establishment procedure, detecting a closed subscriber group (CSG) cell of a whitelist in the mobile device, wherein the whitelist provides a list of accessible CSG cells for the mobile device, and determining whether to perform the proximity information transmission according to an RRC message received from a network of the wireless communication system, wherein the RRC message includes a configuration of the proximity information transmission. |
| US08391861B2 |
Flexible sharing of measurement gaps
The present invention relates to a method, apparatuses, a system, and a computer program product for generating measurement gaps in a data transfer between a wireless terminal device and a wireless access network. A sharing indicator is signaled from the wireless access network to the wireless terminal device, and is used at the wireless terminal device to control allocation ratios of the measurement gaps to different radio access technologies. |
| US08391858B1 |
Mitigating the impact of handoffs through comparison of non-preferred wireless coverage areas
Methods and devices for mitigating the impact of handoffs to non-preferred wireless coverage areas are presented. In particular, a RAN may determine that a first wireless communication device (WCD) and a second WCD are contending for a resource of a preferred wireless coverage area, and that both of the WCDs are likely to be handed off to different non-preferred wireless coverage areas if they are not granted the resource. Both WCDs may be subscribed to a home wireless service provider that also controls and/or operates the preferred wireless coverage area. The RAN may compare the roaming fees of a first non-preferred wireless coverage area with the roaming fees of a second non-preferred wireless coverage area. Based on the outcome of this comparison, the RAN may allocate the resource to the WCD that would likely incur higher roaming fees to the home wireless service provider if that WCD were to roam to a non-preferred wireless coverage area. |
| US08391855B2 |
Mail operation apparatus with short range wireless communications function
Immediately after making connection of a Bluetooth communications link with a cellular phone, an in-vehicle handsfree apparatus makes connection of a handsfree phone call protocol while not making connection of a massage access profile. When a start trigger that an arrival of an electronic mail from a communications network then arises in the cellular phone, the in-vehicle handsfree apparatus makes connection of the message access profile with the cellular phone, thereby enabling a transfer of information of the mail from the cellular phone 3 by using a data transfer function of the message access profile if the cellular phone undergoing the arrival of the mail is a model compliant with the message access profile. |
| US08391848B2 |
Telecommunication call support for mobile devices with presence features
A system and method for achieving or assisting dynamic transfer of call support information across a network including at least a wireless portion coupled to a wireless communication device. The call support information providing the wireless communication device with updated caller identification and status or presence information by way of a service or server provisioned product and method. |
| US08391847B2 |
Location blocking service from a web advertiser
Location-blocking and identity-blocking services that can be commercially offered by a service promoter, e.g., a cellular service provider or a web advertiser. In the identity-blocking service, the service promoter may disclose the current physical location of a mobile subscriber (i.e., a cellular phone operator) to a third party (e.g., a web advertiser) subscribing to the identity-blocking service. However, the service promoter may not send any identity information for the mobile subscriber to the third party. On the other hand, in the location-blocking service, the service promoter may disclose the mobile subscriber's identity information to the third party, but not the current physical location of the mobile subscriber. Blocking of the mobile subscriber's identity or location information may be desirable for privacy reasons, to comply with a government regulation, or to implement a telecommunication service option selected by the mobile subscriber. |
| US08391845B2 |
System and method of presenting entities of standard applications in wireless devices
A method of presenting data entities of standard device applications in wireless devices is provided. Component-based applications are hosted on a wireless device providing an application runtime environment for hosting at least one component-based application. Component definitions are hosted for developing the component-based application. A standard data component implements a standard data component definition; the standard data component definition is embedded into the component-based application definition during development. The standard data component providing access to a standard device data entity by invoking device dependent APIs the standard data component presenting the standard device data entity as a user defined data component. The application runtime environment automatically making functionality available of the user defined data components available to standard data component. |
| US08391844B2 |
Voicemail systems and methods
Systems, methods and Computer readable media for providing or managing or using voicemails are described. In one embodiment, a method includes receiving, at a first data processing system, data representing an expiration time of a voicemail left for a user of the first data processing system and storing the data representing the expiration time for later use by the first data processing system. Systems, media, and other methods are also described. |
| US08391843B2 |
Method for controlling user interface menu, and mobile terminal and device for providing application service using the same
A method of controlling a user interface menu and a mobile communication terminal and a device for providing application service are disclosed. According to one embodiment of the present invention, the method of controlling the user interface menu can include receiving user interface menu forming information from the application service providing device if a call is connected between the mobile communication terminal and the application service providing device through the mobile communication system; extracting menu component data corresponding to a set user interface menu if the menu forming information; and combining the extracted menu component data and forming the user interface menu to be provided per the service attribute. |
| US08391838B2 |
Secure mobile communication system and method
A security level indicator for a mobile communication device is adapted to alert a user of a device when the weighed combination of security-related parameters reaches a predefined level. |
| US08391832B2 |
Systems, methods, and computer program products for providing service credit to customer accounts in a wireless communications service network
Systems, methods, and computer program products use combinations of international mobile equipment identity (IMEI), international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI), and account information to determine if a customer is eligible for service credit in near real-time. The customer needs an active account prior to inserting a subscriber identity module (SIM) into a device and powering on the device for the system to determine credit eligibility. No further customer action is required. The credit application process determines credit eligibility based upon device credit eligibility, account tenure, and/or credit rules, and applies the credit to the customer's account. The customer may be proactively notified when the credit is applied. The credit and tenure rules may be changed as the industry and business needs change to remain competitive in the industry. The SIM used is configured with software to lock the SIM to the device upon first power-on. |
| US08391828B2 |
Interworking procedure with external network in wireless LAN and message format for the same
Provided are an interworking procedure with an external network in a WLAN, a station supporting the interworking procedure, and a message format for the interworking procedure. In the interworking procedure, a non-AP station transmits a request message which includes an advertisement protocol ID set to a value indicating native query protocol and a native query information ID set to a value indicating emergency call number information. And the non-AP station receives from an access point (AP) a response message including zero or more emergency call numbers in response to the request message. |
| US08391825B2 |
System and methods for enhancing the experience of spectators attending a live sporting event, with user authentication capability
A handheld electronic device for use at a venue hosting a live sporting event, having a receiver for receiving a wireless RF transmission conveying a plurality of video streams derived from video cameras filming the live sporting event, a display and a user interface for selecting a video stream among the plurality of video streams to be displayed on the display. The handheld electronic device is capable to acquire a locked mode of operation and an unlocked mode of operation, in the locked mode of operation the handheld electronic device being precluded from displaying the video streams to a spectator, in the unlocked mode of operation the handheld electronic device being enabled to display the video streams to the spectator, the handheld electronic device capable to acquire the unlocked mode of operation in response to reception of authentication data wirelessly transmitted to the handheld electronic device. |
| US08391817B2 |
Method of and system for tuning an antenna
A method of tuning an antenna is provided, wherein the method comprises receiving a first signal strength indicator indicating a signal strength of a first data signal transmitted by an antenna on a first frequency, receiving a second signal strength indicator indicating a signal strength of a second data signal transmitted by the antenna on a second frequency different to the first frequency, determining a tuning control signal based on the first signal strength indicator and the second signal strength indicator, and tuning the antenna based on the control signal. |
| US08391815B2 |
Radio receiver, radio communication system, radio communication method, and program
A radio receiver including a sampling unit, a provider, an arithmetic operation unit, an estimator, and a converter. The sampling unit samples a baseband signal transmitted from the radio transmitter, at a fractional multiple of a symbol rate, and generates fractional-multiple-sampling data. The provider provides reference data in which the known symbol sequence arranged in a frame by the radio transmitter is interpolated at a rate of the fractional multiple. The arithmetic operation unit performs an arithmetic operation for evaluation data in which the degree of consistency in waveform between the fractional-multiple-sampling data and the reference data is evaluated. The estimator estimates a reference timing from a shift amount at which the evaluation data shows the maximum degree of consistency in waveform. The converter converts the fractional-multiple-sampling data by using the reference timing as a reference thereby recovering the data having the symbol rate. |
| US08391812B2 |
Method and system for amplifier control
A method is disclosed wherein a power level indicating a level of transmission power from an amplifier is provided. An indication of at least one of channel, channel bandwidth, OOB spectral requirements, spectral mask requirements, EVM, modulation rate, and modulation type is also provided. A control signal for controlling one of a bias current provided to the amplifier and a matching circuit for matching an output port of at least a stage of the amplifier is generated, the control signal determined in dependence upon the power level and the at least an indication. Then the one of the bias current and the matching circuit is adjusted in accordance with the control signal. |
| US08391811B2 |
Input-power overload-protection circuit
Embodiments of circuits, apparatuses, and systems for a protection circuit having a control element with an attenuation state to protect against overload conditions. Other embodiments may be described and claimed. |
| US08391810B2 |
Method and system for measuring and optimizing integrated antenna performance
A method and system for wireless communication is provided and may include transmitting FM radio signals utilizing antenna configurations in a wireless device including a frequency modulation (FM) radio transmitter, an FM radio receiver, and one or more other receivers. The transmitter may be calibrated based on a signal received from a second wireless device via the other receivers. The second wireless device may include an FM radio receiver and corresponding other transmitters that may utilize other wireless protocols. The signal received at the wireless device may be generated at the second wireless device via the other transmitters. A frequency of the transmitted FM radio signals may be varied, and may be utilized adjust the antenna configurations. An impedance of the antenna configurations may be matched based on the frequency variation. A capacitive and/or inductive load for the matching of the impedance of the antenna configurations may be programmably adjusted. |
| US08391808B2 |
Method and system for estimating and compensating non-linear distortion in a transmitter using calibration
Aspects of a method and system for estimating and compensating for non-linear distortion in a transmitter using calibration are presented. Aspects of the system may include one more circuits that may enable estimation, within a single IC device, of distortion in output signals generated by a transmitter circuit. The circuitry may enable compensation of the estimated distortion by predistorting subsequent input signals. The transmitter circuit may generate subsequent output signals based on the predistorted subsequent input signals. |
| US08391806B2 |
Wireless communications device with an adjustable impedance matching network and associated methods
A mobile wireless communications device includes a portable housing, a transmitter carried by the portable housing and configured to modulate an input signal, and an adjustable impedance matching network coupled downstream from the transmitter. An antenna is coupled downstream from the adjustable impedance matching network, and a non-directional coupler is coupled between the adjustable impedance matching network and the antenna. A feedback receiver is coupled to the non-directional coupler to generate a feedback signal. A controller is configured to control the adjustable impedance matching network based upon the input signal and the feedback signal. |
| US08391805B2 |
Radio frequency switch
According to one embodiment, a semiconductor switch circuit includes a switch section, a decoder section, a DC-DC converter, a driver section, a first filter circuit, a first filter bypass circuit and a first bypass control circuit. The switch section includes an input-output terminal, radio frequency signal terminals, and semiconductor switch elements. The decoder section generates a switch control signal controlling a conduction and a non-conduction state of switch elements. The DC-DC converter generates a first potential. The driver section supplies the first and a second potential to a gate electrode of the switch elements. The first filter circuit is electrically connected between the DC-DC converter and the driver section and outputs the first potential to the driver section. The first filter bypass circuit is electrically connected with the first filter circuit. The first bypass control circuit supplies a first mode signal to the first filter bypass circuit. |
| US08391803B2 |
Device, system and method of configurable frequency signal generation
Some demonstrative embodiments include devices, systems and/or methods of configurable frequency signal generation. For example, a device may include at least one configurable local-oscillator (LO) generator to receive an input frequency signal and one or more configurable input values and to convert the input frequency signal into at least one output frequency signal according to a configurable conversion ratio, which is based on the configurable input values. |
| US08391800B2 |
Signal acquisition apparatus and method for distributed compressive sensing and joint signal recovery
Disclosed is a multiple sensor system including a plurality of different sensor devices to acquire respective signals sensed from a single signal source, and a signal acquisition apparatus to recover an original signal generated from the signal source. The signal acquisition apparatus recovers the original signal by applying joint recovery, based on characteristics and correlations between the respective sensor devices, to compressive sensing signals independently compressively sensed and transmitted from the respective sensor devices. At this time, a sensing matrix F prearranged with the respective sensor devices and channel information C between the original signal and each sensor device are used for joint recovery. |
| US08391799B2 |
Mobile communication terminal performing cell search process
A mobile communication terminal includes: an antenna that performs transmission and reception of a wireless signal; a communication unit that performs communication with a base station by establishing a wireless communication line with the base station through the antenna; a memory unit that stores synchronization information of the wireless communication line established by the communication unit; a measuring unit that measures reception power level and signal quality of the wireless signal received by the antenna; and a cell search processor that detects the base station based on the synchronization information stored in the memory unit in a case where the reception power level is larger than a predetermined value and the signal quality is lower than a predetermined signal quality threshold value. |
| US08391796B2 |
Identifying and controlling interference from wireless terminals
Apparatus and methods for power control for mitigation or control of interference in a wireless communications environment. Control techniques can consider the effect of interference on an access point and the access point can identify interfering wireless terminals and cause a message to be sent to a controlling access point of the interfering wireless terminal to cause the uplink power of the interfering wireless terminal to be adjusted. |
| US08391795B2 |
Method and device for ranking frequencies
A method and a device for ranking frequencies are provided. The method includes: acquiring the strongest m frequencies in the neighboring cells as alternative frequencies, wherein m is greater than 1; after a preset period, acquiring all the n frequencies in the current neighboring cells; acquiring a frequency with the weakest signal from the alternative frequencies as the weakest frequency; selecting any one frequency X in the n frequencies except m frequencies; comparing the frequency X with the weakest frequency, and replacing the weakest frequency with the frequency X to update the alternative frequency if a signal of the frequency X is stronger than a signal of the weakest frequency; judging whether all of the n frequencies except m frequencies are selected, if no, repeating the steps above, and if yes, outputting the alternative frequencies; ranking the alternative frequencies according to the signal intensity. |
| US08391791B2 |
Distributed sound enhancement
Sound quality is enhanced in a sound system including handsets and headsets. Handset sound enhancing algorithms are implemented in a handset. The handset automatically determines which, if any, of a plurality of headset sound enhancing algorithms are active in a headset in communication with the handset. The handset determines how to use the handset sound enhancing algorithms in a sound processing channel based on which of the headset sound enhancing algorithms are active in the headset. |
| US08391786B2 |
Motion triggered data transfer
Methods of controlling the transfer of data between devices are described in which the manner of control is determined by a movement experienced by at least one of the devices. The method involves detecting a triggering movement and determining a characteristic of this movement. The transfer of data is then controlled based on the characteristic which has been identified. |
| US08391783B2 |
Communication apparatus
The communication apparatus includes a capacitive coupling electrode which is capacitively coupled with an adjacent conductor or an adjacent dielectric and which operates the conductor or the dielectric as an antenna element for electromagnetic waves of a predetermined frequency, and a matching circuit which is connected to the capacitive coupling electrode and which matches impedance of the conductor or the dielectric to be operated as the antenna element for the electromagnetic waves of the predetermined frequency when the conductor or the dielectric is adjacent and capacitively coupled therewith. |
| US08391782B2 |
Wireless transmission of signals
A system for wireless transmission of signals is provided. The system includes a mobile operator unit that is operable to transmit signals; and a base unit of a safety-critical device that is operable to receive signals from the mobile operator unit. The mobile operator unit is operable to categorize the signals to be transmitted as safety-relevant control signals and non-critical communication signals. Only the safety-relevant control signals are checked for error-free transmission. The non-critical communication signals are transmitted without error safety checking. |
| US08391780B2 |
System and method of satellite communication that reduces the doppler frequency shift of the satellite signals
A system and method of communicating signals is provided. The system includes a plurality of satellites, at least one receiver, and at least one satellite uplink station. The plurality of satellites include at least one active satellite. The at least one receiver is in communication with the plurality of satellites, and receives a signal from the at least one active satellite. The at least one satellite uplink station is in communication with the plurality of satellites, and transmits the signal and alters a frequency of the signal based upon a location of the at least one active satellite to reduce a Doppler frequency shift when activating and deactivating the plurality of satellites. |
| US08391777B2 |
Methods and equipment for performing channel aware relays in an enhanced relay cluster
This invention provides a type of method used for providing channel aware relays in enhanced relay clusters. This method is based on the Centralized Cluster Relay Implementation Proposal, and is implemented by transferring MMR-BS channel information based functions to RS. Specifically, in this invention, RS receives authorization from the MMR-BS to receive the channel information from the MS or next single-hop RS point within its single-hop range, and, after performing applicable channel aware relays, reports the processing result to MMR-BS; MMR-BS configures the signal according to the processing result and joins RS to transmit the control signal to the cluster MS. Using the method provided by this invention can reduce the channel overhead between MMR-BS and RS, and at the same time ensure that the RS composition is simple, and the production costs are low. |
| US08391774B2 |
System and methods for enhancing the experience of spectators attending a live sporting event, with automated video stream switching functions
A handheld electronic device for use at a venue hosting a live sporting event, having a receiver for receiving a wireless RF transmission conveying a plurality of video streams derived from video cameras filming the live sporting event, a display and a user interface for selecting a video stream among the plurality of video streams to be displayed on the display. The handheld electronic device is capable to acquire a locked mode of operation and an unlocked mode of operation, in the locked mode of operation the handheld electronic device being precluded from displaying the video streams to a spectator, in the unlocked mode of operation the handheld electronic device being enabled to display the video streams to the spectator, the handheld electronic device capable to acquire the unlocked mode of operation in response to reception of authentication data wirelessly transmitted to the handheld electronic device. |
| US08391773B2 |
System and methods for enhancing the experience of spectators attending a live sporting event, with content filtering function
A handheld electronic device for use at a venue hosting a live sporting event, having a receiver for receiving a wireless RF transmission conveying a plurality of video streams derived from video cameras filming the live sporting event, a display and a user interface for selecting a video stream among the plurality of video streams to be displayed on the display. The handheld electronic device is capable to acquire a locked mode of operation and an unlocked mode of operation, in the locked mode of operation the handheld electronic device being precluded from displaying the video streams to a spectator, in the unlocked mode of operation the handheld electronic device being enabled to display the video streams to the spectator, the handheld electronic device capable to acquire the unlocked mode of operation in response to reception of authentication data wirelessly transmitted to the handheld electronic device. |
| US08391771B2 |
Order-based human interactive proofs (HIPs) and automatic difficulty rating of HIPs
The present invention involves a system and method that facilitate identifying human interaction by utilizing HIPs such as order-based HIPs and determining a difficulty rating of any type of HIPs in an automated fashion. Order-based HIPs require a user to identify elements in the sequence as well as to identify a correct order of the elements in the sequence. The invention involves presenting a user with at least two HIPs such that the HIP can be of known and/or unknown difficulty. A user that correctly answers the HIP of known difficulty gains access to the HIP-controlled resource, action or application. The user's response to the HIP of unknown difficulty can then be examined and employed to determine whether that HIP is too difficult for humans to solve. Alternatively, at least one HIP can be presented. Difficulty of individual HIP parameters can also be determined. |
| US08391770B2 |
Measuring device of recording medium length, image forming apparatus, and computer readable medium
A measuring device of a length of a recording material includes: a rotary unit that rotates while coming into contact with the recording material; a pulse signal output unit that outputs a pulse signal in response to a rotation angle of the rotary unit; first and second detection units that detect the recording material; and a calculation unit that calculates a length of the recording material. The calculation unit calculates a piece of the length of the recording material corresponding to a time below pulse interval of the pulse signal and then calculates the total length in the transport direction of the recording material. |
| US08391766B2 |
Fixing device and image forming apparatus incorporating same
A fixing device includes a first member. The first member extends along a first longitudinal axis, and has an external surface whose thickness varies along the first longitudinal axis to define at least one first convex portion and at least one first concave portion. A thickness of the first convex portion is larger than a thickness of the first concave portion. A heating source is disposed in the first member. The heating temperature of an inner circumference side of the first convex portion is higher than the heating temperature of the inner circumference side of the first concave portion. |
| US08391760B2 |
Belt member and image forming apparatus
The endless belt member which is rotationally moved as being tensioned by a plurality of tension members and which bears a toner image includes at least a base layer, a surface layer arranged on the outer circumference of the base layer, and a rib restricting movement of the belt member in the width direction intersecting to a rotational direction of the belt member, and the surface layer is harder than that of the base layer and an edge of the surface layer in the width direction of the belt is arranged at the inner side in the width direction from the rib. |
| US08391756B2 |
Image forming apparatus having plurality of image transfer units with stable image transfers
In an image forming apparatus using an intermediate transfer tandem method, image forming unit is divided into two parts and toner images superimposed on an intermediate transfer belt included in one of the image forming unit is once secondary transferred onto toner images superimposed on an intermediate transfer belt included in the other image forming unit. Then the secondary transferred images are collectively transferred (tertiary transferred) onto a recording material at once. |
| US08391743B2 |
Fixing device and image forming apparatus incorporating same
A fixing device to fix a toner image on a sheet of recording media, the fixing device includes a fixing rotary member to heat the toner image on the sheet of the recording media, a pressure rotary member pressed against the fixing rotary member, a conveyance guide member arranged to a fixing nip at the upstream side of a conveyance direction of the sheet to support the sheet going to the fixing nip, a scraper arranged to the conveyance guide member at the opposite side on the basis of the conveyance direction. The end of the conveyance guide member contacts with the scraper, when the conveyance guide member turns on a rotary axis of the guide member. |
| US08391742B2 |
Image forming apparatus having detachable developing device
At least one of driving motors that drive a developing device independently of each other is provided on a door capable of opening and closing to allow the developing device to be attached to or detached from a main body of an apparatus. An electrical contact portion that can be electrically connected to or disconnected from an electrical circuit provided in the main body is provided for the driving motor provided on the door. |
| US08391741B2 |
Image forming system
An image forming system is provided with an Image Forming Operation Unit, an Air Cleaning Operation Unit, a power source, and a Control Unit. The Control Unit has a coordinated OFF control function of coordinating a first power supply OFF control for turning off power supply from the power source to the Image Forming Operation Unit and a second power supply OFF control for turning off power supply from the power source to the Air Cleaning Operation Unit, and the coordinated OFF control function is configured to execute the second power supply OFF control when a preset time period elapses after executing the first power supply OFF control. Also, in the image forming system, an air cleaning operation of an air cleaning apparatus is stopped when an image forming apparatus is set to an a night mode or when a fixed time period elapses after the night mode is set. The air cleaning operation of the air cleaning apparatus is restarted when the image forming apparatus is resumed from the night mode. |
| US08391738B2 |
Image heating apparatus executing a correction mode when the detected amounts of slack at different ends of a recording material are different
An image heating apparatus includes: a first heater, having a nip through which a sheet passes, for heating toner image on the sheet; a second heater, having a nip through which the sheet passes, capable of heating the toner image on the sheet having passed through the first heater; a changer for changing the feeding speed of the sheet of the second image heater; two detectors for detecting the amount of slack of the sheet at one and the other ends of the sheet when the sheet is nipped by both of the nips; an adjuster adjusting the distance between the first and second heaters at the one and the other ends; and a portion for executing a correction mode when the amounts of slack detected by the detectors are different from each other, so that after the adjuster reduces the distance, the feeding speed is controlled. |
| US08391737B2 |
Image forming apparatus
An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier, a charging device to be applied with a charging voltage, an exposure device, a developer carrier to be applied with a development voltage, a developer supplying member to be applied with a supply voltage, a developer regulation member to be applied with a regulation voltage, and a voltage controller. The developer carrier has thereon a developer having a charge amount Q/M. The charge amount Q/M satisfies 25 [μC/g]≦|Q/M|≦40 [μC/g]. The image carrier has a surface potential Vopc, the development voltage is expressed as Vdb, and the developer carrier has a developer layer potential Vtnr thereon. The developer layer potential Vtnr relative to a difference between the surface potential Vopc and the development voltage Vdb is expressed by a ratio γ. The ratio γ satisfies 0.1≦γ≦0.2. |
| US08391735B2 |
Recording material determination apparatus and image forming apparatus
A recording material determination apparatus includes a first detection unit configured to detect a characteristic corresponding to a surface condition of a recording material based on a captured image of a surface of the recording material, a second detection unit configured to detect a characteristic corresponding to a grammage of the recording material based on an ultrasonic wave detected via the recording material by irradiating the recording material with an ultrasonic wave, and a conveyance unit configured to convey the recording material. The first detection unit and the second detection unit are located opposite each other with respect to the conveyance unit. |
| US08391734B2 |
Image forming apparatus
An image forming apparatus includes a plurality of image bearing members, a developing unit, an intermediate transfer belt, a secondary transfer body, and a registration roller. A linear speed difference between the intermediate transfer belt and the secondary transfer body is variably set based on a basis weight of a recording medium. |
| US08391731B2 |
Image forming apparatus and output setting method of consumed status of consumable items of the image forming apparatus
An apparatus in which a plurality of consumable items are loadable to the apparatus. The apparatus includes a consumption status detecting unit to detect a respective consumption status of each of the consumable items, a consumption information output setting unit to set whether an exchange message for each of the consumable items is to be output, and a consumable item information output unit to output the exchange message, which is indicative of an exchange time of the respective consumable item, based on the respective consumption statuses detected by the consumption status detecting unit and the setting of the consumption information output setting unit. |
| US08391724B2 |
Optical modulator, optical transmission device, and bias adjusting method
Included are a first modulator, a second modulator, a first optical amplifier that amplifies an output of the first modulator at an amplification factor based on a first bias signal, a second optical amplifier that amplifies an output of the second modulator at an amplification factor based on a second bias signal, an optical phase adjuster that phase-rotates an output of the second optical amplifier, an optical multiplexer that multiplexes an output of the first optical amplifier with an output of the optical phase adjuster, and a second bias corrector that generates a first pulse signal and a second pulse signal, which are complementary to each other, and obtains a first bias value and a second bias value based on a change of strength of an output signal of the optical multiplexer. The first and second pulse signals are superimposed on the first and second bias signals, respectively. |
| US08391723B2 |
Ramen backpumped near-zero dispersion CWDM system and method
A system includes an optical transmitter portion, an optical fiber, an optical receiver portion, a laser portion and a combiner portion. Optical signals may be launched by the optical transmitter portion at very low power levels to avoid Raman-induced interactions between the co-propagating signals along the optical fiber. The laser portion and the combiner portion may apply a back-pumped laser signal to the optical fiber. The back-pumped laser signal provides a Raman gain that amplifies the co-propagating signals to a minimum power level such that the optical receiver portion can detect the co-propagating signals within a predetermined acceptable carrier-to-noise ratio. |
| US08391720B2 |
Apparatus for visible light communication providing intuitive information and method using the same
There is disclosed a visible light communication technology capable of intuitively recognizing a transmission speed, an alignment status, a communication status, or a transmission rate. A visible light communication apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention includes: a light source selecting unit selecting at least one light source of a plurality of light sources generating lights having different wavelengths by considering intuitive information distinguished depending on a wavelength in a visible light band; and a visible light communication unit performing visible light communication by at least one selected light source to allow the intuitive information to be recognized by a color corresponding to at least one selected light source. Accordingly, a user using the visible light communication can intuitively know an optimal communication status or transmission speed. |
| US08391717B2 |
Flow-control methods and systems for multibus systems
Methods and systems are provided that prevent buffer overflow in multibus systems. In one aspect, a method for controlling the flow of data in a multibus system includes, for each node having an associated broadcast bus in the multibus system, generating status information regarding available data storage space of each receive buffer of the node. The method includes broadcasting the status information to the other nodes connected to the broadcast bus and collecting status information regarding the available storage space of receive buffers of the other nodes connected to the broadcast bus. The method also includes determining whether or not to send data from the node to at least one of the other nodes over the broadcast bus based on the collected status information. |
| US08391700B1 |
Autofocus camera systems and methods
A method and system for facilitating focusing of a miniature camera are disclosed. One or more lenses can be attached to a MEMS stage. The MEMS stage can be moved by a Lorentz actuator. The MEMS stage can be configured to limit movement of the lens(es) to a single degree of freedom to inhibit misalignment thereof with respect to an imaging sensor. The stage can be biased to a predefined position thereof, e.g., for focus at infinity. A metal cover can inhibit electromagnetic interference and can limit movement of the lens(es). |
| US08391698B2 |
Systems and methods of generating Z-buffers for an image capture device of a camera
Systems and methods for implementing Z-buffer generation in a camera are disclosed. In an exemplary embodiment the method may comprise exposing a plurality of pixels on an image capture device to a modulated light signal reflected from different regions of a scene adjacent a camera after different delays. The method may also comprise correlating intensity of the modulated light signal received by the image capture device for each the different delays to determine a flight time of the modulated light signal. The method may also comprise generating a Z-buffer corresponding to the different regions of the scene based on the correlation. |
| US08391694B2 |
Display apparatus
A medium reproduction/display apparatus enables stable insertion of a medium to be reproduced in a medium insertion/removal manipulation and whose thickness dimension can be reduced while its depth and width dimensions are kept small. In a medium reproduction unit, a control board is disposed on the ceiling side and has a hole in a portion that would otherwise touch a medium reproduction device that is directed obliquely downward. The control board s thus located at the same height as part of the medium reproduction device. A display device is directed obliquely downward in an accommodated state. A display unit is configured in such a manner that a control board is disposed on the side of a rotary mechanism. With this configuration, the insertion and removal of an optical disc are facilitated, the thickness dimension is reduced while the depth dimension and the width dimension are kept small, and the shape of the entire apparatus is made flat to improve the design performance. |
| US08391692B2 |
High-resolution optical disk for recording stereoscopic video, optical disk reproducing device, and optical disk recording device
An optical disk for recording stereoscopic videos and high-quality video signals and a system for reproducing the videos and signals from the optical disk are made compatible with the conventional video reproducing system. A reproducing device which is used for reproducing stereoscopic videos and high-quality videos obtains stereoscopic video or high-quality videos by reproducing both first and second interleaved blocks on the optical disk in which first and second video signals are alternately recorded on the left and right sides by dividing the first and second video signals into frame groups of one GOP or more and a reproducing device which is not used for reproducing the stereoscopic videos and high-quality videos obtains ordinary videos by only reproducing either the first or second interleaved block by jumping tracks. |
| US08391689B2 |
High-resolution optical disk for recording stereoscopic video, optical disk reproducing device, and optical disk recording device
An optical disk for recording stereoscopic videos and high-quality video signals and a system for reproducing the videos and signals from the optical disk are made compatible with the conventional video reproducing system. A reproducing device which is used for reproducing stereoscopic videos and high-quality videos obtains stereoscopic video or high-quality videos by reproducing both first and second interleaved blocks on the optical disk in which first and second video signals are alternately recorded on the left and right sides by dividing the first and second video signals into frame groups of one GOP or more and a reproducing device which is not used for reproducing the stereoscopic videos and high-quality videos obtains ordinary videos by only reproducing either the first or second interleaved block by jumping tracks. |
| US08391688B2 |
Smooth rewind media playback
Systems and methods for smooth rewind playback of streamed media are provided. The media includes relatively-encoded frames and independently-encoded frames. The method includes receiving a rewind request indicating a rewind speed for rewind playback of the media, selectively dropping relatively-encoded frame(s) based on a receipt constraint and a decoding constraint to form a subset of the media, and receiving frames of the subset. The method further includes selecting, in a reverse order, a selected group of pictures (GOP) included within the subset, and decoding relatively-encoded frame(s) of the GOP in a forward sequential frame order. The method further includes caching relatively-encoded frame(s) of the GOP in the forward sequential frame order, and when caching, dropping and overwriting relatively-encoded frame(s) of the GOP selectively according to a memory constraint and/or a display constraint. The method further includes displaying relatively-encoded frame(s) of the GOP in a reverse sequential frame order. |
| US08391685B2 |
Information recording medium, information recording method, information playback method, information recording apparatus, and information playback apparatus
To relatively simplify the apparatus arrangement while supporting many variations of streams to be processed, management information of a disc includes option support information that designates a combination of a base format and one or more options. An apparatus using this disc can specify predetermined types of decode formats on the basis of the contents of this option support information. |
| US08391683B2 |
Information recording medium, information recording method, information playback method, information recording apparatus, and information playback apparatus
To relatively simplify the apparatus arrangement while supporting many variations of streams to be processed, management information of a disc includes option support information that designates a combination of a base format and one or more options. An apparatus using this disc can specify predetermined types of decode formats on the basis of the contents of this option support information. |
| US08391682B2 |
Recording method
A recording method of recording received digital broadcasting on a medium, wherein a stream other than first and last portions is recorded with a predetermined number of recording packets, and the number of recording packets of the first and last portions of an AV stream file is recorded as management data. This method, which records an AV stream basically with a specified number of recording packets in order to improve the performance of access to a medium, thereby makes it possible to improve the splitting accuracy when the user splits a program, overcoming a restriction caused by the specified number of recording packets. |
| US08391681B2 |
Information reproducing apparatus, and buffer control method and program
A picture start code detecting section 131 detects the input timing of the leading data of a picture from TS packets inputted to a buffer 11. A counter 132 outputs a timing signal at the time when the leading data of the picture has been inputted 30 times, thereby detecting the input timing of data of one second. A counter 133 counts the data amount of TS packets inputted to the buffer 11 during the period of time from the reception of a timing signal from the counter 132 to the next reception. The count value is read via a DFF 134 and inputted to a read control section 135. The read control section 135 sets the input value from the DFF 134 as the reading speed of TS packets from the buffer 11. |
| US08391679B2 |
Digital broadcast receiver and digital device system
“Reservation with a recorder” is decided by a remote control operation of a TV (101) and an operation target device is decided (102). To the decided operation target device (recorder), key transmission is carried out from the TV (103). When the recorder receiving this key transmission is on standby, a power supply is turned on (104). Next, the recorder makes display request of an electronic program guide to the TV (105). Based on this, in the TV side, input switching is performed to HDMI of which display request is made from the recorder side (106). Meanwhile, in the recorder, a program guide display operation is performed (107). Various key operations (108) performed for the TV is sent to the recorder side (109), and in the recorder, various operations in the recorder side are performed (110) in response to the various key operations. Based on the electronic program guide which is displayed, recording reservation of a desired program can be made from the TV side. When the processing of the recorder side is completed (111), a notice of completion/input switching request is provided (112) to the TV from the recorder. The TV which receives this performs input switching to return to its original state (113), and the power supply is turned off in the recorder side (114). |
| US08391677B2 |
Recording medium, reproduction device, program, reproduction method
The present invention is a BD-ROM having AVClips and PlayList information pieces, which are playback paths for the AVClips, recorded thereon. In addition, the BD-ROM also has multiple playback paths and dynamic scenarios recorded thereon. The dynamic scenarios instruct a playback device to play a digital stream using the playback paths. The dynamic scenarios include selection procedures (IF-statement blocks) which cause the playback device to compare a constant and a register-stored value indicating a user's age set on the playback device, (PSR(13)), and to select a playback path from among the multiple playback paths according to the result of the comparison. |
| US08391676B2 |
Playback apparatus for performing application-synchronized playback
A playback apparatus for playing a digital stream in conjunction with an application includes a package management unit operable to generate package information by merging files recorded on a first recording medium and a second recording medium, in accordance with merge management information, and a selection unit operable to detect a plurality of playable titles from the package information, and select one of the detected titles as a current title. After the application requests the package management unit to update the merge management information, by specifying new merge management information, the package management unit changes a file referenced from the newly specified merge management information to read-only before updating the package information, and at a point at which digital stream playback stops due to a current title change by the selection unit, the package management unit generates new package information by combining files recorded on the first and second recording media, in accordance with the newly specified merge management information. |
| US08391674B2 |
Information recording method, information recording medium, and information reproducing method, wherein information is stored on a data recording portion and a management information recording portion
With this invention, at least one of a video file containing video information, a still picture file containing still picture information, and an audio file containing audio information and a management file having management information on a control method of reproducing the information in the file are recorded on an information storage medium. This realizes a data structure that causes the recording and deleting places on the information storage medium to correspond spuriously to places on a single tape, such as a VTR tape. Use of the data structure provides users with an easy-to-use interface. |
| US08391668B2 |
Substrate guided relay having an absorbing edge to reduce alignment constraints
Briefly, in accordance with one more embodiments, a substrate guided relay comprises a slab guide having an absorbing edge at a first end of the slab guide. An input coupler is disposed on a surface of the slab guide at an angle with respect to a first edge of the slab guide. An output coupler is disposed on the surface at a second end of the slab guide. Light rays that enter the slab guide toward the first end are absorbed by the absorbing edge, and light rays that enter the slab guide toward the output coupler exit the slab guide via the output coupler. The absorbing edge on the first edge of the slab guide allows the input coupler to be placed on the slab guide without regard to alignment of the input coupler with the first end of the slab guide. |
| US08391665B2 |
Optical patch panel device
Various embodiments of patch panel devices are enclosed. In some embodiments, signals received are in an electrical or optical form and converted to the other form. The converted signal is provided as an output signal. A version of the original input may also be provided as an input. A signal injector can inject a optical or electrical signal that is selectively injected into the output signals. Various embodiments also include sensor to detecting the connecting of an electrical or optical line. |
| US08391662B1 |
Monolithic optically-driven high frequency power amplifier
A power amplifying apparatus includes a first gallium arsenide substrate which may include a photonic power supply laser diode, a diamond substrate formed over the first gallium arsenide substrate, a silicon substrate formed over the diamond substrate, a second gallium arsenide substrate, a gallium nitride switching transistor and a photonic power supply photo diode array. |
| US08391658B2 |
Fiber optic cable with jacket embedded with reinforcing members
A fiber optic cable assembly includes a fiber optic cable and a connector assembly. The fiber optic cable includes an optical fiber, having a core surrounded by a cladding, and a jacket, which surrounds the optical fiber. The jacket includes a plurality of reinforcement members integrated into a matrix material of the jacket. The connector assembly includes a rear housing having a connector end that is directly engaged with an end portion of the jacket. A fiber optic cable includes an optical fiber with a core surrounded by a cladding. The fiber optic cable also includes a jacket that surrounds the optical fiber. The jacket includes about 40% to about 70% by weight of a plurality of reinforcement members integrated into a matrix material of the jacket. |
| US08391654B2 |
Wavelength selection switch
A wavelength selection switch that includes an optical component for adjusting an optical path with an image magnification of M that is provided between a second imaging position and a mirror array. Therefore, it is possible to provide a small wavelength selection optical switch with a short optical path length that is capable of reducing the focal length of each of a first lens and a second lens to 1/M while maintaining the structure of the spectral element, the fiber array, and the mirror array according to the related art. Since the optical path length is reduced, it is possible to reduce the number of reflecting mirrors used to convert an optical path and thus reduce the size of a housing. Therefore, it is possible to reduce manufacturing costs. |
| US08391652B2 |
Systems and methods for minimally-invasive optical-acoustic imaging
An imaging guidewire can include optical fibers communicating light along the guidewire. At or near its distal end, one or more blazed or other fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) directs light to a photoacoustic transducer material that provides ultrasonic imaging energy. Returned ultrasound is sensed by an FBG sensor. A responsive signal is optically communicated to the proximal end of the guidewire, and processed to develop a 2D or 3D image. The guidewire outer diameter is small enough such that an intravascular catheter can be passed over the guidewire. Techniques for improving ultrasound reception include using a high compliance material, resonating the ultrasound sensing transducer, using an attenuation-reducing coating and/or thickness, and/or using optical wavelength discrimination. Techniques for improving the ultrasound generating transducer include using a blazed FBG, designing the photoacoustic material thickness to enhance optical absorption. Techniques for distinguishing plaque or vulnerable plaque may enhance the displayed image. |
| US08391651B2 |
Optical waveguide device
An optical waveguide device having multiple functions or high performance, to improve the productivity of products, and to provide an optical waveguide device capable of suppressing deterioration of an operating characteristic of the optical waveguide device, including a thin plate 1 having a thickness of 20 μm or less, and at least an optical waveguide 2 formed in the thin plate. The thin plate is bonded and fixed to a supporting substrate 5 with an adhesive 4 interposed therebetween, and a film having a higher refractive index than the thin plate is provided on a surface of the thin plate bonded and fixed to the supporting substrate so as to be in contact with a part of the optical waveguide. |
| US08391650B2 |
Method and apparatus of image processing to detect edges
An edge detection filter comprising an array of filter coefficients having an odd number of rows and columns, a first set of zero coefficients extending along a direction traversing the array through a center position to form a first and second side, a second set of positive coefficients extending away from the direction on the first side, and a third set of negative coefficients extending away from the direction on the second side. |
| US08391644B2 |
Image processing apparatus, image processing method, storage medium storing image processing program, and electronic device
An image processing apparatus for performing registration processing on a plurality of images by calculating a motion vector between the plurality of images includes a motion vector measurement region setting unit that sets a plurality of motion vector measurement regions for measuring the motion vector, a motion vector calculation unit that calculates motion vectors of the plurality of motion vector measurement regions, a motion vector reliability calculation unit that calculates a reliability of the motion vectors of the plurality of motion vector measurement regions on the basis of information relating to a local magnification of an optical system used to obtain the images, and a motion vector integration processing unit that determines an inter-image motion vector by integrating the motion vectors of the plurality of motion vector measurement regions in accordance with the reliability of the motion vectors. |
| US08391639B2 |
Method and apparatus for realistic simulation of wrinkle aging and de-aging
Methods and systems are disclosed to realistically simulate facial wrinkle aging of a person using a neutral state (natural look) image and one or more expression images (e.g., smile, frown, pout, wink) that induce wrinkles. The neutral and expression images are processed to simulate wrinkle aging by registering the wrinkles that are visible in the expression image onto the neutral image, thereby generating a wrinkle-aged simulated image. Advantageously, a person's own wrinkle histological data is utilized, hence providing an accurate and realistic wrinkle aging simulation. Similarly, the neutral image is processed to eliminate all visible wrinkles thereby generating a wrinkle de-aged simulation image. Additionally, blending of a neutral image with an aged or de-aged simulation image is disclosed, where the degree of blending is based on statistical modeling of skin condition with age and/or expected outcome of a particular type of treatment. The methods and systems disclosed have wide applicability, including, for example, areas such as dermatology, cosmetics and computer animation, among others. |
| US08391637B2 |
Image processing device and image processing method
Tap coefficients of a filter include one reference tap coefficient having a maximum value that is applied to a pixel of interest in a pixel signal array, and negative tap coefficients having negative values that are applied to surrounding pixels around the pixel of interest located in an image height direction. In a tap coefficient array in which the tap coefficients to be applied to pixel signals located sequentially in the image height direction are sequentially arranged, the reference tap coefficient is positioned off center at a position other than the center of the tap coefficients. Among the negative tap coefficients located on both sides of the reference tap coefficient in the tap coefficient array, the number of the negative tap coefficient on a first side is one, and the number of the negative tap coefficients on a second side is two or more. |
| US08391632B2 |
Image processing using function optimization to estimate image noise
A method of processing image data representing an image of a scene to generate an estimate of noise present in the image data. The method comprises evaluating a function for different values of said estimate, said function taking as input an estimate of said noise, and determining an estimate of said noise for which said function has an optimum value. |
| US08391630B2 |
System and method for power reduction when decompressing video streams for interferometric modulator displays
A system and method for processing image data to be displayed on a display device, where the display device requires more power to be driven to display image data comprising particular spatial frequencies in one dimension than to be driven to display image data comprising the particular spatial frequencies in a second dimension. The method includes receiving image data and filtering the received image data such that the image data at particular spatial frequencies in a first dimension are attenuated more than the image data at particular spatial frequencies in a second dimension. |
| US08391628B2 |
Directional anti-aliasing filter
A directional anti-aliasing filter circuit includes an input node and an output node, a directional anti-aliasing filter having an input coupled to the input node, an adaptive gain control having an input coupled to an output of the directional anti-aliasing filter, a summer having a first input coupled to an output of the adaptive gain control, a second input coupled to the input node, and an output coupled to the output node, a texture detector for providing a texture adjust signal to the directional anti-aliasing filter and a texture adaptive gain signal to the adaptive gain control, an edge detector for providing an edge direction signal to the directional anti-aliasing filter, and a corner detector for providing a corner adaptive gain signal to the adaptive gain control. |
| US08391626B2 |
Learning of coefficients for motion deblurring by pixel classification and constraint condition weight computation
A coefficient learning apparatus includes: a student-image generation section configured to generate a student image from the teacher image; a class classification section configured to sequentially set each of pixels in the teacher image as a pixel of interest and generate a class for the pixel of interest from the values of a plurality of specific pixels; a weight computation section configured to add up feature quantities; and a processing-coefficient generation section configured to generate a prediction coefficient on the basis of a determinant including said deterioration equation and a weighted constraint condition equation. |
| US08391623B2 |
Image processing apparatus and image processing method for determining motion vectors
An image processing apparatus includes a motion vector detection unit configured to detect a motion vector at a predetermined space position of a frame at a predetermined time from an input image of a plurality of temporally different frames and obtain a reliability of the motion vector; a motion vector evaluation unit configured to obtain, at each space position, an evaluation value of the motion vector at the space position that is within a predetermined range including a subject space position that is a space position of interest, on the basis of the reliability at the space position and a distance from the subject space position; and a motion vector correction unit configured to correct the motion vector at the subject space position on the basis of the evaluation value and the motion vector at the space position of the predetermined range. |
| US08391617B2 |
Event recognition using image and location information
A method of recognizing an event depicted in an image from the image and a location information associated with the image is disclosed. The method includes acquiring the image and its associated location information; using the location information to acquire an aerial image(s) correlated to the location information; identifying the event using both the image and the acquired aerial image(s); and storing the event in association with the image for subsequent use. |
| US08391612B2 |
Edge detection with adaptive threshold
Systems and methods are provided for detecting edges in an image. In an example method, the image is smoothed using a filter. A gradient magnitude and angle are determined for each pixel of the image. A non-maximum suppression is performed on the resulting image data. A double threshold with an upper and a lower threshold are applied to the resulting image data to determine the edges in the image. The upper and the lower thresholds are calculated automatically using a distribution of intensity values of the image. In example systems, an image is acquired by a camera, or other image acquisition units. An image processing unit is configured to detect the edges in the image using an adaptive threshold edge detection method. |
| US08391608B2 |
Method and apparatus for analyzing body fluids
A system and method for analyzing a specimen containing particles that can be difficult to differentiate. The system and method determines a first collective count of a selected group of particles in the specimen, treats at least a portion of the specimen to alter a subgroup of the selected group of particles, determines a second collective count of any of the selected group of particles in the treated portion of the specimen, and subtracts the second collective count from the first collective count to determine a differentiation count for the subgroup of particles altered by the treating of the specimen. The system and method is described with the example of determining concentrations of red and white blood cells in a specimen (e.g. spinal fluid), using auto-particle recognition techniques, without attempting to distinguish and count red versus white blood cells co-existing in the same specimen portion. |
| US08391605B2 |
Method and apparatus for performing model-based OPC for pattern decomposed features
A method for decomposing a target circuit pattern containing features to be imaged into multiple patterns. The process includes the steps of separating the features to be printed into a first pattern and a second pattern; performing a first optical proximity correction process on the first pattern and the second pattern; determining an imaging performance of the first pattern and the second pattern; determining a first error between the first pattern and the imaging performance of the first pattern, and a second error between the second pattern and the imaging performance of said second pattern; utilizing the first error to adjust the first pattern to generate a modified first pattern; utilizing the second error to adjust the second pattern to generate a modified second pattern; and applying a second optical proximity correction process to the modified first pattern and the modified second pattern. |
| US08391604B2 |
Camera-vision systems, used in collaboration whiteboards, for pre-formatted, reusable, annotatable, movable menus and forms
Systems and devices for, and methods of, image-based processing where a device embodiment comprises: (a) a processor; (b) an addressable memory, the memory comprising a set one or more image references, and where the set of image references comprises a rule of interpretation and a rule of execution; and the processor is configured to: (1) compare captured surface indicia of a sheet with the set of at least one image reference; (2) determine the image reference associated with the surface indicia based on the comparison of the surface indicia and the set of at least one image reference; (3) extract a marking by differencing the surface indicia and the image reference; (4) interpret the extracted marking based on the rule of interpretation associated with the image reference; and (5) invoke the rule of execution based on the rule of interpretation. |
| US08391601B2 |
Method for image modification
In a first exemplary embodiment of the present invention, an automated, computerized method is provided for processing an image. According to a feature of the present invention, the method comprises the steps of providing an image file depicting an image, in a computer memory, performing an image segregation operation on the image file to generate a set of intrinsic images corresponding to the image, modifying a preselected one of the set of intrinsic images according to a set of preselected operations and merging the modified one of the set of intrinsic images relative to the set of intrinsic images to provide a modified output image. |
| US08391600B2 |
Histogram-based compound object separation
Certain imaging systems, such as automatic explosives detection systems, employ techniques that utilize image processing, feature extraction and decision making steps to detect threats in images. Such techniques use segmentation as a first algorithmic step, which extracts data representing objects from image data. Some of the extracted objects are actually composed of multiple distinct physical objects. For these compound objects discrimination becomes difficult because computed object properties are less specific than properties computed for a single physical object. A technique is described which includes splitting such compound objects by separating the data of each component from the rest of the data and using properties of density histograms based on voxel distributions in both density and spatial domains. |
| US08391596B2 |
Effective red eye removal in digital images without face detection
Methods and apparatuses for detecting and correcting red-eye in an image are provided. In one aspect, red-eye can be detected without detecting faces. Red-eye candidates are identified and eliminated by evaluating a series of statistics, including color, size, shape, distance, etc. A plurality of regions, including an eye region, a pupil region, an iris region, and a sclera region can be associated with each red-eye candidate. Color distribution statistics are computed with respect to the presence of target color, glint, skin, or other-color pixels in the plurality of regions. Red-eye candidates may be paired with other red-eye candidates for further processing. Further statistics may be computed based on the location of the red-eye candidates in the image, and the location of each red-eye candidate relative to other red-eye candidates. Pixels associated with selected red-eye candidates may be color adjusted. |
| US08391592B2 |
System and method for detection of multi-view/multi-pose objects
The present invention provides a computer implemented process for detecting multi-view multi-pose objects. The process comprises training of a classifier for each intra-class exemplar, training of a strong classifier and combining the individual exemplar-based classifiers with a single objective function. This function is optimized using the two nested AdaBoost loops. The first loop is the outer loop that selects discriminative candidate exemplars. The second loop, the inner loop selects the discriminative candidate features on the selected exemplars to compute all weak classifiers for a specific position such as a view/pose. Then all the computed weak classifiers are automatically combined into a final classifier (strong classifier) which is the object to be detected. |
| US08391590B2 |
System and method for three-dimensional biometric data feature detection and recognition
The system includes a 3D feature detection module and 3D recognition module 202. The 3D feature detection module processes 3D surface map of a biometric object, wherein the 3D surface map includes a plurality of 3D coordinates. The 3D feature detection module determines whether one or more types of 3D features are present in the 3D surface map and generates 3D feature data including 3D coordinates and feature type for the detected features. The 3D recognition module compares the 3D feature data with biometric data sets for identified persons. The 3D recognition module determines a match between the 3D feature data and one of the biometric data sets when a confidence value exceeds a threshold. |
| US08391588B2 |
Apparatus for examining pattern defects, a method thereof, and a computer-readable recording medium having recorded therein a program thereof
Utilizing only image information of an observation image and a reference image, a strain amount calculation unit calculates strain parameters. The reference image may be generated from design data or a different observation image. Calculated strain parameters are determined using strain formulation coefficients. A compensated image forming unit strains the reference image or the observation image by the strain amount based on the calculated strain parameters. The compensated image formed in the compensated image forming unit is supplied to an identification unit, which compares the compensated image with the reference image or the observation image, and determines positions where the difference is large to defects. |
| US08391586B2 |
Method and installation for inspecting a coiled strip
A method and an installation are used for inspecting a surface of a coiled metal strip, wherein the coil to be inspected is unwound along a moving plane so as to cause at least part of the strip to move to a position for inspecting the surfaces. Accordingly, the method consists in moving the part of the strip to be inspected along a substantially vertical inspection plane, between an unwinding device and a winding device arranged on two vertically spaced apart levels on either side of an intermediate inspection level. Thus, the inspection is visually performed on both surfaces of the strip by an operator moving about on a floor at the intermediate inspection level. |
| US08391585B2 |
Defect detecting device, defect detecting method, image sensor device, image sensor module, defect detecting program, and computer-readable recording medium
A defect detecting device includes a pixel value correcting section, a block-division processing section, and a defective/non-defective determining section. The pixel value correcting section corrects a pixel value of an inspection-target image, on which detection of a defective area is to be carried out, in such a manner that the defective area of the inspection-target image is emphasized with respect to the other areas of the inspection-target image. The block-division processing section divides, into plural blocks, the inspection-target image with pixel values having been corrected, and obtains a block addition value or a block mean value. The defective/non-defective determining section determines whether or not the defective area is present by carrying out statistical processing to determine whether an outlier of the block addition value or an outlier of the block mean value is present or not. |
| US08391584B2 |
Method and system for duplicate check detection
A system and method for detecting duplicate checks during processing. The duplicate detection may be performed by a financial institution, such as a bank. The method may be implemented on a computer based system. The duplicate detection method may be automated. The method may be applied to incoming check files prior to processing of the check data to prevent processing of duplicate checks. The system and method may use a function, such as a hash function, to perform the duplicate detection. Other functions, such as a Bloom filter which may use multiple hash functions, may be used to perform the duplicate detection. |
| US08391583B1 |
Apparatus and system for imaging currency bills and financial documents and method for using the same
Currency bills are received, transported, and imaged to produce image data from which a visually readable image of each currency bill can be reproduced. Each of the currency bills includes a denomination, a serial number, and a set of secondary identifiers. One of the currency bills is determined to be a suspect bill. The suspect bill serial number is attempted to be extracted from the image data associated with the suspect bill. In response to failing to extract a complete serial number of the suspect bill, a serial number field in a suspect report is populated with a serial number snippet image. |
| US08391577B2 |
Radiation image processing apparatus, image processing method, X-ray radioscopy apparatus and control method thereof
A radiation image processing apparatus which improves contrast and sharpness of radiation images is provided. According to this radiation image processing apparatus, comparison is made between a first image data obtained by radiation imaging without going through the subject but through a grid for removing scattered radiation from a subject, and a second image data which is obtained by radiation imaging through the subject and the grid, and a two-dimensional distribution of abundance of scattered component is calculated. Using this two-dimensional distribution of scattered component, abundance of scattered radiation is locally determined at each position, and a sharpening process is performed with sharpening intensities that are increased in response to abundance of scattered radiation. |
| US08391575B2 |
Automatic image analysis and quantification for fluorescence in situ hybridization
An analysis system automatically analyzes and counts fluorescence signals present in biopsy tissue marked using Fluorescence in situ Hybridization (FISH). The user of the system specifies classes of a class network and process steps of a process hierarchy. Then pixel values in image slices of biopsy tissue are acquired in three dimensions. A computer-implemented network structure is generated by linking pixel values to objects of a data network according to the class network and process hierarchy. Objects associated with pixel values at different depths of the biopsy tissue are used to determine the number, volume and distance between cell components. In one application, fluorescence signals that mark Her2/neural genes and centromeres of chromosome seventeen are counted to diagnose breast cancer. Her2/neural genes that overlap one another or that are covered by centromeres can be accurately counted. Signal artifacts that do not mark genes can be identified by their excessive volume. |
| US08391570B2 |
Method of guiding an irradiation equipment
The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for guiding an irradiation equipment (2) located outside a human body (1) or an animal body. The method comprises the steps of identifying, in an image (4), a three-dimensional element (7) visible in the image (4), said three-dimensional element (7) has been in position in, or being inserted into, a cavity of the human body (1) or the animal body, establishing, in the image (4), a preliminary position of the three-dimensional element (7) visible in the image (4) in relation to a reference, establishing a preliminary position of the irradiation equipment (2) in relation to the reference, and adjusting the irradiation equipment (2) in response to the position the three-dimensional element (7). |
| US08391565B2 |
System and method of determining nitrogen levels from a digital image
A system and method of determining nitrogen levels from a digital image. In particular, a method of determining leaf nitrogen concentration and yield from a digital photograph of a fully developed leaf (collared leaf) of a crop of nonlegumes, such as corn, rice, wheat, cotton, potatoes or sugarcane. The digital image is processed to determine a dark green color index (“DGCI”), which is closely related to leaf nitrogen concentration and yield. Standardized color disks having known DGCI values are included in the digital photograph and serve as an internal standard. The internal standard allows correction of DGCI of samples when using different cameras and/or when lighting conditions change. |
| US08391552B1 |
Method of particle trajectory recognition in particle flows of high particle concentration using a candidate trajectory tree process with variable search areas
The application relates to particle trajectory recognition from a Centroid Population comprised of Centroids having an (x, y, t) or (x, y, f) coordinate. The method is applicable to visualization and measurement of particle flow fields of high particle. In one embodiment, the centroids are generated from particle images recorded on camera frames. The application encompasses digital computer systems and distribution mediums implementing the method disclosed and is particularly applicable to recognizing trajectories of particles in particle flows of high particle concentration. The method accomplishes trajectory recognition by forming Candidate Trajectory Trees and repeated searches at varying Search Velocities, such that initial search areas are set to a minimum size in order to recognize only the slowest, least accelerating particles which produce higher local concentrations. When a trajectory is recognized, the centroids in that trajectory are removed from consideration in future searches. |
| US08391548B1 |
Tracking multiple moving targets in digital video
Tracking multiple targets can include making different observations based on multiple different frames of one or more digital video feeds, determining an initial cover based on the observations, performing one or more modifications to the initial cover to generate a final cover, and using the final cover to track multiple targets in the one or more digital video feeds. Performing one or more modifications to generate a final cover can include selecting one or more adjustments from a group that includes temporal cover adjustments and spatial cover adjustments, and can include using likelihood information indicative of similarities in motion and appearance to distinguish different targets in the frames. |
| US08391546B2 |
Method and corresponding apparatus for quantitative measurements on sequences of images, particularly ultrasonic images
A method for assessing motion, including deformation, of a structure from a sequence of at least two consecutive image frames of such structure, which images are timely separated by a certain time interval. The method including the steps of defining a certain number of reference points at least on one image frame, and determining the velocity of motion of such reference points between two successive image frames. |
| US08391544B2 |
Image processing apparatus and method for processing image
An image processing apparatus includes: a storage module configured to store a plurality of pieces of comment data; an analyzing module configured to analyze an expression of a person contained in image data; a generating module configured to select a target comment data from among the comment data stored in the storage module based on the expression of the person analyzed by the analyzing module, and to generate voice data using the target comment data; and an output module configured to output reproduction data to be used for displaying the image data together with the voice data generated by the generating module. |
| US08391543B1 |
Method and apparatus for preventing data leakage faciliated by steganography
A method and apparatus for preventing data leakage facilitated by steganography is provided. In one embodiment, the method for preventing data leakage caused by steganography without perceptual quality degradation comprises processing content being transmitted from a computer, wherein the content comprises steganographic data; and before the transmission, modifying the steganographic data to corrupt hidden information within the content without perceptual quality degradation. |
| US08391538B2 |
Earphone
An earphone includes a basket defining a through hole. A leading wire board fixed underneath the basket has a pair of solder foils on a bottom surface thereof. A magnet unit is located in the basket with the through hole adjacent to a side edge of the magnet unit. A diaphragm is arranged on the basket and over the magnet unit. A voice coil is fixed to a bottom of the diaphragm and surrounding the magnet unit. The voice coil has two leading wires. Each leading wire passes through the through hole of the basket and further bends to solder with the corresponding solder foils of the leading wire board. |
| US08391537B2 |
Damper and loudspeaker using the same
A damper includes a paper matrix and a plurality of carbon nanotubes dispersed in the paper matrix. A loudspeaker includes a magnetic circuit, a bobbin, a voice coil, a damper, and a diaphragm. The magnetic circuit defines a magnetic gap. The bobbin is located in the magnetic gap. The voice coil is wounded on the bobbin. The damper is fixed to the bobbin and includes a paper matrix and a plurality of carbon nanotubes dispersed in the paper matrix. The diaphragm includes an inner rim fixed to the bobbin and mechanically held by the damper. |
| US08391536B2 |
Earphone device and earphone device main body
An earphone device includes a case main body, a sound conduit, and an ear tip. The sound conduit is formed in a substantially tubular shape and protrudes from the case main body. The sound conduit has a flange disposed at the end on the opposite side from the case main body, and a first restrictor disposed between the flange and the case main body. The ear tip has a ring part formed of a resilient material and configured to be engaged to the sound conduit. The ear tip is configured to be in a first state in which movement in the direction of removal from the sound conduit is restricted by the flange, and is configured to be in a second state in which movement in the direction of removal from the sound conduit is restricted by the first restrictor. |
| US08391533B2 |
Ear bud earphone with variable noise isolation, a cushion for an ear bud earphone and a corresponding method
There is provided an insert ear bud earphone with variable noise isolation. The earphone includes a housing with a serpentine channel which is able to contain at least one transducer in a main body of the housing; and a cushion which contacts a user's ear canal wall, the cushion being mounted on the serpentine channel. There is preferably at least one opening in either the housing or the cushion which causes leakage and allows ambient noise to enter the user's ear canal. There is also provided a cushion for an insert ear bud earphone. Finally, there is provided a method to enable variable noise isolation in an insert ear bud earphone comprising an inclusion of at least one opening in either a housing of the earphone or a cushion mounted on the earphone which causes leakage and allows ambient noise to enter a user's ear canal. |
| US08391523B2 |
Method and system for wireless hearing assistance
A method for providing hearing assistance to a user, comprising capturing audio signals by an internal microphone arrangement and supplying the captured audio signals a central signal processing unit; estimating whether a certain type of external audio signal supply device is connected to the audio signal processing unit in order to supply external audio signals to the central signal processing unit, and selecting an audio signal processing scheme according to the estimated type of external audio signal supply device; processing, the captured audio signals and the external audio signals according to the selected audio signal processing scheme; transmitting the processed audio signals to stimulating means worn at or in at least one of the user's ears via a wireless audio link; and stimulating the user's hearing by said stimulating means according to the processed audio signals. |
| US08391519B2 |
Treble bass coaxial loudspeaker
A treble-bass coaxial loudspeaker has an inverted conical frame, a bass resonance assembly mounted to the bottom of the frame, a bracket, and a treble resonance assembly. The bracket is mounted on the bass resonance drumhead and contains the treble resonance assembly inside to separate the treble resonance chip from the bass resonance assembly below. In this way, when the bass resonance drumhead vibrates, the air turbulence between the bass resonance drumhead and the wave damping annular board decreases destruction of the joint strength between the treble resonance chip and the treble resonance drumhead. |
| US08391517B2 |
Optical microphone packaging
An optical microphone that may include a first substrate with one or more acoustic entry ports and a die over the one or more acoustic entry ports. The die may include a sensing structure for detecting acoustic vibrations received via the acoustic entry port(s) and may form a first cavity between the first substrate and the sensing structure. The microphone may include a light source within the first cavity, which may transmit laser light. The optical microphone may include photo detector(s) within the first cavity. The one or more photodetectors may be configured to receive the laser light after reflection from the sensing diaphragm to measure the acoustic vibrations of the sensing diaphragm. The microphone may also include a circuit and a lid, where the die, light source, photo detectors, and circuit are comprised within the cavity of the microphone. The circuit may perform signal processing signals from the photodetector(s). |
| US08391516B2 |
Method of using an audio device for improving sound reproduction and listening enjoyment
A method of using an audio device (2) for improving a user's (1) listening experience. The audio device has a transducer (12) for producing output sound and the method comprises the steps of driving the transducer to produce an output sound and placing the audio device against the body of the user so that the user experiences a physical response to the sound while simultaneously listening to the audio device. The audio device may be arranged to produce a resonance in a part of the user's body. Preferably the audio device is positioned on the user's chest to produce a resonance in the chest cavity of the user's body. The audio device may comprise a sum and difference speaker system. |