| Document | Document Title |
|---|---|
| US08712219B2 |
Method for editing a media clip in a mobile terminal device, a terminal device utilizing the method and program means for implementing the method
An aspect of the invention relates to a method for editing a media record in a terminal device of a cellular network, by removing at least one portion of the original contents of the media record. The state of editing is shown on the display of the terminal device with a pointer arrangement. An aspect of the invention also relates to a cellular network terminal device in which the method is utilized. In the terminal device the media record editing is controlled with a program application. |
| US08712217B1 |
Methods and systems for time-shifting content
Methods and systems for providing data such as content are disclosed. A method can comprise receiving content, randomly shifting the received content, and providing the randomly shifted received content to a computing device. |
| US08712215B2 |
Recording medium, playback device, integrated circuit
A base-view video stream and a dependent-view video stream are recorded on a BD-ROM. The base-view video stream includes picture data constituting a base view of a stereoscopic image. The dependent-view video stream includes offset metadata and picture data constituting a dependent view of the stereoscopic image. The offset metadata includes an offset sequence that defines an offset control of a plane memory when a graphics to be overlaid with the picture data is played back in a one-plane offset mode. |
| US08712213B2 |
Video-recording reservation management apparatus, method, program, and system
A first video-recording reservation management apparatus which communicates with a second apparatus and can receive the same channels. The first apparatus includes a video-recording reservation processing unit which registers video-recording reservation information of the first apparatus in a storage unit and notifies the second apparatus of such registration via a network when a video-recording reservation is made with respect to the video-recording function of the first apparatus, and a substitutional video-recording reservation processing unit which acquires registered video-recording reservation information from the second apparatus and registers the information in the storage unit when such a registration notification is received from the network, and executes a substitutional video-recording reservation by using the video-recording function of the first apparatus when the video-recording reservation of the second apparatus corresponding to the substitutional video-recording reservation information is not executed when video-recording cannot be performed due to power outage or failure. |
| US08712212B2 |
Recording apparatus, recording method, reproducing apparatus, reproducing method, program, and recording/producing apparatus
A recording apparatus includes: a parallax detecting unit detecting a parallax between L and R images included in 3D contents to be recorded; and a recording control unit recording both of the L and R images at a first section at which the parallax between the L and R images is greater than a threshold value and recording one of the L and R images at a second section at which the parallax between the L and R images is less than the threshold value. |
| US08712210B2 |
Content reproduction apparatus and content processing method therefor
A content reproduction apparatus that adopts a content processing method includes a video processor, a video analyzer, and an audio processor for processing audio data and video data input thereto. The video analyzer analyzes video characteristics of video data such as resolutions, compressive distortions, and real frame rates. The video processor processes video data in accordance with video processing, which is determined based on analyzed video characteristics of video data. The audio processor processes audio data in accordance with audio processing, such as dynamic range compression and/or frequency component extension/enhancement, which is determined based on analyzed video characteristics of video data. Thus, it is possible to reproduce sound in an articulate manner depending on the video quality, which is either professional-level video shooting or nonprofessional-level video shooting. |
| US08712209B2 |
Playback device, playback method, and computer program
There is provided a playback device including a content playback unit configured to playback content, a playlist acquisition unit configured to acquire, while the playback unit is playing back the content on the basis of a playlist, at least one external playlist from outside, the external playlist having at least two pieces of content that are common to content in the playlist and having a matching playback order of at least the two consecutive pieces of content, and a playlist display unit configured to display the playlist and the external playlist acquired by the playlist acquisition unit such that the playlists are linked at positions of the consecutive matching pieces of content. |
| US08712207B2 |
Digital photographing apparatus, method of controlling the same, and recording medium for the method
Provided are a digital photographing apparatus that is capable of displaying a slide show in which music and images are displayed in a harmonious manner to the user by replaying a plurality of image files according to an atmosphere created by the music by determining a replay order of the plurality of image files according to the music based on music information and image information, a method of controlling the digital photographing apparatus, and a recording medium for recording the method. |
| US08712204B2 |
Optical modulation element
An optical modulation device 1 includes a supporting body 2 including a pair of grooves 2b, 2c and a protrusion 2d between the grooves, a ridge par 6 including a channel type optical waveguide capable of multi mode propagation, a first side plate part 3A formed in a first side of the ridge part 6, a second side plate part 3B formed in a second side of the ridge part, a first adhesive layer 4A adhering the first side plate part 3A and the supporting body 2, a second adhesive layer 4B adhering the second side plate part 3B and the supporting body 2, and a third adhesive layer 4C adhering the ridge part 6 and the protrusion 2d. The device 1 further includes a first electrode 7A provided on a side face 6b of the ridge part on the first groove side, and a side face 3b and an upper face 3c of the first side plate part, and a second electrode 7B provided on a side face 6c of the ridge part 6 in the second groove side, the second groove 2c and a side face 3b and an upper face 3c of the second side plate part 3B. The first electrode 7A and the second electrode 7B apply a modulation voltage modulating light propagating in the channel type optical waveguide. |
| US08712203B2 |
Formation of an optical waveguide
Technologies are generally described for an optical waveguide, methods and systems effective to form an optical waveguide, and an optical system including an optical waveguide. In some examples, the optical waveguide may include a silicon oxynitride region in a wall of the silicon substrate. The silicon oxynitride region may define an inner region of the optical waveguide. The wall may define a via. The optical waveguide may include a silicon oxide region in the substrate. The silicon oxide region may define an outer region of the optical waveguide adjacent to the inner region. |
| US08712202B2 |
Single mode optical fiber with improved bend performance
Methods and apparatus relate to optical fibers suitable for use in sensing applications exposed to radiation environments. The fibers include a core of pure silica or chlorine doped silica surrounded by a fluorinated silica cladding. These glasses for the core and cladding utilize dopants that resist radiation-induced attenuation. A two step process for forming the cladding can achieve necessary concentrations of the fluorine by performing a soot deposition process in a different environment from a consolidation process where the soot is sintered into a glass. Concentration of fluorine doped into the cladding layer enables obtaining a numerical aperture that confines a mono-mode of the fiber to resist bend-induced attenuation. Dimensions of the fiber further facilitate bending ability of the fiber. |
| US08712198B2 |
Optical splitter device
An optical splitter device and method are provided. The device can include a waveguide having walls forming a large hollow core. The waveguide can be configured to direct an optical signal through the large hollow core. An optical tap can be formed through at least one wall of the waveguide. In addition, a prism can be located in the large hollow core of the waveguide and aligned with the optical tap. A splitter coating can be provided on the prism to direct a portion of the optical signal outside of the waveguide through the optical tap. |
| US08712196B2 |
Optical cable plug-in detection
An optical cable system includes switching circuitry, a resistance network, optical-to-electrical conversion circuitry, and electrical-to-optical conversion circuitry. The electrical-to-optical conversion circuitry can convert an electrical transmit signal into an optical transmit signal. When the optical-to-electrical conversion circuitry detects a received optical signal having an optical power exceeding a threshold, the optical-to-electrical conversion circuitry produces a switching signal that causes the switching circuitry to couple the resistance network to a terminal or other node associated with the electrical transmit signal, thereby changing the impedance at that node as perceived by plug-in detection circuitry of a device such as a computer or peripheral. |
| US08712194B1 |
System for non-destructive image processing
An image processor comprises a plurality of processing modules coupled together in series. Each of at least two of the processing modules includes an image data input to receive at least one of i) an original image or ii) image data output by a previous processing module in the series. Each of the at least two of the processing modules also includes a processing unit configured to i) detect that image data is to be generated and ii) process image data received via the at least one image data input to generate image data. Each of the at least two of the processing modules also includes a memory to store image data generated by the processing unit. |
| US08712189B2 |
Methods, systems, and media for swapping faces in images
Methods, systems, and media for swapping faces in images are provided. In some embodiments, a detected face and face data corresponding to an input image is received. A pose bin associated with the detected face is then identified based on the face data. Next, the detected face is aligned to a generic face associated with the pose bin. At least a portion of a candidate face associated with the pose bin is selected. The at least a portion of the candidate face is then copied to a copy of the input image that is aligned with the generic image to form a swapped-face image. The swapped-face image is next aligned to the input image to form an output image, and then the output image is outputted to a display. |
| US08712188B2 |
System and method for document orientation detection
In one embodiment, a method of detecting document orientation includes capturing a document image, binarizing each subimage of the document image to retain textual content and eliminate graphic and noise content from the document image, detecting portrait or landscape orientation based on values computed from strip-based projection profiles, and detecting up or down text orientation based on a text-asymmetry ratio computed from strip-based projection profiles. |
| US08712185B2 |
High-accuracy centered fractional fourier transform matrix for optical imaging and other applications
Methods for numerically generating a centered discrete fractional Fourier transform matrix on a computer, the centered discrete fractional Fourier transform matrix of size N by N where N is an odd integer. Centering is obtained by simple barrel roll operations on eigenvectors. High-accuracy is obtained by numerically calculating the eigenvectors of the discrete fractional Fourier transform matrix from a closed-form mathematical formula and then iteratively performing a Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization procedure until a resulting set of improved-orthogonal eigenvectors is produced that is sufficiently orthogonal. |
| US08712183B2 |
System and method for performing image correction
A system and method for correcting image data. Embodiments of the present invention provide image correction to overcome various lens effects, optical crosstalk, and electrical crosstalk. In one embodiment, the method includes accessing, within an electronic system, a plurality of control points for a patch of a spline surface and calculating a plurality of intermediate control points corresponding to a row of pixels of the patch. The method further includes receiving a pixel of an image and correcting the pixel based on the plurality of intermediate control points in streaming scanline column-wise or row-wise order. |
| US08712169B2 |
Transcoded images for improved trick play
A method and apparatus are provided for facilitating processing of images contained in an encoded video stream wherein a plurality of non-intra coded images are transcoded into intra-coded images (I-images). The transcoded I-images are then used to facilitate trick mode playback, such as reverse playback, fast reverse playback or fast forward playback. In addition, an image sequence window is defined and transcoded I-images which fall outside of the image sequence window are deleted from a memory. |
| US08712161B2 |
Image manipulating system and method
An image information acquiring system obtains a group of relative values to describe the image. A pixel value of each pixel in the image is acquired. Ratios between the pixel value of each pixel and a pixel value of each other pixel which is adjacent to the pixel are obtained for obtaining the group of relative values. The group of relative values is used for comparing two images or reproducing another image. |
| US08712156B2 |
Comparison of visual information
A method determines similarity of objects depicted in images when the images pertain to different modalities. The method includes obtaining images that depict the objects and that pertain to the different modalities. An embedding function is applied to each of the images. The embedding function is selected from a set of two or more embedding functions, each of the embedding functions corresponding to a modality of the different modalities, the selected embedding function corresponding to the modality of the image to which it is applied. Application of the embedding function maps that image to a representation in a representation space such that when the images are mapped to the representation space, a distance between the representations of the images is indicative of a similarity of their depicted objects. The similarity of the depicted objects is determined based on the location of the corresponding representations in the representation space. |
| US08712154B2 |
Image processing system and method
A method dividing an image into plural superpixels of plural pixels of the image. The method calculates an initial set of weights from a measure of similarity between pairs of pixels, from which a resultant set of weights is calculated for pairs of pixels that are less that a threshold distance apart on the image. The calculation calculates a weight for a pair of pixels as the sum over a set of third pixels of the product of initial weight of the first pixel of the pair of pixel with the third pixel and the weight of the third pixel with the second pixel. Each weight is then subjected to a power coefficient operation. The resultant set of weights and the initial set of weights are then compared to check for convergence. If the weights converge, the converged set of weights is used to divide the image into superpixels. |
| US08712152B2 |
Method of processing data and display apparatus for performing the method
A method of processing data includes correcting received color data and generating corrected color data, generating color glitch correction data corresponding to the corrected color data using a glitch correction value preset based on the received color data, and converting the color glitch correction data into a color data voltage and providing the color data voltage to a display panel. |
| US08712149B2 |
Apparatus and method for foreground detection
An apparatus and a method for fast foreground detection are provided. A foreground characteristic value calculation module calculates a foreground characteristic value by using an image intensity of each pixel in a target image and a background intensity of a corresponding pixel in a background model. A first filter determines a first threshold and a second threshold according to at least one scenic factor for capturing the target image and filters out non-foreground pixels having their foreground characteristic value between the first threshold and the second threshold from pixels in the target image. A second filter determines an image difference condition and a chroma similarity condition according to the scenic factor and filters out non-foreground pixels having their foreground characteristic value satisfying the image difference condition and the chroma similarity condition from pixels left by the first filter. Pixels left by the second filter are served as foreground pixels. |
| US08712148B2 |
Generating agricultural information products using remote sensing
A method for generating a raster file based on a plurality of primary index raster files that are associated with an area of interest (AOI) uses a computer coupled to a remote sensing device via a network. The method includes receiving a plurality of AOI raster files via the network, and generating the primary index raster files including a green biomass index (GBI) raster file and a pigmentation index (PGI) raster file. The method also includes generating a plurality of levels for each of the primary index raster files, generating a combination vegetation index (CVIPP) raster file based on a highest level of the GBI and PGI raster files, and generating a corn soybean map (CSM) raster file based on the CVIPP raster file. The method also includes storing the CSM raster file into the memory, and displaying a CSM report based on the CSM raster file. |
| US08712145B2 |
Depth estimation apparatus and method
A depth estimation apparatus is provided. The depth estimation apparatus may estimate a depth value of at least one pixel composing an input video based on feature information about at least one feature of the input video, a position of the at least one pixel, and a depth relationship among the at least one pixel and neighboring pixels. |
| US08712139B2 |
Methods and systems for automated segmentation of dense cell populations
Systems and methods for segmenting images comprising cells, wherein the images comprise a plurality of pixels; one or more three dimensional (3D) clusters of cells are identified in the images; and the 3D clusters of cells are automatically segmented into individual cells using one or more models. |
| US08712135B2 |
Apparatus and method for image reconstruction and CT system
A method for image reconstruction using projection data obtained by an asymmetric detector includes dividing the projection data into Regions 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Region 1 is an asymmetric region having detecting channels but no detecting channels symmetrical about a central channel. Region 2 is a transition region having detecting channels and there are detecting channels symmetrical about the central channel. Region 3 is a symmetric region having detecting channels and there are detecting channels symmetrical about the central channel. Region 4 is a transition region having detecting channels and there are detecting channels symmetrical about the central channel. Region 5 is a truncated region where there is no detecting channel. The method includes performing a view angle weighting on projection data in each of the five regions, and reconstructing a tomographic image of an irradiated subject from the weighted projection data. |
| US08712131B2 |
Determination method for a reinitialization of a temporal sequence of fluoroscopic images of an examination region of an examination object
A determination method for reinitialization of a temporal sequence of fluoroscopic images of an examination region of an examination object is provided. The examination region comprises a vascular system including arteries and/or veins. An acquisition time is assigned to each of the images representing a given distribution of a substance in the examination region at the acquisition time. A computer receives the temporal sequence of the images, determines an evaluation image corresponding spatially on a pixel-by-pixel basis to the images, and calculates a differential value between a pixel of the evaluation image at a time and a pixel at a preceding time during a time characteristic of the sequence. A reinitialization of the temporal sequence of the images is performed at a specific time and thereafter the determination method is started over and/or repeated. The specific time is determined as a function of at least one previously calculated differential value. |
| US08712130B2 |
Method and device for evaluating evolution of tumoural lesions
A new method (100) for evaluating evolution of tumoral lesions includes: —providing (101) a first image of the tumoral lesions, the first image being made at a first time instant; —providing (102) a second image of the tumoral lesions, the second image being made at a second time instant that is later than the first time instant; —delineating (103) a border of the tumoral lesions in the first image and the second image; —registration (103) of the tumoral lesions in the first image the second image; —segmenting (104) the tumoral lesions in the first image and the second image into concentric areas; —quantifying (105) changes of at least one functional parameter between the concentric areas in the first image and respective corresponding concentric areas in the second image; and —visualizing (106) the changes in a two-dimensional or three-dimensional model of the tumoral lesions. |
| US08712122B2 |
Shape based similarity of continuous wave doppler images
Continuous wave Doppler images in a data base comprising cardiac echo studies are processed to separate Doppler frames. The frames are pre-processed to extract envelope curves and their corner shape features. Shape patterns in Doppler images from echo studies of patients with known cardiac (valvular) diseases are employed to infer the similarity in valvular disease labels for purposes of automated clinical decision support. Specifically, similarity in appearance of Doppler images from the same disease class is modeled as a constrained non-rigid translation transform of velocity envelopes embedded in these images. Shape similarity between two Doppler images is then judged by recovering the alignment transform using a variant of dynamic shape warping. Since different diseases appear as characteristic shape patterns in Doppler images, measuring the similarity in the shape pattern conveyed within the velocity region of two Doppler images can infer the similarity in their diagnosis labels. |
| US08712120B1 |
Rules-based approach to transferring and/or viewing medical images
Systems and methods that allow transfer criteria to be defined based on one or more of several attributes, such as a particular user, site, or device, as well as whether individual images and/or image series are classified as thin slices, and applied to medical images in order to determine which images are downloaded, viewed, stored, and/or any number of other actions that might be performed with respect to particular images. |
| US08712116B2 |
Image generation based on a plurality of overlapped swathes
A method of generating a digital representation of a portion of an object from sets of digital data defining the color content of individually stored, overlapping swathes of pixels of an image of the object portion. The method comprises: (a) selecting a portion of the object; (b) determining the swathes which contain pixels within the selected portion; (c) correlating adjacent ones of said swathes; (d) if necessary, adjusting the relative positions of the adjacent swathes in accordance with the results of the correlating step (c); and, (e) generating a digital representation of pixels of the selected portion from the correlated swathes. |
| US08712115B2 |
Real-time virtual endoscopy
In a method of real-time 3-D visualization and navigation for interventional procedures a position is determined at which data will be acquired, and data is acquired at the position. Features are extracted from the acquired data. A model described by the extracted features is built or updated, wherein updating the model includes calculating at least one acquisition parameter of a set of acquisition parameters. 3-D scenes showing the interior or exterior of one or more organs are displayed using the model or data extracted from the model. A region for updating is determined. |
| US08712114B2 |
Elegant solutions for fingerprint image enhancement
This invention includes image processing techniques directed to achieve feature enhancement and background-foreground enhancement in fingerprint images. The image is divided into plural segments depending on the ridge-valley directions. Each segment is separately filtered with a directional filter generally perpendicular to the corresponding ridge-valley direction. Background-foreground detection employs edge detection to identify edge pixels. These edge pixels are averaged to determine a threshold. The threshold is applied to the original image to determine background and foreground pixels. The background and foreground pixels are filtered via a watershed fill filter with separate connectivity for background and foreground pixels. |
| US08712106B2 |
Image processing apparatus, image processing method, and program
An image processing apparatus includes a flatness detector, a difference calculation section, a noise level detector, and a motion detector. The flatness detector detects a flat region where pixel values of pixels on a first image are flat, based on variances of the pixel values of the pixels constituting the first image inputted. The difference calculation section calculates a difference between the pixel values of the pixels corresponding to the first image and a second image which continues before or after the first image. The noise level detector detects a noise level indicating a statistic noise amount of noise generated in each pixel constituting the first image based on the variances of the difference. The motion detector detects at least one of a still region indicating a region where an object on the first image is still and a motion region indicating a region where the object is moving. |
| US08712105B2 |
Vehicle speed verification system and method
A method of assessing the speed of a vehicle including the steps of obtaining a first image of a vehicle; obtaining a second image of the vehicle captured at a known time after capture of the first image; selecting a reference point on the vehicle in the first image; and indicating a location in the second image corresponding to a predicted location of the selected vehicle reference point assuming that the vehicle travels at a particular speed between the times of capture of the first and second images. |
| US08712104B2 |
Traffic signal mapping and detection
A system and method provides maps identifying the 3D location of traffic lights. The position, location, and orientation of a traffic light may be automatically extrapolated from two or more images. The maps may then be used to assist robotic vehicles or human drivers to identify the location and status of a traffic signal. |
| US08712099B2 |
Image surveillance system and method of detecting whether object is left behind or taken away
An image surveillance system and a method of detecting whether an object is left behind or taken away are provided. The image surveillance system includes: a foreground detecting unit which detects a foreground region based on a pixel information difference between a background image and a current input image; a still region detecting unit which detects a candidate still region by clustering foreground pixels of the foreground region, and determines whether the candidate still region is a falsely detected still region or a true still region; and an object detecting unit which determines whether an object is left behind or taken away, based on edge information about the true still region. |
| US08712095B2 |
Digital processing method and system for determination of optical flow
A method and system for determining an optical flow field between a pair of images is disclosed. Each of the pair of images is decomposed into image pyramids using a non-octave pyramid factor. The pair of decomposed images is transformed at a first pyramid scale to second derivative representations under an assumption that a brightness gradient of pixels in the pair of decomposed images is constant. Discrete-time derivatives of the second derivative image representations are estimated. An optical flow estimation process is applied to the discrete-time derivatives to produce a raw optical flow field. The raw optical flow field is scaled by the non-octave pyramid factor. The above-cited steps are repeated for the pair of images at another pyramid scale until all pyramid scales have been visited to produce a final optical flow field, wherein spatiotemporal gradient estimations are warped by a previous raw optical flow estimation. |
| US08712092B2 |
Magnetic circuit and speaker using same
The present invention provides a magnet assembly and speaker including such a magnet assembly. The magnet assembly includes an outer magnet defining a pair of first plat magnets, an inner magnet surrounded by the outer magnet and defining a pair of second plat magnets, a first magnetic gap formed between an inner surface of the outer magnet and an outer surface of the inner magnet, and a magnetic conductive portion sandwiched between the pair of the second plat magnets. A width of the magnetic conductive portion is unequal to a length of the outer and inner magnets. Polarity of the pair of the first plate magnets adjacent to the magnetic gap is similar to each other. Polarity of the pair of the first plate magnets adjacent to the magnetic gap are opposite to that of the pair of the second plate magnets adjacent to the first magnetic gap. |
| US08712088B2 |
Earpiece positioning and retaining
A positioning and retaining structure for an in-ear earpiece. An outer leg and an inner leg are attached to each other at an attachment end and attached to a body of the earpiece at the other end. The outer leg lies in a plane. The positioning and retaining structure have a stiffness that is greater when force is applied to the attachment end in a counterclockwise direction in the plane of the outer leg than when force is applied to the attachment end in a clockwise direction in the plane of the outer leg. The positioning and retaining structure position an earpiece associated with the earpiece in a users ear and retains the earpiece in its position. |
| US08712082B2 |
Wireless updating of hearing devices
The method of manufacturing a firmware-updated programmable hearing device comprising at least one processor and a memory unit in which hearing device firmware is stored, comprises the step of executing an update application in said processor installing an updated version of at least a portion of the hearing device firmware in said memory unit. The system for updating the firmware of a programmable hearing device as described above comprises: an update apparatus comprising a communication interface for communication via a wireless communication link and a storage unit in which an update application is stored, which is designed to be executed in said processor installing an updated version of at least a portion of the hearing device firmware in said memory unit. |
| US08712081B2 |
Real ear measurement system using thin tube
An embodiment of a hearing assistance apparatus for performing a Real Ear Measurement (REM), comprises a hearing assistance device housing, a microphone within the housing, an earhook connected to the housing, and a flexible tube. The house has a first opening for guiding sound into the housing to the microphone. The housing and the connected earhook form an interface, where the earhook has a shape to provide a slot near the interface of the housing and the earhook. The tube guides sound, and has a first end and a second end. The first end of the flexible tube and the slot of the earhook cooperate to retain the first end of the flexible tube in the slot of the earhook and flush with the housing to provide a sound-tight connection with the first opening. |
| US08712080B2 |
Display system, display control method and computer program
It is expected to provide a display system, display control method and computer program for effectively outputting sound with plural display apparatuses in a two dimensional array.A control apparatus 2 is connected to a two dimensional array display apparatus unit made with display apparatuses 1, 1, . . . configuring a multivision system. A controlling unit 20 of the control apparatus 2 obtains position information for the display apparatus unit in the two dimensional array. Based on the position of each display apparatus 1 in the two dimensional array display apparatus unit, the controlling unit 20 decides the presence or absence of output sound and selects the channel for the output sound. |
| US08712078B2 |
Headset systems and methods
A wireless headset is adapted to communicate with a sound source such as a music player or a cell phone or a suitable audio or sound communicated through a one-way or two-way communication device. The headset includes a mouth wearable communicator; and a linking unit coupled to the mouth wearable communicator, the linking unit adapted to communicate with the sound source. |
| US08712076B2 |
Post-processing including median filtering of noise suppression gains
A method of post-processing raw banded gains for applying to an audio signal, an apparatus to generate banded post-processed gains, and a tangible computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that when executed carry out the method. The raw banded gains are determined by input processing one or more input audio signals. The method includes applying post-processing to the raw banded gains to generate banded post-processed gains, generating a particular post-processed gain for a particular frequency band, including median filtering using raw gain values for frequency bands adjacent to the particular frequency band. One or more properties of the post-processing depend on classification of the one or more input audio signals. |
| US08712068B2 |
Acoustic echo cancellation
An input signal is supplied to a loudspeaker-room-microphone system having a transfer function and that provides an output signal. An adaptive filter unit models the transfer function of the loudspeaker-room-microphone system and provides an approximated output signal, where the output signal and the approximated output signal are subtracted from each other to provide an error signal. The modeling of the transfer function of the loudspeaker-room-microphone system in the adaptive filter comprises transforming the input signal and the error signal from the time domain into the spectral domain; delaying of the input signal in the frequency domain to generate multiple differently delayed input signals in the frequency domain; adaptive filtering of each one of the multiple differently delayed input signals in the frequency domain according to the error signal in the spectral domain; summing up of the filtered differently delayed input signals in the frequency domain to generate the approximated output signal in the frequency domain; and transforming the approximated output signal from the spectral domain into the time domain. |
| US08712063B2 |
Synchronization of sound generated in binaural hearing system
The binaural hearing system comprises a first hearing device and a second hearing device, each comprising an output transducer for converting audio signals into signals to be perceived by a user of the hearing system. A communication link interconnects the first and second hearing devices. A sound generator comprised in the first hearing device generates first audio signals. The first hearing device is adapted to transmit the first audio signals to the second hearing device via the communication link. Through the transmission of the generated first audio signals, it is possible to achieve a predictable latency for the perception of the first audio signals by the user's two ears. |
| US08712061B2 |
Phase-amplitude 3-D stereo encoder and decoder
A two-channel phase-amplitude stereo encoding and decoding scheme enabling flexible and spatially accurate interactive 3-D audio reproduction via standard audio-only two-channel transmission. The encoding scheme allows associating a 2-D or 3-D positional localization to each of a plurality of sound sources by use of frequency independent inter-channel phase and amplitude differences. The decoder is based on frequency-domain spatial analysis of 2-D or 3-D directional cues in a two-channel stereo signal and re-synthesis of these cues using any preferred spatialization technique, thereby allowing faithful reproduction of positional audio cues and reverberation or ambient cues over arbitrary multi-channel loudspeaker reproduction formats or over headphones, while preserving source separation despite the intermediate encoding over only two audio channels. |
| US08712057B2 |
Apparatus and method for an iterative cryptographic block
A method and apparatus for an iterative cryptographic block under the control of a CPU and without a fixed number of stages. In one embodiment, a first cryptographic block descrambles received information using an internal key or a preprogrammed key to form a descrambled key or descrambled data. A data feedback path stores the descrambled data as internal data and provides the internal data or the external data as data input to the first cryptographic block. A key feedback path stores the descrambled key as an internal key and provides the internal key or the preprogrammed key to a key input of the first cryptographic block. A second cryptographic block descrambles received content using a final descrambling key. Other embodiments are described and claimed. |
| US08712056B2 |
Secure mobile ad hoc network
Security in a mobile ad hoc network is maintained by using various forms of encryption, various encryption schemes, and various multi-phase keying techniques. In one configuration, an over the air, three-phase, re-keying technique is utilized to ensure that no authorized nodes are lost during re-keying and that nodes that are intended to be excluded from re-keying are excluded. In another configuration, an over the air, two-phase keying technique, is utilized to maintain backwards secrecy. |
| US08712049B2 |
System for implementing dynamic pseudorandom keyboard remapping
A system for implementing dynamic pseudorandom keyboard remapping includes a keyboard in communication with an operating system of a computing device; the keyboard configured to encrypt an original keyboard scan code corresponding to each of a plurality of keyboard keys, using a mapping algorithm, wherein the mapping algorithm encrypts the original keyboard scan code by using both the original keyboard scan code and a current one of a sequence of pseudorandom numbers generated using a pseudorandom number generator (PRNG) algorithm and an initial seed value; and the operating system configured to decrypt the original keyboard scan code based on an encrypted scan code generated and transmitted from the keyboard thereto, responsive to a keystroke of the keyboard, wherein the operating system also uses the mapping algorithm, the PRNG algorithm, and the initial seed value. |
| US08712044B2 |
Key management system
Embodiments are directed towards enabling cryptographic key management without disrupting cryptographic operations. Embodiments may be employed to generate cryptographic keys based on at least one key parameter that may be provided by an administrator. The administrator may generate key managers and key request users that may be linked to particular cryptographic keys. The cryptographic keys may be stored on key exchange servers separate from the key management server. Responsive to a request for a cryptographic key, the key exchange servers may authenticate the key request user associated with the request. The key request may be validated based on at least one key parameter and a portion of the key request. The key exchange server may generate the requested cryptographic keys providing them to the key request user over the network. |
| US08712042B2 |
Implicit certificate scheme
A method of generating a public key in a secure digital communication system, having at least one trusted entity CA and subscriber entities A. The trusted entity selects a unique identity distinguishing each entity A. The trusted entity then generates a public key reconstruction public data of the entity A by mathematically combining public values obtained from respective private values of the trusted entity and the entity A. The unique identity and public key reconstruction public data of the entity A serve as A's implicit certificate. The trusted entity combines the implicit certificate information with a mathematical function to derive an entity information f and generates a value kA by binding f with private values of the trusted entity. The trusted entity transmits the value kA to the entity to permit A to generate a private key from kA, A's private value and A's implicit certificate. |
| US08712041B2 |
Content protection apparatus and content encryption and decryption apparatus using white-box encryption table
A content protection apparatus using a white-box encryption table includes: a random number generation unit for generating a random number; a white-box encryption table for encrypting the random number and user information provided from a user to generate an encrypted output value; and an operation unit for performing an operation between the encrypted output value and data inputted from an outside to encrypt or decrypt the data. |
| US08712039B2 |
Efficient implementation of hash algorithm on a processor
An efficient implementation of SHA-512, and similarly SHA-384, on an ARM processor. The implementation maximizes reuse of the register values between iterations so as to minimize the need to load these values from memory. This is achieved by categorizing the iterations into even and odd ones such that the sequence of computation in the even iteration is reversed in the odd iteration and the register values at the end of one iteration are consumed at the beginning of the following one. |
| US08712035B2 |
Online data conversion technique using a sliding window
An embodiment of the invention provides an apparatus and method for online data conversion. The apparatus and method are configured to read data that is overlapped by a window in a first position in a volume, convert the data into a converted text, write the converted text into the volume, and slide the window to a second position in the volume. |
| US08712034B1 |
Adaptive analog echo/next cancellation
An adaptive analog echo/near-end crosstalk (NEXT) cancellation system includes a processor configured to receive a first digital signal corresponding to a first signal received by the system, receive a second digital signal corresponding to a second signal transmitted by the system, and generate a first error control signal based on each of the first digital signal and the second digital signal. A cancellation device is configured to generate a second error control signal based on a first analog signal corresponding to the first signal. The cancellation device selectively outputs the second error control signal or the first error control signal based on whether the system is operating in a first mode or a second mode, respectively. The cancellation device selectively outputs a cancellation signal according to one of the second error control signal and the first error control signal, and a second analog signal corresponding to the second signal. |
| US08712031B2 |
Visual physician office systems and methods
Methods and systems are disclosed for enabling a virtual physician office (VPO) that uses a network-based physician practice application and leverages the assets of a shared, communications network of legacy systems. A data connection is established with a rule-based application dataserver of a telecommunications network facility to control access, sharing, notification, security, and/or management of electronic healthcare communications. Typically, the rule-based application dataserver is associated with a central office (“CO”), a mobile telephone switching center (“MTSO”), or a combination CO/MTSO. |
| US08712030B2 |
Systems and methods for processing telephone calls
A system includes a switching device. The switching device is configured to process a call request as a 12-digit telephone number. The 12-digit telephone number includes a 3-digit area code, a 4-digit location independent code, and a 5-digit location dependent code. |
| US08712027B2 |
Methods, systems, and products for providing ring backs
Methods, systems, and products provide a ring back to a calling party during a wait time. Weather, sports scores, and financial data may be associated to ring backs. When a communication request is received, a ring back may be chosen by a called party for presentation to a calling party. |
| US08712024B2 |
Multilevel directory assistance apparatus and method
A method is disclosed for the presentation of telephone information about a company or other enterprise over the Internet in response to consumer searches for names or products. Department information is included. The system uses a database to determine product slightly sold my search for companies to provide advertisers or sponsors with preferential placement of their ads. Revenue is charged response to clicking on an advertisement. The system also places telephone calls over the Internet to users of the inventive search engine. Advertisers are charged for such calls. Optionally, the system may not allow direct dialing for non-advertisers. |
| US08712021B2 |
Retrievable outgoing audio messaging
The present invention relates generally to retaining outgoing audio messages between two voice communicating devices. In particular, the present invention relates to a system and method for using an external device that monitors all outgoing communication from a voice communicating device and stores such voice data with associate information for future retrieval. A system and method is disclosed that uses a device on the sender's side or on a remote system offered through the voice data network to monitor and record voice mails simultaneously with the receiver's side voice mail device. The recorded mail is available for access from any voice data device and also through electronic mail. |
| US08712017B2 |
Network fault detection
According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of detecting faults within a telecommunications network, said telecommunications network comprising a plurality of entities. The method comprises grouping said entities into one or more groups based on the call traffic handled by said entities or on the call traffic said entities are configured to handle, for at least one of said groups, monitoring the call length pattern of a plurality of grouped entities of said group, and for at least one of said grouped entities, comparing the monitored call length pattern of the grouped entity with the monitored call length pattern of one or more of the other grouped entities to determine if the behavior of said grouped entity is indicative of a fault. The entities may comprise nodes of the network or hardware elements within one or more nodes of the network. |
| US08712016B2 |
Three-dimensional shape data processing apparatus and three-dimensional shape data processing method
A three-dimensional shape data processing apparatus includes a data input unit configured to input data of a first tomographic image group including a plurality of tomographic images and data of a second tomographic image group including a plurality of tomographic images, wherein at least a part of an image capturing area of the second tomographic image group is overlapped with at least a part of an image taking area of the first tomographic image groups, and a combination unit configured to combine first three-dimensional shape data and second three-dimensional shape data into one piece of three-dimensional shape data according to an estimated accuracy estimated values of the first and second three-dimensional shape data at a plurality of positions. |
| US08712015B2 |
Electron beam manipulation system and method in X-ray sources
The embodiments disclosed herein relate to the controlled generation of X-rays and, more specifically, to the control of electron beams that are used to produce X-rays using one or more electron beam manipulation coils. For example, methods and devices for driving an electron beam manipulation coil, as well as systems using these devices, are provided. The systems are generally configured to maintain a first current though an electron beam manipulation coil using a first voltage source and to switch the first current to a second current using a second voltage source. |
| US08712013B2 |
Motion control system and X-ray measurement apparatus
A motion control system comprising a servo motor for moving a rotary stage; a scale provided on the rotary stage or on an object that moves integrally with the rotary stage; a plurality of reading heads for detecting the scale and outputting a signal; a data processing part for calculating an average value of rotation angle data based on each of the output signals from the reading heads and outputting the average value as a signal; and a servo amplifier for controlling the motor based on the signal representing the average value of the rotation angle. The motion control system can cause the rotary stage to rotate to a desired rotation angle to a high degree of accuracy using the reading heads. |
| US08712011B2 |
Methods and apparatus for imaging in conjunction with radiotherapy
Methods and apparatus for planning imaging include planning imaging in conjunction with planning a radiation treatment. A radiation dose due to planned imaging may be calculated and used in optimizing a plan for delivering therapeutic radiation. Imaging and treatment may be performed using radiation beams having different characteristics. In some embodiments an imaging beam is generated using a low-Z target and a therapy beam is generated using a high-Z target. A radiation treatment planning system may include data characterizing both the imaging beam and the treatment beam. |
| US08712007B2 |
Method and computed tomography device and data storage medium for performing a dynamic CT examination on a patient
In a computed tomography apparatus and operating method, a radiation source and radiation detector are rotated around a system axis, and a patient support plate and diaphragm elements of a diaphragm associated with the x-ray source are also movable in the direction of the system axis. Movement of the patient support plate and the diaphragm plates between respective end positions is coordinated during a dynamic computed tomography examination of a subject so as to reduce and homogenize the dose of x-ray radiation to which the subject is exposed during the examination. |
| US08712002B2 |
Nuclear reactor building and construction method thereof
In a nuclear reactor building of a steel plate concrete structure that houses a pressure containment vessel formed with a plurality of penetration ports penetrating the pressure containment vessel on the periphery thereof and includes a biological shielding wall disposed outside the pressure containment vessel. The pressure containment vessel is vertically divided into a plurality of blocks so that each of the blocks has one or more pressure containment vessel penetration ports arranged on a same horizontal plane, and the reactor building including the biological shielding wall is divided into a plurality of modules by the horizontal plane. |
| US08712000B2 |
Tranverse in-core probe monitoring and calibration device for nuclear power plants, and method thereof
A method and apparatus for the calibration of neutron flux monitoring devices used in a nuclear reactor core. The apparatus includes a transverse in-core probe (TIP) cable with a neutron absorber located a fixed distance apart from a TIP detector. The neutron absorber may be passed within close proximity of the neutron flux monitoring device such that a perceived drop in measured neutron flux occurs, whereupon the cable may be repositioned relative to the monitoring device to ensure that the TIP detector is within close proximity of the monitoring device for purposes of calibrating the monitoring device. |
| US08711998B2 |
Cooling structure and cooling method for control rod drive mechanism and nuclear reactor
In a cooling structure and a cooling method for a control rod drive mechanism and in a nuclear reactor, a housing (59) in which magnetic jacks are housed is fixed to an upper portion of a reactor vessel (41), and an air intake unit (102) that takes cooling air into the housing (59), a first exhaust duct (104) that is arranged side by side with the air intake unit (102) in a circumferential direction of the housing (59), into which cooling air in the housing (59) is suctioned through a first inlet (109) at a lower portion thereof, and that guides the cooling air upward, a second exhaust duct (105) that is disposed below the air intake unit (102), into which cooling air in the housing (59) is suctioned through a second inlet (110), and that guides the cooling air to the first exhaust duct (104), and a discharging unit (111) that is formed at an upper portion of the housing (59) and discharges cooling air in the first exhaust duct (104) to the exterior are provided. |
| US08711996B2 |
Methods and apparatus for determining a phase error in signals
An integrated circuit includes samplers, a phase error determination circuit, and periodic signal generators. The samplers generate respective sampled signals by sampling respective input signals in response to respective periodic signals. The input signals have a common phase error. The phase error determination circuit receives the sampled signals from the samplers. The phase error determination circuit generates a representation of the common phase error of the input signals in response to sampled signals received in a set-up mode in which the samplers sample respective input signals having a common bit pattern. The periodic signal generators generate the periodic signals differing in phase from one another by defined phase differences in the set-up mode and subject the periodic signals to a common phase shift in a normal mode in response to the representation of the common phase error. The common phase shift matches the common phase error of the input signals. |
| US08711994B2 |
Methods for determining decoding order in a MIMO system with successive interference cancellation
Certain aspects provide a method for determining decoding order and reconstruction weights for decoded streams to be cancelled in a MIMO system with successive interference cancellation, based on estimates of the channel characteristics, the received composite signal and parameters of the system. |
| US08711993B2 |
Wideband multi-channel receiver with fixed-frequency notch filter for interference rejection
A wideband multi-channel receiver comprises an antenna configured to receive a radio frequency band comprising an aviation VHF communication band, an aviation VHF navigation band, an aviation L-band, or combinations thereof. A band-pass filter is in signal communication with the antenna, and a low-noise amplifier is in signal communication with the band-pass filter. A mixer is in signal communication with the low-noise amplifier and is configured to translate a radio frequency band to an intermediate frequency (IF) band. A tunable local oscillator is in signal communication with the mixer. At least one fixed-frequency notch filter is in signal communication with the mixer, with the notch filter configured to reject at least one interference signal in the IF band while passing remaining signals in the IF band. An analog-to-digital converter is in signal communication with the notch filter and is configured to convert the remaining signals in the IF band to digital signals. A digital processing system is in signal communication with the analog-to-digital converter. |
| US08711992B2 |
Phase noise extraction apparatus and technique
A phase noise extraction apparatus and technique that extracts phase noise induced by a component of a transmitter from a radio frequency (RF) signal and attenuates noise induced from other sources. The RF signal is digitized, modulation is removed, and the carrier is suppressed to provide a noise signal including the phase noise and the noise induced from the other sources. A complementary autocorrelation operation is applied to the noise signal to attenuate the noise from the other sources. The correlated signal is transformed into the frequency domain to generate a power spectrum of the phase noise that may be measured or displayed. |
| US08711991B2 |
Method and a channel estimating arrangement for performing channel estimation
The invention relates to a method in a receiving communication node for performing channel estimation on a signal received over a channel from a transmitting communication node. The receiving and transmitting communication nodes are comprised in a radio communications network. The receiving communication node receives the signal from the transmitting communication node, filters the signal by applying matched filter to the received signal in a matched filter process resulting in an estimated channel, transforms the estimated channel from a frequency domain to a discrete cosine transform domain in a discrete cosine transformation process, truncates the transformed estimated channel by applying a sloped window truncation function of an adaptive length onto the transformed estimated channel, wherein the adaptive length in the discrete cosine transform domain is calculated based on channel state information, and transforms the truncated transformed estimated channel from the discrete cosine transform domain to the frequency domain in an inverse discrete cosine transformation process resulting in a channel estimate of the channel estimation. |
| US08711990B1 |
Frame syncrhonization in orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing systems
A system including a demodulation module, a metric generation module, and a preamble detection module. The demodulation module is configured to generate demodulated signals based on demodulating, in accordance with a differential demodulation scheme, signals received from a base station. The signals received from the base station include a plurality of symbols. The demodulated signals comprise a plurality of real parts each having a corresponding magnitude. The metric generation module is configured to generate a plurality of metrics for the plurality of symbols based on the corresponding magnitudes of the plurality of real parts of the demodulated signals. The preamble detection module is configured to detect, based on the plurality of metrics, whether the plurality of symbols in the signals received from the base station includes a preamble symbol. |
| US08711989B1 |
Method and apparatus for receiving signals in a MIMO system with multiple channel encoders
In a method for decoding plurality of information streams corresponding to a plurality of layers, where the plurality of information streams have been transmitted via a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) communication channel, a plurality of received signals are processed to decode information corresponding to a first layer. A plurality of modified received signals are generated using the decoded information corresponding to the first layer and the plurality of received signals. Bit metric values are generated for a second layer using MIMO maximum likelihood (ML) demodulation and using the plurality of modified received signals and channel and modulation information for interfering signals. Information corresponding to the second layer is decoded using the generated bit metric values. |
| US08711987B2 |
Method and receiver for jointly decoding received communication signals using maximum likelihood detection
The present invention relates to a method in a receiver for decoding at least two received communication signals, wherein the communication signals are modulated, pre-coded by a discrete Fourier transform and transmitted by means of single-carrier frequency division multiple access scheme (SC-FDMA). The method comprises the steps of: performing an antenna combining and equalization on a signal observed at the receiver; performing inverse discrete Fourier transform on a model of the observed signal; whitening a time domain model of the observed signal; and jointly detecting the received at least two communication signals by performing soft value calculations based on maximum likelihood detection of a whitened time domain model using a whitened time domain channel estimate. |
| US08711986B2 |
Advanced joint detection in a TD-SCDMA system
A communication system is provided that includes a composite transfer module that receives an input signal and performs one or more selective operations defined by a first transfer function on the input signal. The composite transfer module outputs a first signal. A joint detection module receives the first signal and performs joint detection on the first signal. The joint detection module utilizes channel estimation information of the first transfer function so as to allow the joint detection module to perform joint detection with an oversampling rate of 2× or higher. |
| US08711982B1 |
Amplitude-shift-keying (ASK) envelope detector and demodulation circuits
An envelope detector receives an input that is an Amplitude-Modulated (AM) or Amplitude-Shift-Keying (ASK) coded signal. Each channel has a sample switch and a diode that charge an internal sampling capacitor. A hold switch connects the internal sampling capacitor to a summing output capacitor or to a post-processing circuit. A reset switch discharges the internal sampling capacitor after each sample. Two or more channels may be time multiplexed to sample alternate cycles of the input, and then their outputs combined by the summing output capacitor or by the post-processing circuit. The diodes may be reversed to detect the negative envelope rather than the positive envelope. Clocks for the switches may be generated from the input, or may be from a separate clock source. Since the sampling window is open for a whole input cycle, the clock source is insensitive to phase error. |
| US08711978B2 |
Method and apparatus of communication using soft decision
A method for performing a reliable communication using soft decision information and a random linear coding in the wireless access system is disclosed. The communication method includes arranging received random-linear-coded first code blocks in descending order of their soft decision levels, and performing a random linear decoding on a first code block set, wherein the first code block set is constructed of the first code blocks arranged in the descending order of their soft decision levels. If any error occurs in the random linear decoding step of the first code block set, the method further includes performing a random linear decoding on a second code block set, wherein the second code block set is constructed when a code block having the lowest soft decision level among code blocks contained in the first code block set is replaced with another first code block. |
| US08711977B2 |
Method for transmitting a signal
The method includes providing a stream of data to be transmitted, and processing the data by means of channel coding with a time-varying code rate, thereby generating a stream of channel coded data. The method further includes forming succeeding transmission time intervals and distributing the channel coded data on the transmission time intervals, and adjusting a transmission power of the signal to be transmitted by timely positioning a transmission power slope between two succeeding transmission time intervals so that the transmission power slope is contained completely within one transmission time interval of the two transmission time intervals, wherein the one transmission time interval comprises a lower nominal code rate or a lower nominal transmission power than the other one of the two transmission time intervals. |
| US08711976B2 |
Pre-distortion architecture for compensating non-linear effects
An input signal is pre-distorted to reduce distortion resulting from subsequent signal amplification. Frequency-dependent pre-distortion is preferably implemented in combination with frequency-independent pre-distortion, where the frequency-dependent pre-distortion is generated by expanding the derivative of a product of a pre-distortion function and the input signal and then relaxing constraints on the pre-distortion function and/or on frequency-dependent filtering associated with the frequency-dependent pre-distortion. In one implementation, four different frequency-dependent pre-distortion signals are generated for the expansion using up to four different pre-distortion functions and up to four different frequency-dependent filters. |
| US08711973B2 |
Highly detectable pilot structure
Aspects describe a Highly Detectable Pilot that allows a mobile device to detect more base stations and, thus, can provide more accuracy in location estimate. A highly detectable pilot can be transmitted in one or more data symbols that are not currently being utilized for transmission of data. Transmission of the highly detectable pilot in two data symbols provide a receiver with more convergence time, however, it can take the receiver a longer amount of time to acquire an adequate number of pilots for a location estimate. |
| US08711969B2 |
Global codebook for coordinated multi-point processing
In accordance with one or more embodiments of the present disclosure a method for generating a codebook comprises generating a plurality of wireless communication channel representations. The method further comprises generating a precoding matrix for each of the plurality of wireless communication channel representations. The method additionally comprises performing a clustering operation on the precoding matrices to determine a plurality of centroids associated with the precoding matrices. Also the method includes determining codewords based on the centroids and generating a codebook based on the codewords. |
| US08711965B2 |
Method and apparatus for optimizing transmission diversity
A method and apparatus are provided for transmission in a communication system. The system includes a transmitter having at least one first and second antenna and a receiver, which includes at least one receiving antenna. The method includes determining a transmit diversity scheme for at least one group of symbols from among a plurality of modulated symbols. This step includes at least one step of obtaining a phase shift of at least one symbol of the at least one group of symbols. The phase shift is based on: at least one phase shift parameter N; and responses (hk1, hk2), respectively, between the at least one first antenna and the at least one receiving antenna and between the at least one second antenna and the at least one receiving antenna. The method further includes a step of phase shifting, allowing rotation of said symbol at a multiple of a π/N value. |
| US08711964B2 |
Method and apparatus for pre-scheduling in closed-loop MU-MIMO antenna system
A method and an apparatus for pre-scheduling in a closed-loop multiple user multiple input multiple output (MU-MIMO) antenna system. A base station receives channel information representing a downlink channel condition of each mobile station from mobile stations in a cell, and determines a candidate user group for each of frequency bands included in an entire frequency band, based on the channel information, the candidate user group including mobile stations to which resources can be simultaneously allocated. The base station also instructs a mobile station included in each candidate user group to transmit a sounding signal through a corresponding frequency band. If the sounding signal is received through the corresponding frequency band, the base station performs a scheduling with regard to the mobile station included in each candidate user group. |
| US08711958B2 |
Method for decoding a spatially multiplexed data signal using a maximum likelihood detection
The disclosure relates to a method for decoding a received signal in a MIMO communication system and in at least one layer, each layer carrying at least one data symbol belonging to a signal constellation. The method includes, for one of the at least one layer, a maximum likelihood detection step. This step includes: selecting one candidate value for the data symbol of the layer, and determining the Euclidian distance between the received signal Y and the data signal transmitted using said candidate value multiplied by said channel matrix H, weighted by the inverse of a noise covariance matrix C such as ∥Y−ΣiHixi∥C−12, expressed as: Σi≠n∥Hi∥C−12|xi|2−2(HiHC−1Y−0.5Σj≠i,nHiHC−1Hjxj)x*i+∥Hn∥C−12|xn|2−2(HnHC−1Y−Σj≠nHnHC−1Hjxj)x*n=Σi≠nαiR(xi)2−2βiRxi+αnR(xn)2−2βnRxn+Σi≠nαiI(ℑxi)2−2βiIℑxi+αnI(ℑxn)2−2βnIℑxn. The terms depending on αk are computed by adding to each of them a predetermined constant depending on the size of the constellation of the layer k, called a constellation dependent constant. |
| US08711957B2 |
Apparatus and method for transmitting and receiving data
A data transmission apparatus is provided. A symbol mapper performs symbol mapping on information about an optimum key index that instructs a modified Walsh-Hadamard matrix that causes a minimum peak-to-average power ratio and generates a plurality of key symbols. A modified Walsh-Hadamard transformer generates a plurality of modified Walsh-Hadamard-transformed data symbols by performing modified Walsh-Hadamard transform on a plurality of data symbols according to a modified Walsh-Hadamard matrix that an optimum key index instructs. An inverse Fourier transformer generates a plurality of inverse Fourier-transformed symbols by performing inverse Fourier transform on a plurality of key symbols and a plurality of modified Walsh-Hadamard-transformed data symbols. A transmitter transmits a plurality of inverse Fourier-transformed symbols to a channel through at least one antenna. |
| US08711956B2 |
Modified continuous phase modulation communications system and related methods
A communications system may include a first communications device that may include a transmitter and a modulator cooperating therewith to modulate a coded waveform using a constant phase modulation (CPM) to generate a non-linear CPM waveform, and generate a linear representation of the non-linear CPM waveform, the linear representation including a plurality of pulses. The transmitter and a modulator may further cooperate to remove at least some of the plurality of pulses to define a modified linear representation of the non-linear CPM waveform, and transmit the modified linear representation of the non-linear CPM waveform. The communications system may further include a second communications device that may include a receiver and a single pulse-matched filter linear demodulator cooperating therewith to demodulate the modified linear representation of the non-linear CPM waveform transmitted from the first communications device. |
| US08711954B2 |
Transfer of digital data through an isolation
A method and a system for transferring a digital signal through a transformer, in which the current in a primary winding of the transformer is a frequency-modulated signal exhibiting sinusoidal trains of different durations according to the rising or falling edge of the digital signal to be transferred. |
| US08711953B2 |
Method for transmitting a signal from a transmitter to a receiver in a power line communication network, transmitter, receiver, power line communication modem and power line communication system
A method for transmitting a signal from a transmitter over a channel to a receiver on a Power Line Network, wherein said signal is OFDM-modulated on a set of sub-carriers, is proposed, wherein an OFDM tonemap and an eigenbeamforming encoding matrix are determined based on a channel estimation for each sub-carrier, a tonemap feedback signal and an eigenbeamforming feedback signal are generated, which are descriptive of said OFDM tonemap and said eigenbeamforming encoding matrix, respectively, and transmitted to the transmitter. A corresponding receiver, a transmitter, a power line communication and a power line communication system are described as well. |
| US08711943B2 |
Signal processing and tiered signal encoding
An encoder receives a signal. The encoder utilizes one or more downsample operations to produce downsampled renditions of the signal at successively lower levels of quality in the hierarchy. In a reverse direction, the encoder applies the one or more upsample operations to a downsampled rendition of the signal at a first level of quality to produce an upsampled rendition of the signal at a second level of quality in the hierarchy. The second level of quality is higher than the first level of quality. The one or more upsample operations and one or more downsample operations can be asymmetrical with respect to each other. That is, the function applied during downsampling can differ from the function applied when upsampling. The encoder produces residual data indicating a difference between the downsampled rendition of the signal at the second level of quality and the upsampled rendition of the signal at the second level of quality. |
| US08711942B2 |
Moving picture decoding device and moving picture decoding method
One embodiment provides a moving picture decoding device for decoding a compression-coded moving picture stream, including: an inter-view predicting module configured to perform inter-view prediction processing on processing subject blocks of each frame to be decoded; a load detector configured to detect a magnitude of an apparatus processing load including a processing load for decoding; a judging module configured to judge whether the magnitude of the apparatus processing load detected by the load detector is small; and a controller configured to control the inter-view predicting module so as to cause simplification of the inter-view prediction processing if the judging module judges that the magnitude of the apparatus processing load is not small. |
| US08711938B2 |
Methods and systems for motion estimation with nonlinear motion-field smoothing
Aspects of the present invention are related to low complexity systems and methods for nonlinear diffusion filtering of a motion-vector field. Local weights in the nonlinear diffusion filter may be data-adaptive, and, according to one aspect of the present invention, may be determined such that spatial coherency may not be enforced at object boundaries although the object boundaries have not been explicitly detected. Thus, the methods and systems of the present invention may smooth a motion-vector field without smoothing the motion-vector field across an object boundary. According to a second aspect of the present invention, motion vectors with a low confidence value may be suppressed, while motion vectors with a high confidence value may be propagated. According to another aspect of the present invention, motion estimation methods and systems may incorporate the methods and systems of the nonlinear diffusion filtering according to the present invention. |
| US08711937B2 |
Low-complexity motion vector prediction systems and methods
A method of motion vector prediction for use in differential motion vector coding within a block motion-compensation-based video coder. The video coder employs a generalized multiple reference picture buffer which may contain multiple reference pictures in both the forward and backward temporal direction from the current picture. For the purpose of coding selections of reference pictures within the buffer, the pictures are organized into two, potentially overlapping, lists of reference pictures. The prediction of a motion vector that selects a reference picture using a given reference picture list is not dependent upon any motion vectors that select their reference pictures using the other reference picture list. The values of spatially neighboring motion vectors that use the same list of reference pictures as the motion vector being predicted are used for prediction, regardless of the relative temporal direction of the current and neighboring motion vectors. |
| US08711935B2 |
Apparatus and method for image encoding/decoding using predictability of intra-prediction mode
An apparatus and a method for video encoding/decoding using predictability of an intra-prediction mode are disclosed. The apparatus for encoding a video of the present disclosure includes: an intra-prediction mode determiner for determining an encoder prediction mode which is an intra-prediction mode of a current block of the video; an encoder for encoding a residual block generated by subtracting, from the current block, a predicted block generated by predicting the current block according to the encoder prediction mode; a mode information generator for generating mode information according to whether or not a video decoding apparatus is able to predict the encoder prediction mode; and an encoded data generator for generating encoded data including the encoded residual block and the mode information. The present disclosure can enhance compression in video encoding/decoding by using intra-prediction to predict the video with a minimum necessary bit rate. |
| US08711933B2 |
Random access point (RAP) formation using intra refreshing technique in video coding
A random access point can be generated in a stream of coded digital pictures containing a plurality of predictive coded frames in which one or more subsections of each frame are intra coded. A patch frame can be formed from intra-coded subsections in identified consecutive predictive-coded frames. The patch frame can be used as a synthetic random access point. |
| US08711931B2 |
Picture information coding device and coding method
In a picture information coding device for outputting picture compression information based on an AVC encoding scheme, optimum reference relationships in a GOP structure including hierarchical B pictures can be obtained and random access from an I picture that is not an instantaneous decoding refresh picture can be performed.When multiple-frame prediction is performed, with a memory management control operation command generation unit (13), a reference B picture that exists between a picture and a P picture or I picture is registered as a long-term reference picture using a memory management control operation command to manage a picture in a decoded picture buffer. The reference B picture is placed as the first in a reference picture list using a reference picture list reordering command when a B picture that exists between the P picture or I picture and the reference B picture is processed. The long-term reference picture in the decoded picture buffer is set to be a non-reference picture by setting the maximum value of a long-term frame index to [0] using a memory management control operation command when the P picture or I picture is processed. Random access from the I picture that is not an instantaneous decoding refresh picture is performed. |
| US08711928B1 |
Method, apparatus, and manufacture for adaptation of video encoder tuning parameters
A method, apparatus, and manufacture for encoding a video sequence is provided. During a first exploitation phase of an encoding pass of the video encoding, macro-blocks are encoded employing at least one encoding parameter. At least one encoder statistic is evaluated based on the encoding of macro-blocks during the first exploitation phase. Next, during a first exploration phase of the encoding pass, macro-blocks are encoded employing at least one encoding parameter that is different than the encoding parameter(s) used during the first exploitation phase. At least one encoder statistic is evaluated based on the encoding of the macro-blocks during the first exploitation phase. The encoder statistic(s) based on the first exploration stage is compared when the encoder statistic(s) based on the first exploitation phase, and a steady-state value of the encoding parameter(s) is updated based on the comparison. The process may then continue to alternate between exploration and exploitation phases. |
| US08711916B2 |
Tap initialization of equalizer based on estimated channel impulse response
A method of initializing tap coefficients of an equalizer may include estimating impulse response coefficients of a channel through which a received signal traveled based on a known portion of the received signal. The method may also include loading the impulse response coefficients into a channel filter and generating a reference signal. The reference signal may be passed through the channel filter to build a training signal. Tap coefficients of the equalizer may be adjusted based on the training signal from the channel filter and on a delayed version of the reference signal. |
| US08711914B2 |
Channel estimating method and device
A channel estimating method and device are provided. The method includes: performing multi-path searching on a pilot channel, and performing interpolation on a channel estimation value at a radial position of the multi-path searching (101); performing raised cosine de-convolution on the channel estimation value that undergoes the interpolation (102); acquiring the channel estimation value at each radial position in the pilot channel according to the channel estimation value that undergoes the raised cosine de-convolution and a sample deviation acquired by performing the multi-path searching (103). The channel estimating method and device eliminate the sample deviation of the channel estimation value, improve the demodulation performance, and evidently reduce the operation workload. |
| US08711913B2 |
Device and method for processing input data of protective relay
A device and a method for processing an input data of an protective relay, even in case that data stored in an accumulation buffer of the protective relay is damaged due to noises, etc., that can recover it and carry out a normal measurement are provided, the invention includes a digital signal processing part comprising inputting a sampled digital data to a digital signal processing part, counting and accumulating frequency of the inputted data, comparing the accumulated value with a value of a period, inputting a value of an update accumulation buffer to a measurement accumulation buffer and initializing the update accumulation buffer if the counted accumulation frequency is equal to the value of one period; and performing an RDFT (Recursive Discrete Fourier Transform) operation on the inputted digital data to dually buffering the measurement accumulation buffer and the update accumulation buffer. |
| US08711912B2 |
Method, device and computer readable medium for determining whether transmission signals are present in received signals
A method is provided for determining whether transmission signals are present in received signals, the method comprising: receiving a first signal via a first radio resource; receiving a second signal via a second radio resource; determining whether a first transmission signal is present in the received first signal based on the received second signal; and determining whether a second transmission signal is present in the received second signal based on the received first signal. |
| US08711909B2 |
Communication device and two-dimensional communication system using the same
A switch circuit connects a switch (SW) to a connector when a connector receives a signal and connects the switch (SW) to a terminal when the connector receives power. The connector receives a signal and power transmitted at the same frequency, outputs the received signal to a communication unit through an attenuator, and outputs the received power to a power receiving unit. The communication unit carries out reception processing to the signal and outputs the processed signal to a computer. The power receiving unit carries out reception processing to the power and stores the processed power. The power receiving unit supplies the communication unit or the computer with the stored power. |
| US08711908B2 |
Interface circuit
A player and an AV amplifier are connected via a cable. An amplifying device amplifies an output signal supplied to an output terminal 14, and outputs the amplified output signal as a transmission signal to the cable. An amplifying device amplifies an output signal supplied to an output terminal, and outputs the amplified output signal as a transmission signal to a cable. An operation device subtracts the output signal supplied to the output terminal from the transmission signal output to the cable. An operation device subtracts the output signal supplied to the output terminal from the transmission signal output to the cable. Therefore, the transmission signal from the AV amplifier is supplied to an input terminal, and the transmission signal from the player is supplied to an input terminal. The transmission signal includes a two-way communication bit indicating whether two-way communication is enabled. |
| US08711904B2 |
Calibration method for non-ideal transceivers
A method of determining non-ideality characteristics introduced on a signal by a transceiver is disclosed. The transceiver has an up-conversion transmitter and a down-conversion receiver. In one aspect, the method includes: a) generating a signal comprising at least one known training symbol, b) up-converting this signal with a first frequency to a first signal in the transmitter, c) transferring the first signal from the transmitter to the receiver, d) down-converting with a second frequency this transferred first signal to a second signal in the receiver, the second frequency being different from but linked to the first frequency, e) detecting at least one of the training symbols in the second signal; and f) separating, in the frequency domain, at least one of the components of at least one of the detected training symbols for determining the non-ideality characteristics. |
| US08711892B2 |
Nitride semiconductor laser device
A nitride semiconductor laser device includes: a stack, the stack including an n-type layer and a p-type layer each including a nitride semiconductor; an n-electrode electrically coupled to the n-type layer; a p-electrode electrically coupled to the p-type layer; and a thermally conductive portion disposed in contact with the p-type layer in a region which is different from the region where the p-electrode is connected, wherein the thermally conductive portion is electrically insulated from the p-electrode. Manufacturing steps specific to nitride semiconductors are employed to form the device. An optical apparatus, such as an optical disc device, a display device, or a lighting device includes such a nitride laser device and depends its functions thereto. |
| US08711891B2 |
Surface emitting laser device, surface emitting laser array, optical scanning device, and image forming apparatus
A disclosed surface emitting laser device includes an oscillator structure including an active layer, semiconductor multilayer reflection mirrors sandwiching the oscillator structure, an electrode provided on an emitting surface where light is emitted in a manner such that the electrode surrounds an emitting region, and a dielectric film formed in at least one region outside a center part of the emitting region so that a refractive index of the region outside the center part of the emitting region is less than the refractive index of the center part of the emitting region. When viewed from an emitting direction of the light, a part of the electrode overlaps a part of the dielectric film. |
| US08711887B2 |
Signal processing apparatus, display apparatus having the same, and signal processing method
A display apparatus is provided. The display apparatus includes a receiver configured to receive transmission streams and output a first number of transmission stream signals; a first signal processor configured to receive the first number of transmission stream signals in parallel, group the received transmission stream signals according to kinds thereof, and output a second number of transmission stream signals, the second number being less than the first number; a second signal processor configured to receive the second number of transmission stream signals output from the first signal processor, restore the received transmission stream signals into the first number of transmission stream signals, and form output data using the restored transmission stream signals; and an output configured to output the output data formed in the second signal processor. |
| US08711884B2 |
Data communication system, data transmitting apparatus, data transmitting method, and method for determining packet size and redundancy
A data communication system includes a data transmitting apparatus and a data receiving apparatus. The data transmitting apparatus includes a packetizing section that generates data packets, an encoding section that performs redundant encoding on the data packets in predetermined time units and generates encoded blocks, a data transmitting section that transmits each encoded block to the data receiving apparatus, a data-size acquiring section that acquires a data size of transmission data in each predetermined time unit, and a packet-size determining section that, on the basis of the acquired data size, in each predetermined time unit, determines a packet size of each data packet. The data receiving apparatus includes a data receiving section that acquires data packets of the transmission data by receiving each encoded block transmitted, and a depacketizing section that analyzes the data packets of the acquired transmission data and reconfigures the transmission data. |
| US08711881B2 |
Packet bundling at the PDCP layer
Certain aspects of the present disclosure provide a technique for bundling the received service data units (SDU) in a first communication layer to generate a protocol data unit (PDU) to pass to a second communication layer. For example, one or more packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) SDUs may be concatenated to generate a PDCP PDU and be sent to a radio link control (RLC) layer in the transmitter side. Similarly, one or more PDCP SDUs may be extracted from a PDCP PDU in the receiver side. |
| US08711878B2 |
Upstream channel bonding in a cable communications system
A method for increasing upstream bandwidth per cable modem user in a cable communications system that includes a cable modem termination system (CMTS) and a plurality of cable modems is provided. The method permits a cable modem to transmit data to the CMTS on multiple upstream channels simultaneously using a technique called “channel bonding.” Channel bonding allows smaller bandwidth upstream channels to be bonded together to create a larger bandwidth pipe. |
| US08711869B2 |
Message transfer apparatus, output method, and computer program product
A packet processor transfers a message received by a first (second) port to a second (first) port. When first specific information is included in the received message, a QoS terminal detector detects a communication terminal, which is a sender of the message received by the first port or a destination of the message received by the second port, as a QoS terminal requesting application of QoS. When the QoS terminal does not satisfy a preset connection condition associated with the QoS terminal connectable to the first port via a first network, an output unit outputs information indicating that the connection condition is not satisfied. |
| US08711866B2 |
Routing of data including multimedia between electronic devices
Rerouting apparatus for rerouting data including multimedia data. The apparatus is for association with electronic equipment and allows for routing the data to a device regarded as the most convenient for playing the media. The apparatus comprises an announcer device for indicating to surrounding equipment that associated equipment is available for rerouting, thereby to enable receipt of rerouted communications therefrom, and a scout device for scanning surroundings of the associated equipment to find out about compatible equipment in the vicinity, thereby to reroute communications thereto. The apparatus may be attached to any device having data processing capability, to enable rerouting of data and communications therebetween. |
| US08711857B2 |
Dynamic facsimile transcoding in a unified messaging platform
Facsimile transcoding is dynamically invoked for devices that do not support T.38 fax protocol. In this way, a unified messaging platform can process facsimiles from endpoints that are not T.38 capable without using without digital signal processor resources. Dynamic fax transcoding can be performed at a session border controller, allowing transcoding resources to be engaged only for non-T.38 endpoints rather than for all calls on an interface. |
| US08711856B2 |
Method and device for processing broadcast packets/multicast control messages
The present invention discloses a method for processing broadcast packets/multicast control messages, comprising: replicating data to different broadcast/multicast logical channels in accordance with ONU types of users who join a VLAN when an OLT, on which a same port is connected to different types of ONUs, transmits the downlink broadcast packets/multicast control messages. The present invention also discloses a device for processing broadcast packets/multicast control messages. In accordance with the present invention, efficient processing of downlink broadcast packets and multicast control messages is realized when different types of ONUs coexist, unnecessary interference with ONUs from excessive data is avoided, and meanwhile the bandwidth between an OLT and an ONU can be utilized efficiently and meaningless bandwidth occupation by data streams can be avoided. |
| US08711854B2 |
Monitoring and correcting upstream packet loss
An upstream error controller monitors a media stream at a location upstream from an associated set of receivers receiving the media stream. The upstream error controller sends out suppression notices for any media packets lost upstream causing the receivers to suppress sending lost packet notices. In another embodiment, a repair point joins a primary multicast group with multiple receivers for receiving a native media stream. The repair point also joins a second multicast group receiving multicast backup data for retransmitting or repairing the native media stream that does not include an associated set of receivers. In yet another embodiment, the upstream error controller is used in combination with a hybrid packet repair scheme for adaptively switching among unicast retransmission, multicast retransmission, and Forward Error Correction (FEC). |
| US08711852B2 |
Systems and methods for port mirroring with network-scoped connection-oriented sink
Systems and methods for sinking port mirrored data to any node in a network are provided. Moreover, the network is configured to convey the mirrored data to the sink, without the need for any facilities expressly dedicated for this purpose. The present invention removes the requirement to collocate the sink port within the same logical node. The present invention uses a mirrored flow configured as a provisioned layer two point-to-point connection, such as a Switched Permanent Virtual Circuit (SPVC), Pseudo-Wire (PWE3), a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) cross-connect, Provider Backbone Bridging-Traffic Engineering (PBB-TE), or the like. The provisioned point-to-point connection is configured between the mirrored port to a sink port. The node with the mirrored port is configured to create copies of the appropriate set of packets (i.e. ingress or egress packets or both based on provisioning), and to forward the packets to the sink port. |
| US08711851B1 |
Multi-protocol data transfers
Technologies are described herein for performing a multi-protocol data transfer. A first protocol that guarantees reliability and in-order delivery of data packets is utilized to transmit control information for a data transfer. Once the control information has been transmitted and received at the destination, a second protocol is utilized to transfer the actual data. The second protocol does not guarantee data reliability or in-order delivery. If any data packets are not delivered to the destination using the second protocol, either the first protocol, the second protocol, or a combination can be utilized to retransmit the missing packets. |
| US08711850B2 |
Format for providing traffic information and a method and apparatus for using the format
A method for identifying traffic information includes receiving traffic data including a first identifier, an amount of time currently taken to traverse a particular link, and information corresponding to a location associated with the particular link. The first identifier enables a determination of a type of the information that is included within the received traffic data. The method also includes determining a type of information included within the received traffic data based on the first identifier and determining current travel time information based on the information included in the received traffic data only if the first identifier enables a determination that the received traffic data includes an amount of time. The method further includes determining location information based on the information that is included in the received traffic data corresponding to the location associated with the particular link and identifying traffic information based on the determined current travel time information and the determined location information. |
| US08711848B2 |
High-efficiency preambles for communications systems over pseudo-stationary communication channels
A method includes appending a preamble to a data packet and transmitting the preamble and data packet over a communication channel in the network. The preamble may be a Beacon, Admission, Broadcast, or High-Throughput Preamble. The Beacon Preamble includes the following symbols SS, SS, SS, SS, SS, SS, SS, SS, SS, SS, SS, SS, LS1, LS1, LS1, LS1, LS1, LS1, LS1, LS1, CP0, CEBeacon, CEBeacon. The Admission Preamble includes the following symbols SS, SS, SS, SS, SS, SS, SS, SS, SS, SS, SS, SS, LS1, LS1, LS1, LS1, LS1, LS1, LS1, LS1, CP0, CE, CE. The Broadcast Preamble includes the following symbols LS1, LS1, LS1, LS1, CP0, CE, CE. The high-throughput preamble includes the following symbols CP0, CE. The SS symbol includes 64 bits, the LS1, LS2, and CP0 symbols include 192 bits, the CE symbol includes 512 bits, and the CEBeacon symbol is a subset of CE. |
| US08711847B2 |
System and method for providing location and access network information support in a network environment
A method is provided in one example embodiment and includes communicating location and access network information for an end user to a policy and charging rules function (PCRF) element that is coupled to a network element. The network element receives packets for a communications flow from the end user if the flow is initiated through a wireless network and through a wireline network. In more specific embodiments, the location and access network information is used to initiate one or more applications for the end user. The method could also include communicating to an application function that the end user has attached to one of the networks, has been assigned an Internet Protocol (IP) address, and the location and access network information for the end user. |
| US08711846B2 |
Network attachment for IMS systems for legacy CS UE with home node B access
A system and method for allowing legacy circuit switch user equipment (CS UE) to operate via a packet switch system, such as an IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) system, is provided. The mobility and session control aspects of communications with the legacy CS UE is separated. A user agent is placed in the receiving node (e.g., a home node B) that acts as the SIP agent for the CS UE for session control. An interworking function is provided to allow mobility between the macro CS network and the PS (e.g., IMS) network. Hand-back and hand-in procedures with service continuity are also provided. |
| US08711840B1 |
Method and apparatus for management and analysis of services in VoIP networks
A method, apparatus and computer product for modeling and analyzing additional services incorporated into a Voice-over-IP (VoIP) configuration composed of a plurality of components is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of representing selected ones of the plurality of components and relationships among the selected components, wherein said component representations are selected from the group of configuration non-specific representations consisting of: VoIP VoiceMailService, VoIPVoiceConferenceService, ITServices, ERPServices, CRMServices, WebServices and SupportServices, and wherein the representations of relationships are selected from the group of configuration non-specific representations consisting of: HostedBy/HostsServices and Integrates/IntegratedIn, providing a mapping between a plurality of first events and a plurality of second events occurring in the selected components, the mapping representing the relationships along which the first events propagate among the selected components, and determining at least one first event based on at least one of the plurality of second events by determining a measure between each of a plurality of relationship values associated with the plurality of first events and the plurality of second events. |
| US08711836B2 |
Synchronization of communication equipment
Apparatus and methods relating to synchronization of communication equipment are disclosed. Synchronization information received from a bonded communication link can be used to synchronize local and/or remote communication equipment, such as femtocell sites coupled to nodes in a ring network. This may involve isolating a frequency reference signal from a DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) communication link which is a constituent link of a bonded communication link, for example. In a ring network, received synchronization information could be used in synchronizing a locally connected installation of communication equipment, and passed for transmission in the ring network for synchronizing other communication equipment. Such dropping and passing of an analog frequency reference signal could be applied in networks having other topologies as well. At least some embodiments of the invention are applicable to optical links. One or more dedicated wavelengths of an optical link could be used to transfer a frequency reference signal, for example. Other functions, such as quality monitoring, quality reporting, and/or predictive traffic forwarding may be provided in some embodiments. |
| US08711830B2 |
Method for media access controlling and system and method for channel time reservation in distributed wireless personal area network
Disclosed are a method for media access controlling and channel time reservation system and method in distributed wireless personal area networks. A method of media access controlling for a distributed wireless network including at least one device, includes a device of the distributed wireless network, generating a data slot reservation indicator for devices of the same beacon group, and the device, broadcasting the generated data slot reservation indicator. Thus, a slot reservation for communication between devices can be completed in a shorter period of time. Also, capacity of the network can be improved by spatial reuse of channel time. |
| US08711829B2 |
Method and apparatus for error correction in MBMS receipt system
Provided is an error correcting method that can provide improved error correction efficiency in a multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) by marking the presence of an error in a Protocol Data Unit (PDU) with an error instead of discarding the erroneous PDU in an MBMS terminal of the MBMS system, which performs error correction in an application layer, and transmitting the erroneous PDU together with a PDU without an error to the application layer, and an error correction apparatus employing the method. The MBMS terminal includes: a radio link control (RLC) protocol processor configured to receive PDUs generated from the reception data, generate service data units (SDUs) by combining the PDUs, mark whether there is an SDU recovered from a PDU with an error, and output the SDUs; and a packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) processing means configured to receive and deliver the SDUs. |
| US08711828B2 |
Method of transmitting data using spatial multiplexing
A data transmission method using spatial multiplexing is disclosed. The data transmission method using spatial multiplexing includes modulating at least one codeword to generate at least one modulation symbol, mapping the at least one modulation symbol to a layer whose number is determined according to its rank to generate a layer-mapped symbol stream, performing discrete Fourier transform (DFT) on the layer-mapped symbol stream to generate a frequency domain symbol stream, performing precoding on the frequency domain symbol stream, mapping the precoded frequency domain symbol stream to subcarriers, and then performing inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) on the precoded frequency domain symbol stream-mapped subcarriers to generate SC-FDMA symbols; and transmitting the SC-FDMA symbols by using a plurality of transmission antennas. Spatial multiplexing having a low PAPR can be possibly performed in an SC-FDMA system. |
| US08711827B2 |
Mobile terminal based on W-CDMA system having receive diversity function and system thereof
A mobile terminal having a receive diversity function using a plurality of receive antennas, having a calculation section which combines respective level measurement results of the receive antennas and calculates a level measurement value after being combined as the level measurement result of the mobile terminal. |
| US08711826B2 |
TDD time slot splitting
The invention discloses a method for a cellular communications system, in which traffic is sent in frames, each frame comprising a first number of subframes, with a second number of said subframes being available for at least either uplink or downlink traffic. At least one of said second number of subframes is made to comprise at least three parts, as follows: One part which is utilized for uplink traffic, One part which is utilized for downlink traffic, One part which is utilized as a guard period, with said guard period part being scheduled between the uplink and the downlink parts. The duration of at least two of said three parts may be varied to fit the current system need. |
| US08711824B2 |
Method and system for enabling rendering of electronic media content via a secure ad hoc network configuration utilizing a handheld wireless communication device
A handheld wireless communication device (HWCD) establishes an ad hoc network comprising interconnected networks for a user. The HWCD gains access to content on a first device and controls communication of the content from the first device via the HWCD to a second device. The HWCD enables the second device to consume the content. The content may be streamed from the first device via the HWCD to the second device. The first device is a service provider network device or other network device. The access may be authenticated and/or secure. Secure access to the content is extended from the first device to the second device. The ad hoc network is configured and/or reconfigured until communication is complete. The HWCD comprises multiple wireless interfaces. The ad hoc network comprises a PAN, WLAN, WAN and/or cellular network. The HWCD may hand-off among base stations during communication of the content. |
| US08711823B2 |
System for wireless local area network (WLAN) transmission and for coexistence of WLAN and another type of wireless transmission and methods thereof
An embodiment of a system for the coexistence of a wireless local area network (WLAN) and another type of wireless transmission is provided. A WLAN module in a power saving mode is configured to transmit a polling request (PS-Poll) at a supported rate higher than any basic rate in order to obtain buffered data from an access point (AP) when the coexisting wireless transmission module is operating. The supported rate is encoded in a supported rate set announced by the AP, and the basic rate is encoded in a basic rate set announced by the AP, and the PS-Poll is a polling request relating to a power saving mode of operation. |
| US08711822B2 |
Mobility management in a communications system
A method of managing subscriber mobility within a telecommunications system having at least first and second access domains supporting respective different access technologies. Each of the access domains comprises one or more mobility management gateways responsible for mobility management within the access domain. The method comprises receiving at a first subscriber server within said system, an update location request from a mobility management gateway within said first access domain, the first subscriber server being responsible for said first access domain. A common user database is then updated to update a profile of a subscriber to which said update location request relates in order to record said mobility management gateway within said first access domain as a current location of the subscriber. At said common user database, a notification rule set is applied to the subscriber profile to determine whether or not a notification to cancel a location for said subscriber must be sent to a mobility management gateway within said second access domain. If so, then a notification is sent from said common user database to a second subscriber server within said system, the second subscriber server being responsible for said second access domain. The notification is received at said second subscriber server, and a cancel location request sent to said mobility management gateway within said second access domain. A further update of said subscriber profile in the common user database is performed to remove said mobility management gateway within said second access domain as a current location of the subscriber. |
| US08711820B2 |
Method and apparatus for providing very high throughput operation and capability signaling for wireless communications
A method and apparatus may be used to provide signaling for various capabilities in various wireless communication technologies, such as very high throughput (VHT) Capabilities in VHT wireless local area networks (WLANs). For example, in WLAN, an access point (AP) and/or a station (STA) may indicate VHT Capabilities Information, in any new or existing frames. The VHT Capabilities Information may be indicated in management frames such as association, re-association, probe, beacon, or secondary/auxiliary beacon frames. |
| US08711819B2 |
Uplink interference mitigation method and apparatus
Disclosed is a method and apparatus for mitigating uplink interference in the wireless communication system, wherein the method comprises determining a loading-status value for each sector; if the loading-status value is not greater than the first threshold value, generating UL zone switch IE and UL allocation start IE to allocate data bursts of the sectors to different subchannels; and preparing an uplink map using the UL zone switch IE and UL allocation start IE for each sector, wherein the uplink duration indicates a duration where all the subchannels are used for allocation of the data burst. |
| US08711816B2 |
Link establishment in a wireless communication environment
The invention relates to link establishment in a wireless communication terminal. In order to obtain flexible and low power connections between a wireless terminal belonging to a short-range wireless network and an external wireless communication device not belonging to that network, a protection frame is sent either from the wireless communication terminal or from the external wireless communication device. The protection frame includes duration information used for virtual carrier-sensing in the short-range wireless network. In response to the protection frame, data is transferred between the wireless communication terminal and the external wireless communication device during a time period indicated by the duration information. |
| US08711812B2 |
Method, device, and system for configuring component carrier in carrier aggregation scenario
Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, a device, and a system for configuring a component carrier in a carrier aggregation scenario. The method for configuring a component carrier in a carrier aggregation scenario includes: obtaining information about a component carrier supported by a UE; selecting a candidate component carrier according to the information about the component carrier and configuring a resource parameter that is applied to the candidate component carrier to form configuration information about the candidate component carrier; and delivering the configuration information about the candidate component carrier to the UE. In the embodiments of the present invention, a base station may select a candidate component carrier for the UE according to obtained component carrier support information and perform resource configuration, so that the UE can accurately know to which component carrier a resource parameter is applied, and thus a data transmission error may be reduced. |
| US08711808B2 |
Method for switching channels in a wireless communication network
A method for switching channels in a wireless communication network comprising at least one access point and clients, wherein the communication network as secondary user uses one of a number of possible channels for data communication. In accordance with the invention, data communication occurs between the access point and the number of clients through the first transmit/receive interface of the access point on a first channel. Parallel to the data communication, a check of the possible channels occurs over the transmit/receive interface by a second transmit/receive interface of the access point to determine which of the channels are free channels that are not being used by any primary users. A channel switch from the first channel to one of the free channels occurs if a prioritized use of the first channel by a primary user is established by the access point of the communication network. |
| US08711805B2 |
Communications in an asynchronous cellular wireless network
Systems and techniques are disclosed for establishing a reference corresponding to the timing of a received signal from the first source, determining the timing for each received signal from a plurality of second sources, adjusting the reference to the timing of the received signal from one of the second sources, the timing of the received signal used to adjust the reference being closest in time to the unadjusted reference, and synchronizing a signal to the reference for transmission. |
| US08711803B1 |
Fast base station switching method and system, and hierarchical zone-based fast handoff approach
A method of performing fast base station switching for hand off is provided that involves the use of a tunnel from a serving base station to a target base station. During a hand off, packets are forwarded by the serving base station to the target base station using the tunnel. A hierarchical hand off method is also provided that uses a diversity hand off method for a hand off between base stations of different zones, and uses a non-diversity handoff, such as the fast base station switching method, for a hand off between base stations in the same zone. |
| US08711797B2 |
Method and apparatus for transmitting and receiving extension information of component carrier in wireless communication system
A base station comprises: an area information generation unit which generates information for a determined second area by determining an additional assignment of the second area different from a first area to a component carrier (CC) of the first area having a bandwidth smaller than a bandwidth of a maximum assignable CC; a mapping control unit which controls an assignment of a reference signal to a frequency band including the first and second area by generating the reference signal for channel estimation in the first and second areas; a signal generation unit which generates the information for the second area and the reference signal as a wireless signal; and a transmission unit for transmitting the generated wireless signal and is characterized by transmitting data to a user terminal and receiving the data from the user terminal by assigning the resources to the first and second areas. |
| US08711796B2 |
Provision of downlink packet access services to user equipment in spread spectrum communication network
A method of providing a packetized data transmission service to a mobile terminal (108) in a spread spectrum communication network (100), includes: at a transmitter (102), broadcasting an indication message to a cell on a downlink broadcast channel (114), the indication message providing notification of an available packetized data transmission service intended for the mobile terminal (108); at the mobile terminal (108), monitoring the broadcast channel (114) for the indication message, and upon receipt, acknowledging detection of the indication message to the transmitter (102) on an uplink contention channel (116); and at the transmitter (102), upon contention completion, transmitting packetized data transmission service configuration information to the mobile terminal (108) on the broadcast channel (114). |
| US08711793B2 |
Method of transmitting and receiving wireless resource information
A method of transmitting and receiving radio resource information is disclosed, by which a mobile terminal is able to quickly access a mobile communication system. The present invention includes transmitting a paging message to locate a specific mobile terminal by including information for a radio resource allocated to the mobile terminal in the paging message receiving a response signal for the paging message transmitted according to the information for the radio resource, and performing a connection to the mobile terminal according to the response signal. |
| US08711789B2 |
Method and apparatus for providing contention-based resource zones in a wireless network
A base station employs control signaling for contention-based uplink access from user equipment devices to the base station. Contention-based access configuration is performed via physical downlink control channel signaling. Configuration data sent to the user equipment devices identifies multiple contention-based access zones, along with minimum power headroom values for each contention-based access zone. A probability factor may be used to lower collision possibility by influencing whether the user equipment devices perform contention-based uplink access. |
| US08711788B2 |
Arrangements and method relating to communication bearers
The present invention relates to a network node supporting communication of information and comprising bearer service handling means supporting one or more bearer services, each defined by a number of attributes, and bearer service managing means for controlling enablement, modification and maintenance of bearer services with particular QoSs, resource handling means adapted to distribute resources between bearer services information, attribute handling means adapted to handle attributes QoS profile for one or more of traffic classes and admission control means adapted to control bearer service resource allocation. The managing means are adapted to handle a first additional bearer service attribute comprising information about a time period between at least two consecutive information transfer events and a second additional bearer service attribute comprising information relating to the amount of data to be transferred during at least one of said at least two consecutive information transfer events. The managing means are adapted to activate a bearer service adapted to handle repetitive information transfer at a first transfer event, to provide for deactivation of an activated repetitive bearer service when a respective information transfer events ends and reactivation of the respective bearer service resources at, initiation of a subsequent information transfer event. |
| US08711785B2 |
Fast carrier allocation in multi-carrier systems
Providing for fast allocation of additional carriers in multi-carrier wireless communication systems is described herein. By way of example, high layer protocols can be employed to allocate additional carriers to UEs in a wireless network. Additionally, management of the additional carriers can be accomplished via high speed lower layer signaling protocols. Management can involve activating/deactivating the additional carriers, instructing the UE to provide carrier feedback, monitor pilot or control channels of such carriers, or the like. Because lower layer signaling is relatively fast, activation or deactivation of the additional carrier can be quickly implemented in response to contemporaneous changes in channel conditions. Thus, changes to signal quality or network loading can be determined and utilized to customize carrier activation in near real-time, providing efficient resource allocation while conserving UE battery life. |
| US08711779B2 |
Wireless communication system, associated methods and data structures
A wireless communication device, and a wireless communication system and a method of beamforming is presented. The wireless communication system and/or device includes a beamformee unit, a beamformer unit and two or more antennas to transmit the data unit and the protocol data unit according to the beamformee and the beamformer units, respectively. The beamformee conveys feedback information by a data unit in one of the feedback positions that include an immediate feedback position, an aggregated feedback position and a delayed feedback position. The beamformer unit generates a protocol data unit including a control field that includes one of the feedback request information types which is selected from a Channel State Information or uncompressed Steering Matrix or compressed Steering Matrix, to request feedback from a remote communication device. |
| US08711769B2 |
Interferer region identification using image processing
Demodulation and interference parameter estimation in an OFDM receiver is improved by identifying regions, in a two-dimensional array of time-frequency transmission positions, having related interference parameters, such as resulting from the same pre-coding scheme, transmission rank, transmitting antennas, and the like. An interference measure is estimated for each of a plurality of time-frequency positions. The interference measures are analyzed by considering them as pixels, or picture elements, in a two-dimensional image, and applying image processing algorithms to identify the regions having related interference parameters. The image processing algorithms may include operations such as edge detection, segmentation, and/or clustering. The receiver may perform interference suppression or cancellation such as interference rejection combining of data extracted from signals received within an identified time-frequency region having related interference parameters. |
| US08711768B2 |
Serving base station selection based on backhaul capability
Techniques for selecting a serving base station for a terminal by taking into account backhaul capability are described. The terminal may be within the coverage of multiple base stations, which may be of different types and may have different backhaul capabilities. One of the base stations may be selected as a serving base station for the terminal based on the backhaul capabilities of these base stations. The serving base station may also be selected based on additional criteria such as data or delay requirements of the terminal, transmit power capability of the terminal, characteristics of data for the terminal, etc. |
| US08711767B2 |
Distributed mobile access point acquisition
Providing for distributed access point management for access to a mobile network is described herein. By way of example, an interface application maintained at a Femto cell base station (BS) can facilitate initial power up and/or acquisition for a Femto user terminal (UT). Upon start-up, a bootstrap process is utilized by the Femto cell to provision the UT with an SDL establishing at least one BS as high priority within a particular geographic area (GEO). Thus, when the Femto UT is within the GEO, the UT is more likely to acquire, camp on and/or handoff to the preferred BS. When outside the GEO, a serving access point can provision the Femto UT OTA with a custom SDL suited to another GEO having a different high priority access point. By implementing access point management at distributed access points, expensive network equipment can be mitigated or avoided. |
| US08711766B2 |
SRB enhancement on HS-DSCH during cell change
The present invention relates to a radio network controller and a radio base station for prioritization of signalling radio bearers (SRB) with regard to their content to achieve an efficient resource usage. The radio network controller can retrieve knowledge about the resource status in a Node B serving a certain user equipment and request this Node B to prioritize signalling radio bearers (SRB) carrying signalling information with regard to radio resource control that is of particular importance and intended to be efficiently forwarded to said user equipment. The Node B then prioritizes such signalling radio bearers and schedules the prioritized signalling radio bearers with respect to their priorities using sufficient radio resources. |
| US08711764B2 |
Apparatus and method for transmitting/receiving data in a communication system
A method and apparatus for transmitting/receiving data in a communication system are provided, in which an MCS level is determined for data, a codeword including the data and a parity is generated by encoding the data using the determined MCS level, code symbols are generated from the codeword using IR scheme, and each of the code symbols is sent in a corresponding subframe. |
| US08711763B2 |
Random access for wireless multiple-access communication systems
Techniques for facilitating random access in wireless multiple-access communication systems are described. A random access channel (RACH) is defined to comprise a “fast” RACH (F-RACH) and a “slow” RACH (S-RACH). The F-RACH and S-RACH can efficiently support user terminals in different operating states and employ different designs. The F-RACH can be used to quickly access the system, and the S-RACH is more robust and can support user terminals in various operating states and conditions. The F-RACH may be used by user terminals that have registered with the system and can compensate for their round trip delays (RTDs) by properly advancing their transmit timing. The S-RACH may be used by user terminals that may or may not have registered with the system, and may or may not be able to compensate for their RTDs. Other aspects, embodiments, and features are also claimed and described. |
| US08711762B2 |
Wireless communications apparatus and wireless communications method
A wireless communication method of a base station that transmits a modulation signal based on an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing scheme to a plurality of terminals. The method includes determining, for each terminal of the plurality of terminals, which subcarrier group or how many symbols along a time axis are to be allocated in a transmission frame, the transmission frame including a first period in which first transmission symbols are arranged and a second period in which second transmission symbols which are different from the first transmission symbols are arranged. The method also includes forming the transmission frame according to a determined allocation, wherein a plurality of symbols on a frequency axis for transmitting N bits (N is a natural number) are arranged within a part of the first period, by using a modulation scheme whereby N bits can be transmitted using one symbol. The method further includes transmitting the modulation signal using the transmission frame. |
| US08711761B2 |
Spread spectrum communication system and transmission power control method therefor
In a spread spectrum communication system, one (W.sub.n) of a series of orthogonal codes for spectrum spreading is assigned to signal-to-noise ratio measurement in a terminal. On the basis of a noise signal detected by de-spreading a signal received from an antenna with the above described orthogonal code (W.sub.n) and a pilot signal, each terminal derives a signal-to-noise ratio. Each terminal transmits the signal-to-noise ratio to the base station as a power control signal. On the basis of signal-to-noise information received from each terminal as the power control signal, the base station controls signal transmission power for each terminal. |
| US08711758B2 |
Incrementally increasing deployment of gateways
In one embodiment, a satellite communications system includes first and second receivers, splitters, and combiners. The first receiver is configured to receive a first microwave communications signal; and the first splitter is coupled to the first receiver and configured to split the first microwave communications signal into at least first and second channels. The second receiver is configured to receive a second microwave communications signal; and the second splitter is coupled to the second receiver and configured to split the second microwave communications signal into at least third and fourth channels. The first combiner is coupled to the first and second splitters and configured to combine the first and third channels to form a third microwave communications signal; and the second combiner is coupled to the first and second splitters and configured to combine the second and fourth channels to form a fourth microwave communications signal. |
| US08711757B2 |
Local access to data while roaming with a mobile telephony device
Apparatus for local access to data while roaming with a mobile telephony device at a roaming network. The apparatus is located at the roaming network and comprises a filter having a data packet or packet header inspection unit for inspecting packet information or headers to identify data packets addressed from the roaming telephony device for use via a home network data packet gateway, and a packet diverter for diverting at least some of the identified packets to a local data packet gateway; the filter setting up a diversion tunnel for additional packets of the same session for directly routing all packets of the identified session to the local data packet gateway. Mobile devices are today programmed to send data to their home network for browsing via the home network data packet gateway. The filter allows data to be redirected to the roaming network so that Internet browsing and like data uses can be carried out directly by the roaming user at less cost and greater efficiency and quality of service. |
| US08711756B2 |
Efficient relay automatic repeat request procedure in broadband wireless access system
The present invention relates to a broadband wireless access system including a relay station, and more particularly to an efficient procedure of Automatic Repeat Request (ARQ) operations in a relay station and an apparatus for performing the same. A method for transmitting data for at least one terminal (AMS) from a base station (ABS) to a relay station (ARS) in the broadband wireless access system according to an embodiment of the present invention comprises the steps of generating second transmission unit data using a plurality of first transmission unit data to which different relay sequence numbers are assigned; and transmitting the second transmission unit data to the relay station. The second transmission unit data can be transmitted through the same tunnel as the first transmission unit data. |
| US08711754B2 |
Base station, relay station, and bandwidth allocation method
A relay station that performs relay processing of data, intervening between a wireless terminal and a wireless base station having a receiving processing unit to obtain a bandwidth request included in the data received from the wireless terminal and a bandwidth allocation control unit to allocate a bandwidth to the wireless terminal based on the bandwidth request obtained by the receiving processing unit is utilized in an aspect. |
| US08711749B2 |
Information obtaining and notification, data message forwarding and handover method and access node
An information obtaining, information notification, data message forwarding and switch method and an access node during a terminal switch process are provided. The access node comprises an opposite end information storage unit, which is set to store identification and locator mapping information of correspondent nodes of all accessed terminals; an message transceiver unit, which is set to: after establishing a connection with the terminal that switches to the local access node, receive a data message sent by the terminal to the correspondent node, according to the identification of the correspondent node in the data message, initiate an inquiry to a home ILR or an original access node of the terminal before switch-in to acquire and locally store the mapping information of the correspondent node, if the identification and locator mapping information of the correspondent node cannot be locally searched out. |
| US08711745B2 |
System and method for discontinuous reception control start time
Methods of combining semi-persistent resource allocation and dynamic resource allocation are provided. Packets, such as VoIP packets, are transmitted on the uplink and downlink using respective semi-persistent resources. For each mobile device, awake periods and sleep periods are defined. The semi-persistent resources are aligned with the awake periods so that most of the time the mobile device can turn off its wireless access radio during the sleep periods. In addition, signalling to request, and to allocate, resources for additional packets are transmitted during the awake periods, and the resources allocated for the additional packets are within the awake periods. Methods of extending the awake periods in various embodiments are also provided. Methods of determining the first on period are also provided. |
| US08711737B2 |
Crowd formation based on wireless context information
Systems and methods are disclosed for forming crowds of users based on wireless contexts of corresponding mobile devices of the users. In general, wireless contexts of mobile devices of a number of users are obtained. For each mobile device, the wireless context of the mobile device includes a wireless Personal Area Network (PAN) context of the mobile device, a wireless Local Area Network (LAN) context of the mobile device, or both. The wireless contexts of the mobile devices of the users are then utilized to form crowds of users. More specifically, in one embodiment, users of mobile devices having sufficiently similar wireless contexts are determined to be in the same crowd of users. |
| US08711734B2 |
Method and system for fail-safe call survival
The present invention provides a system and method for fail-safe call survival by detecting failure of an active call serving component and switching the service over to a standby component. The system and method will prevent an existing call, whether established or to be established, from being dropped due to a single point of failure within a Voice over Internet Protocol system. The continuation of the call is based on the failed component as opposed to relying on communication endpoints to re-initiate or re-route the failed call. Call recovery is initiated independent from the call path of a call. The detection of a condition or need for call recovery and the determination to initiate call recovery procedures are made without involving endpoints or intermediate points of the call. The availability and sanity of all components are continuously monitored and are tailored specifically for the duties of each component. |
| US08711733B2 |
Indicating transfer in an IMS network
A method and apparatus for indicating to a node in an IMS network a transfer between two endpoints. A node in a first network determines that a communication session is to be transferred from a first endpoint to a second endpoint. The node includes an indication of at least one of the endpoints, and an explicit communication transfer indicator, in a message. The message is then sent towards the node in the IMS network. This allows the node in the IMS network to determine that a transfer has taken place and, if necessary, take further action. |
| US08711728B2 |
Power consumption management in a MIMO transceiver and method for use therewith
A mobile communication device includes a first wireless transceiver that receives a first inbound RF signal and that transmits a first outbound RF signal based on a first power supply signal. A second wireless transceiver receives a second inbound RF signal and that transmits a second outbound RF signal based on a second power supply signal. A processing module generates at least one power mode signal based on first transmit power control data received via the first inbound RF signal. A power management circuit adjusts a first power consumption parameter of the first power supply signal and a second power consumption parameter of the second power supply signal based on the at least one power mode signal. |
| US08711727B2 |
Power control arrangement for long term evolution time division duplex method and apparatus
Embodiments of the present invention provide methods, systems and apparatuses for optimizing downlink path loss (PL) measurements in time division duplex (TDD) systems enabling fast power control targeting to decrease fading margin. In one embodiment, a method of power control in a long term evolution time division duplex (TDD) system is provided. The method includes controlling a length of a path loss measurement filter based on an allocation type. A width and frequency position of the path loss measurement filter is made dependent on the allocation type. |
| US08711726B2 |
Method and device for reliable estimation of network traffic
A network, advantageously a home network, comprises a number of user devices, for example personal computers, game consoles and smartphones, each having an estimator application, preferably voluntarily installed by the user. The network further comprises a network device that acts as an interface between the network and an external network. The estimator applications measure the network traffic for its user device, while the network device in parallel generates an independent measurement of the network consumption. The measurements are then compared. If the difference between the sum of the measurements from the estimator applications and the measurement of the network device is below a fixed threshold, it is assumed that the measurements are valid for the considered measurement time interval. Otherwise, the difference is an indication that at least one estimation was incorrect. |
| US08711725B2 |
Method and system for acquiring support capability of mobile terminal by base station side system
A method for acquiring support capability of a mobile terminal by a base station side system is disclosed in the present disclosure, and the method includes: the base station side system applies a co-frequency interference to the mobile terminal, and detects a measurement report which is fed back by the mobile terminal after the co-frequency interference is applied, and determines and acquires the support capability of the mobile terminal for voice services over adaptive multi-user channels on one slot according to associated parameters in the detected measurement report in combination with associated threshold values. A system for acquiring support capability of the mobile terminal by the base station side system is also disclosed in the present disclosure. In the system, a base station side determining unit is configured to determine and acquire the support capability of the mobile terminal for voice services over adaptive multi-user channels on one slot according to associated parameters in detected measurement report in combination with associated threshold values. With the method and system in the present disclosure, the base station side system can adaptively and accurately acquire the support capability of the mobile terminal for Voice services over adaptive multi-user channels on one slot. |
| US08711718B2 |
Method and apparatus for reducing power consumption used in communication system having time slots
An apparatus used in a communication system having a plurality of time slots includes a signal processing circuit, a signal detector, and a controlling circuit. The signal processing circuit receives an input signal. The signal detector detects the input signal to generate a detection result. The controlling circuit controls the signal processing circuit according to the detection result. When the detection result does not meet a predetermined criterion, the controlling circuit adjusts the signal processing circuit for reducing power consumption of the signal processing circuit. |
| US08711716B2 |
Multiple CQI feedback for cellular networks
Single user and multiuser MIMO transmission in a cellular network may be performed by a base station (eNB) transmitting either one or two transmission layers. A user equipment (UE) receives a reference symbol from the base station. The UE processes the reference symbol with one or more of a plurality of precoding matrices to form a plurality of channel quality indices (CQI). The UE provides feedback to the eNB comprising one or more feedback CQI selected from the plurality of CQI and one or more precoding matrix indicators (PMI) identifying the one or more precoding matrices used to form each of the one or more feedback CQIs, wherein at least two PMI are included in the feedback. |
| US08711713B2 |
Systems and methods for flow mirroring with network-scoped connection-oriented sink
Systems and methods for sinking port mirrored from one or more identified flows of data to any node in a network are provided. Moreover, the network is configured to convey the mirrored data to the sink, without the need for any facilities expressly dedicated for this purpose. The present invention removes the requirement to co-locate the sink port within the same logical node. The present invention uses a mirrored flow configured as a provisioned layer two point-to-point connection, such as a Switched Permanent Virtual Circuit (SPVC), Pseudo-Wire (PWE3), a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) cross-connect, Provider Backbone Bridging-Traffic Engineering (PBB-TE), and the like. The node with the mirrored port is configured to create copies of the appropriate set of packets (i.e., ingress, egress packets, or both based on provisioning and based on the identified flow), and to forward the packets to the sink port through the provisioned point-to-point connection. |
| US08711711B2 |
System and method of detecting and locating intermittent and other faults
Data associated with at least one building condition or status is sensed by one or more sensors. The data from these sensors may be sent over a data bus and received by the central computer. In addition, a modulated signal may be transmitted by one or both of the transmitters across the data bus. The modulated signal is received at the receiver, which analyzes the received modulated signal, and determines whether an intermittent fault has occurred on the data bus based upon the analyzing. For example, the receiver may compare the received signal to an expected pattern and when a discrepancy exists, an intermittent fault is determined to exist. The receiver may also determine the location of the fault based upon the analysis. |
| US08711710B2 |
Systems and methods for adaptive error thresholds or adaptive modulation schemes based on atmospheric conditions
Systems and methods may be provided for adaptive communications with utility meters based on atmospheric conditions. The systems and methods may include obtaining weather information associated with a location of a utility meter; determining, based upon the weather information, whether the utility meter location is associated with weather that affects communications performance; and modifying an acceptable communications error rate associated with the utility meter or the communications interface of the utility meter from a first value to a second value upon determining that the utility meter location is associated with weather that affects communications performance. One or more of the foregoing operations may be performed by a utility meter or a utility server computer associated with the utility meter. |
| US08711709B2 |
Method and apparatus for monitoring for a radio link failure
Methods and apparatus are described for monitoring for a radio link failure in a long term evolution-advanced (LTE-A) system operated with carrier aggregation. The methods include criteria for determining radio link failure, recovery events, and the actions that a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) may take upon the occurrence of such events. |
| US08711708B2 |
Automatic setup of reflector instances
A method of establishing a service operations administration and maintenance (OAM) session between an originator and a reflector in a communication network includes continuously monitoring, by the reflector, any test packets transmitted by the originator. The originator transmits to the reflector, at a time indicated by a first timestamp, a test packet. The reflector receives the test packet at a time indicated by a second timestamp and generates a unique flow identifier that identifies the reflector. The reflector transmits the test packet to the originator. The reflector assigns a sequence number to the test packet. The originator receives the test packet at a time indicated by a fourth timestamp. The reflector stores the unique flow identifier at least for the duration of the OAM session. |
| US08711700B2 |
Method and apparatus for diagnosing faults in a hybrid internet protocol network
An Ethernet switch can receive an internet protocol query packet generated by a receiver for collecting telemetry data between a source and the receiver in a multicast network, translate the internet protocol query packet to an Ethernet query packet, collect in the Ethernet query packet telemetry data from the Ethernet switch where at least one telemetry field of the Ethernet Switch includes an arrival time of the Ethernet query packet at the Ethernet switch, and submit the Ethernet query packet to the next network element of the multicast network. An internet protocol router can receive an Ethernet query packet generated by an Ethernet switch having at least one field for telemetry for collecting telemetry data between a source and a receiver, translate the Ethernet query packet to an internet protocol query packet, and submit the internet protocol query packet to the next network element. Additional embodiments are disclosed. |
| US08711698B2 |
Signal routing dependent on a loading indicator of a mobile node
A device, method, computer program product, and network subsystem are described for obtaining a node identifier dependent on at least a position index and a loading indicator of a mobile node and routing data through the mobile node responsive to the node identifier. |
| US08711696B2 |
Reliable event broadcaster with multiplexing and bandwidth control functions
Data may be transmitted in a broadcast mode to multiple devices operating in a network. Efficient utilization of bandwidth while providing a desired level of quality of service is enabled for the applications executing on the devices that utilize the broadcasted data. A set of bandwidth constraints may be utilized in combination with a set of heuristics and rules for the allocation and re-allocation of bandwidth among multiple applications in a manner that minimizes the impact on the quality of service metrics of importance to the affected applications when contention exists for the network resources. Quality of service provided to each application may be degraded smoothly, with certain priorities and guarantees being maintained. Event segmentation and reassembly functions for applications may be provided, as well as reliability mechanisms to increase the ability to provide data to client devices that have not been actively receiving for significant periods of time. |
| US08711695B2 |
Transmitter and receiver for streaming media including packet padding
A problem of the invention is to provide a transmitter terminal and a receiver terminal that can realize transmission of a real-time stream as the final transmission delay time is shortened by avoiding occurrence of reorder. In a transmitter terminal (1), a padding request accepting section (103) receives a padding request packet transmitted from a receiver terminal (2) and a packet padding section (102) pads the packet generated in a data generating section (101) so that the packet length becomes a specific length or more based on a command from the padding request accepting section (103), and transmits the packet to a network (10). In the receiver terminal (2), a reorder condition analyzing section (201) receives a packet from the network (10) and analyzes the occurrence condition of reorder of the packet, a padding requesting section (204) generates a padding request packet for requesting the transmitter terminal (1) to execute padding based on the analysis result of the reorder condition analyzing section (201), and a data reproducing section (203) reproduces the packet received in the reorder condition analyzing section (201). |
| US08711689B1 |
Dynamic trunk distribution on egress
A method, apparatus, and system are directed toward managing network traffic over a plurality of Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Level 2 switch ports. A network traffic is received over the plurality of OSI Level 2 switch ports. At least a part of the network traffic is categorized into a flow. The categorization may be based on a IP address, an OSI Level 4 port, a protocol type, a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) number, or the like, associated with the network traffic. One of the plurality of OSI Level 2 switch ports is selected based on a load-balancing metric. The load-balancing metric may be a priority of the flow, a congestion characteristic, a prediction of a load usage for the flow, a combination thereof, or the like. A frame associated with the flow is sent over the selected one of the plurality of OSI Level 2 switch ports. |
| US08711688B1 |
Traffic flow analysis mitigation using a cover signal
Network communications face security issues including traffic flow analysis attacks. Such attacks include deduction of information about networks through analysis of transmitted traffic volume or statistics, even if the traffic is encrypted. For example, an adversary may deduce operational information from traffic volume, or its timing. Described herein are security techniques that can provide transmission security with an obfuscating “cover” signal for any contention-based multiple access system by employing signal interference cancellation techniques, but are not so limited. The cover signal is transmitted on the same frequency band used by terminals on the network. Using “known-signal” and/or self-interference cancellation techniques, the cover signal can be removed by authorized terminals that have appropriate cover signal information and timing synchronization. An adversary cannot distinguish between real traffic and the cover signal while authorized terminals can recover transmissions without impact to network capacity. |
| US08711686B2 |
Packet transmission system and fault recovery method
Between a first pair of termination nodes, a first current-use packet transmission path and at least one first spare packet transmission path are defined. Between a second pair of termination nodes, a second current-use packet transmission path and at least one second spare packet transmission path are defined. When no network fault occurs, packets are transmitted between the pairs of nodes in a 1:1 transfer mode in which the pairs transfer packets via both current-use packet transmission paths only. When a network fault occurs in the first current-use packet transmission path, both transmissions are switched from a 1:1 transfer mode to a 1+1 transfer mode, in which the first pair of nodes transfer packets by using the first current-use packet transmission path and the first spare packet transmission path, and the second pair transfer packets by using the second current-use packet transmission path and the second spare packet transmission path. |
| US08711683B2 |
Network traffic demotion
A method and apparatus for demoting network traffic are disclosed. In one embodiment, a method includes transmitting traffic associated with a session over a first path, and maintaining state information identifying the first path as a forwarding path for the session. Traffic associated with the session is rerouted from the first path to a second path following a network failure and the rerouted traffic is marked so that at least a portion of the rerouted traffic can be dropped at any point in the network if rerouting causes network congestion. |
| US08711681B2 |
Switch redundancy in systems with dual-star backplanes
Backplane redundancy is provided for a system including multiple nodes that communicate packets through first and second switches. Assuming that the first switch is initially assigned to an active state and the second switch to a standby state, the nodes communicate the data packets through physically enabled first backplane links to the first switch. The nodes physically enable second backplane links that are in a condition to communicate the data packets to the second switch. A messageless failover process is initiated by temporarily disabling, at the first switch, the first backplane links between the first switch and the nodes. In response to the nodes detecting the disabled first backplane links to the first switch, the nodes reconfigure themselves to communicate the data packets through the second backplane links to the second switch and to stop communicating the packets through the first backplane links to the first switch. |
| US08711677B2 |
Multi-port, gigabit SERDES transceiver capable of automatic fail switchover
A multi-port Serdes transceiver includes multiple parallel ports and serial ports, and includes the flexibility to connect any of the parallel ports to another parallel port or to a serial port, or both. The transceiver can connect any of the serial ports to another serial port or to a parallel port. The transceiver includes a switch, a logic core, and a bus. The switch is selectively coupled to at least a first port and a second port. The switch activates the first port and deactivates the second port based on satisfaction of a condition associated with the first port. The logic core operates the serial and parallel ports, and the bus connects the ports. The bus can be described as a “ring” structure around the logic core, and is configured between the logic core and the ports. The ring structure provides efficient communication between the logic core and the ports. |
| US08711676B2 |
Techniques for determining optimized local repair paths
Techniques for finding an optimized local repair path that may be used to signal a local repair connection for a protected connection. The optimized local repair path starts at a node in the path associated with the protected connection and ends at a merge point node in the path associated with the protected connection that is downstream from the start node. Various techniques may be used for finding an optimized local repair path. |
| US08711673B1 |
Mode detection for DVB receiver
Systems, apparatus and methods are provided for detecting the mode of a received OFDM signal. A received signal may be correlated with one or more time-delayed version of itself resulting in a set of correlation signals. Each correlation signal may be analyzed for one or more characteristics that can be used to determine the symbol length of the received signal. In order to minimize the number of correlations performed, one or more correlations can be used with varying symbol lengths and a fixed guard interval length. The correlation signals can be processed by filters, and the characteristics of the filtered correlation signals can be analyzed to determine the guard interval length of the received signal. In addition to detecting symbol length, the present invention can be used to detect receiver impairment and perform any appropriate compensations. |
| US08711670B2 |
Base station apparatus and method for use in mobile communication system
One aspect of the present invention relates to a base station apparatus in a mobile communication system, comprising: an acquisition unit configured to receive an uplink signal from a user equipment and acquire channel condition information and an average value of the channel condition information for each of one or more frequency resource blocks; a reference metric calculation unit configured to calculate a reference metric indicative of priority of assignment of the frequency resource blocks to the user equipment based on the channel condition information and the average value of the channel condition information acquired by the acquisition unit; a modification unit configured to modify the reference metric calculated by the reference metric calculation unit with a first parameter to generate a modified metric; a scheduler configured to compare the modified metrics of the individual frequency resource blocks generated by the modification unit and determine an assignment plan of radio resources; and a transmitting unit configured to transmit a downlink signal in accordance with the assignment plan determined by the scheduler, wherein the modification unit modifies the reference metric with the first parameter, the first parameter having a first value for a predefined first frequency resource block and a second value for a predefined second frequency resource block if the user equipment belongs to a group differentiated based on a path loss. |
| US08711669B2 |
XDSL system and signal transmission method, sending device, and receiving device of xDSL system
An xDSL signal transmission method includes: receiving 2N−1 signals from 2N−1 signal input ends, where each signal in the 2N−1 signals is a signal transmitted by an independent channel in the xDSL system; pre-multiplying a (2N−1)×1 matrix formed by the 2N−1 signals by a first conversion matrix to obtain a 2N×1 matrix, where elements in the 2N×1 matrix respectively correspond to 2N signals, and the first conversion matrix is a 2N×(2N−1) matrix; and sending the 2N signals via N twisted pair lines respectively. The N twisted pair lines can transmit signals of 2N−1 channels, thereby increasing the number of signal transmissions, and improving signal transmission efficiency. |
| US08711668B2 |
Information storage medium, reproducing method, and recording method
A machine readable information storage medium, a reproducing method and apparatus which reproduces data from the storage medium, and a recording method and apparatus for recording data on the storage medium. The information storage medium includes a control area which stores within a data structure information usable by the recording or reproducing apparatus to record or reproduce the data on or from the storage medium. The information stored within the data structure includes a version corresponding to a specification, a revision number of recording speed, and an extended part version field. |
| US08711658B2 |
Instantaneous single click perpetual date mechanism
Date mechanism for a timepiece including a movement which daily pivots a lever, comprising a perpetual twelve cam with sectors whose depth depends on the duration of the successive months, completing one revolution per year. The mechanism has a single click and includes a single click finger, hinged to said lever and arranged to cooperate with a thirty-one ratchet wheel which pivots integrally with a first thirty-one snail cam arranged to control a date display means, and a second cam including a radial finger; a countdown mechanism whose position is determined by said second cam, adjusting the number of teeth of said wheel to be activated by said click finger according to the current day and current month; and a means of driving said cam. |
| US08711656B1 |
Sonic fast-sync system and method for bluetooth
A method, apparatus and computer program product for fast-synching a wireless Bluetooth connection using a first device's wireless identifier is provided. One implementation of the present invention modulates the wireless identifier as a sonic Bluetooth code over a sonic carrier signal. To send the wireless identifier, one implementation accesses a storage area associated with the first wireless device holding the sonic carrier signal. Aspects of the invention then transmit the sonic Bluetooth code as modulated over the sonic carrier signal. A sonic transducer, such as a microphone on the second wireless device, receives the sonic carrier signal and wireless identifier for demodulation. In response, the second wireless device requests to establish a physical channel with the first wireless device using the wireless identifier received over the sonic carrier signal. |
| US08711655B2 |
Single well reservoir characterization apparatus and methods
An apparatus and a method for characterizing parts of a reservoir surrounding a borehole are provided including using at least one transmitter to emit a probing signal into the borehole and at least one receiver to receive a signal representing a response of the formation to the probing signal, with the distance separating the transmitter and the receiver being variable while suspended in the borehole using for example an apparatus which can be decoupled in the borehole into a stationary and a mobile section, carrying transmitter and receiver. |
| US08711649B2 |
Semiconductor devices and methods for changing operating characteristics and semiconductor systems including the same
A method of changing a parameter in a semiconductor device is provided. The method includes receiving and storing data in a storage region; and changing at least one between a DC characteristic and an AC timing characteristic of a parameter, used to access a non-volatile memory cell included in a memory core of the semiconductor device, according to the data stored in the storage. |
| US08711645B2 |
Victim port-based design for test area overhead reduction in multiport latch-based memories
A multiport latch-based memory device includes a latch array, a plurality of first multiplexers, and a second multiplexer. The latch array is responsive to output data from an input data register in a functional mode associated with the latch-based memory device. The plurality of first multiplexers is responsive to output data from the latch array in the functional mode. The plurality of first multiplexers is responsive to output data from the input data register in a test mode associated with the latch-based memory device. The second multiplexer selectively provides output data from the plurality of first multiplexers to the input data register in the test mode, thereby providing a data path bypassing the latch array in the test mode. Embodiments of a corresponding method and computer-readable medium are also provided. |
| US08711638B2 |
Using storage cells to perform computation
A method includes activating at least two rows of pure memory cells and reading at least one column of activated the memory cells, the reading generating a binary function of data stored in the activated memory cells. |
| US08711636B2 |
Method of operating a split gate flash memory cell with coupling gate
A method of operating a memory cell that comprises first and second regions spaced apart in a substrate with a channel region therebetween, a floating gate disposed over the channel region and the first region, a control gate disposed over the channel region and laterally adjacent to the floating gate with a portion disposed over the floating gate, and a coupling gate disposed over the first region and laterally adjacent to the floating gate. A method of erasing the memory cell includes applying a positive voltage to the control gate and a negative voltage to the coupling gate. A method of reading the memory cell includes applying positive voltages to the control gate, to the coupling gate, and to one of the first and second regions. |
| US08711635B2 |
Nonvolatile semiconductor memory device
A nonvolatile semiconductor memory device includes a memory cell which stores data and which is capable of being rewritten electrically, a bit line which is connected electrically to one end of a current path of the memory cell, a control circuit which carries out a verify operation to check a write result after data is written to the memory cell, and a voltage setting circuit which sets a charging voltage for the bit line in a verify operation and a read operation and makes a charging voltage in a read operation higher than a charging voltage in a verify operation. |
| US08711633B2 |
Dynamic data caches, decoders and decoding methods
Examples described include dynamic data caches (DDCs), decoders and decoding methods that may fit into a smaller width area. The DDCs, decoders and decoding method may be used in flash memory devices. A single column select line may be provided to select a plurality of cached bytes, while a second select line selects a byte of the selected plurality. The column select line may be routed parallel to bit lines carrying data, while the second select line may be routed perpendicular to the bit lines. |
| US08711629B2 |
Nonvolatile semiconductor memory device
Bit lines connected to each nonvolatile memory cell are selected by corresponding selective transistors. A first drive circuit for driving the gate of one of the selective transistors receives a voltage selected by a first voltage switch, and a second drive circuit for driving the gate of the other selective transistor receives a voltage selected by a second voltage switch. A transistor constituting the first drive circuit is different in structure from a transistor constituting the second drive circuit. |
| US08711628B2 |
Use of emerging non-volatile memory elements with flash memory
Memory devices and methods of operating memory devices are provided, such as those that involve a memory architecture that replaces typical static and/or dynamic components with emerging non-volatile memory (NV) elements. The emerging NV memory elements can replace conventional latches, can serve as a high speed interface between a flash memory array and external devices and can also be used as high performance cache memory for a flash memory array. |
| US08711621B2 |
Flash multi-level threshold distribution scheme
A threshold voltage distribution scheme for multi-level Flash cells where an erase threshold voltage and at least one programmed threshold voltage lie in an erase voltage domain. Having at least one programmed threshold voltage in the erase voltage domain reduces the Vread voltage level to minimize read disturb effects, while extending the life span of the multi-level Flash cells as the threshold voltage distance between programmed states is maximized. The erase voltage domain can be less than 0V while a program voltage domain is greater than 0V. Accordingly, circuits for program verifying and reading multi-level Flash cells having a programmed threshold voltage in the erase voltage domain and the program voltage domain use negative and positive high voltages. |
| US08711618B2 |
Method for programming non-volatile memory device and apparatuses performing the method
A method of programming multi-level cells included in a spare region, the method including programming first page data and at least one first dummy data in a first multi-level cell; and programming second page data and at least one second dummy data in a second multi-level cell. |
| US08711606B2 |
Data security for dynamic random access memory using body bias to clear data at power-up
A circuit and method erase at power-up all data stored in a DRAM chip for increased data security. All the DRAM memory cells are erased by turning on the transistors for the DRAM storage cells simultaneously by increasing the body voltage of cells. In the example circuit, the body voltage is increased by a charge pump controlled by a power-on-reset (POR) signal applying a voltage to the p-well of the memory cells. The added voltage to the p-well lowers the threshold voltage of the cell, such that the NFET transistor of the memory cell will turn on. With all the devices turned on, the data stored in the memory cells is erased as the voltage of all the cells connected to a common bitline coalesce to a single value. |
| US08711604B2 |
Non-volatile semiconductor memory and data processing method in non-volatile semiconductor memory
A non-volatile semiconductor memory according to an embodiment includes: a data storage unit including a memory cell array and a writing circuit; an encoder that directs the writing circuit to write write data to the memory cell array; a writing determining circuit that determines whether the writing of the write data to the memory cell array within a predetermined number of writing operations fails or succeeds, inverts the write data to generate new write data when the writing of the write data fails, and directs the writing circuit to write the new write data to the memory cell array; a switching circuit that inverts read data which is read from the memory cell to generate new read data when the writing determining circuit determines that the writing of the write data fails; and a decoder that decodes the read data into the information data. |
| US08711603B2 |
Permutational memory cells
Various embodiments comprise apparatuses having at least two resistance change memory (RCM) cells. In one embodiment, an apparatus includes at least two electrical contacts coupled to each of the RCM cells. A memory cell material is disposed between pairs of each of the electrical contacts coupled to each of the RCM cells. The memory cell material is capable of forming a conductive pathway between the electrical contacts with at least a portion of the memory cell material arranged to cross-couple a conductive pathway between select ones of the at least two electrical contacts electrically coupled to each of the at least two RCM cells. Additional apparatuses and methods are described. |
| US08711602B2 |
Semiconductor memory device
A semiconductor memory device includes: plural word lines extending in a first direction; first to third bit lines extending in a second direction that intersects with the first direction; plural variable resistance elements each having a first terminal connected to either one of the first and third bit lines; plural active areas extending in a direction oblique to the first direction while intersecting with the first to third bit lines; plural select transistors provided on the active areas and each having a gate connected to a corresponding one of the word lines, and a current path whose one end is connected to a second terminal of a corresponding one of the variable resistance elements; and plural contact plugs each connecting the other end of the current path of a corresponding one of the select transistors to the second bit line. |
| US08711596B2 |
Memory system with data line switching scheme
A storage system includes a three-dimensional memory array that has multiple layers of non-volatile storage elements grouped into blocks. Each block includes a subset of first selection circuits for selectively coupling a subset of array lines (e.g. bit lines) of a first type to respective local data lines. Each block includes a subset of second selection circuits for selectively coupling a subset of the respective local data lines to global data lines that are connected to control circuitry. To increase the performance of memory operations, the second selection circuits can change their selections independently of each other. |
| US08711592B2 |
Linear transformer power supply
A linear transformer power supply is disclosed that extracts a high level of energy from a linear transformer during the full cycle of AC input voltage. |
| US08711591B2 |
AC/DC converter
The present invention relates to an AC/DC converter comprising at least two phase legs connected in series between first and second DC connection terminals of the AC/DC converter, wherein each phase leg comprises: an AC connection having first and second terminals arranged to connect the phase leg to a phase of an AC system; a phase branch comprising at least one converter cell and having first and second branch end terminals; and a capacitor. The capacitor is connected the between the first branch end terminal and the first AC connection terminal, so that the capacitor forms a DC blocking capacitor. The second AC terminal is connected to the second branch end terminal. The series connection of the phase legs between first and second DC connection terminal is such that a first series connection point in a phase leg is located between the first branch end terminal and the capacitor, while a second series connection point is located between the second branch end terminal and the second AC connection. The invention further relates to a method of operating such AC/DC converter. |
| US08711590B2 |
Circuit and method for generating an AC voltage from a plurality of voltage sources having a temporally variable DC output voltage
A circuit comprising at least one parallel-connected partial circuit for feeding at least one inverter circuit. A partial circuit consists of an unregulated voltage source having a temporally varying DC output voltage, a voltage doubling circuit and a voltage regulating circuit with an associated regulating device. In the inventive method, the voltage doubling circuit doubles the voltage of the unregulated voltage source. The regulation of the current/voltage characteristic curve, the MPP tracking, of the unregulated voltage source is effected by the regulating device of the voltage regulating circuit. |
| US08711585B2 |
High-frequency-link power-conversion system having direct double-frequency ripple current control and method of use
A direct double-frequency ripple current control in a two-stage high-frequency-link (HFL) based fuel cell converter that can achieve low-frequency ripple free input current without using large electrolytic capacitors is provided. To eliminate the double-frequency ripple current disturbance introduced by the single-phase inverter load, a proportional-resonant (PR) controller is developed to achieve an extra high control gain at designed resonant frequency. This high gain can be viewed as the virtual high impedance for blocking the double-frequency ripple energy propagation from inverter load to fuel cell stack. More particularly, the proposed control system can realize the utilization of all capacitive ripple energy sources in the system by regulating all the capacitors to have large voltage swing and the voltage swing is synchronized to keep real-time balancing of the transformer primary-side and secondary-side voltages. As a result, the zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) operation for all switching devices in the dc-dc stage can be guaranteed. |
| US08711584B2 |
Reducing voltage stress in a flyback converter design
Disclosed is flyback converter having a controller that performs a startup switching process when the flyback converter is powered up, and then performs normal switching afterward. The controller includes a pulse generator to generate a control signal for normal switching. During startup switching, the controller may generate a control signal by output every Nth pulse from the pulse generator. In another embodiment, the controller may generate pulses based on a sense signal provided from an input section of the flyback converter. |
| US08711578B2 |
Method of forming a power supply controller and structure therefor
In one embodiment, a power supply controller is configured to adjust a peak value of a primary current through a power switch responsively to a difference between a demagnetization time and a discharge time of the parasitic leakage inductance of a transformer. |
| US08711576B2 |
Electronic apparatus and manufacturing method of electronic apparatus
An electronic apparatus which includes a hinge module includes a first housing in which a window unit is formed in a holding unit which holds the hinge module, a second housing which is joined to the first housing, and a substrate holding member which is arranged between the first housing and the second housing, and wherein the substrate holding member passes through the window unit of the first housing and includes a locking unit which locks the hinge module by being pressed by the second housing. |
| US08711574B2 |
Electronic device and printed circuit board
According to one embodiment, an electronic device includes a printed circuit board includes a plurality of circuit parts, a conductive shield case provided on the printed circuit board, a tuner provided on the printed circuit board and inside the shield case, a first ground portion provided on the printed circuit board and outside the shield case and a second ground portion provided on the printed circuit board and inside the shield case. The first ground portion is electrically connected to the second ground portion via the shield case. |
| US08711568B2 |
Mechanical and moisture protection apparatus for electronic devices
The mechanical and moisture protection apparatus for handheld electronic devices generally comprises a handle for the user, a bearing plate that covers an electrical connector recess in an electronic device, and an insert that fits within the recess. In addition, a sealing means may also be utilized to further ensure a fluid tight seal. The apparatus may be constructed as a one-piece unitary structure or may comprise individual components. The apparatus may be constructed from any number of materials and utilizing any number of fabrication techniques. The apparatus is preferably light weight, inexpensive and easy to assemble. |
| US08711567B2 |
Electronic hand-held device
An electronic hand-held device, for example a mobile phone (10), includes a first unit (cover 12) and a second unit (keypad unit 14). The device (10) has a first configuration in which the first unit (12) is in a contracted position, and the second unit (14) is in a depressed position and positioned beneath the first unit (12); and a second configuration in which the first unit (12) is in a fully extended position, the second unit (14) is in a fully raised position, and the upper surfaces (12u, 14u) of the first and second units are adjacent to each other. The movement of the second unit (14) depends on the movement of the first unit (12) by moveable guide members (40) mounted along the lateral edges of the device (10). The guide member (40) may include a guide surface (140) shaped to hold the second unit (14) firmly in position in fully raised position. |
| US08711566B2 |
Expandable mobile device
In embodiments of an expandable mobile device, the device includes first and second housing parts that slide-engage relative to each other to extend and retract the device. The expandable mobile device includes a flexible display that extends from an interior of the expandable mobile device as the second housing part slides out from the first housing part. The flexible display also retracts into the interior of the expandable mobile device as the second housing part slides into the first housing part. Rollers are integrated in the first housing part and bend the flexible display around a fixed radius to position a first section of the flexible display approximately parallel to a second section of the flexible display in a retracted position of the expandable mobile device. |
| US08711565B2 |
System and method for operating an electric power converter
An electric power converter for a renewable power source includes at least one alternating current (AC) conduit coupled to an external AC power device and at least one direct current (DC) conduit coupled to an external DC power device. The converter also includes at least one immersion structure defining at least one immersion cavity therein and a plurality of semiconductor devices. The semiconductor devices include a substrate positioned within the immersion cavity. The substrate defines a plurality of heat transfer surfaces thereon. The semiconductor devices also include at least one semiconductor die coupled to the substrate, the AC conduit, and the DC conduit. The converter further includes a liquid at least partially filling the immersion cavity such that the semiconductor die is fully immersed in and in direct contact with the liquid. Heat generated in the semiconductor device induces a phase change in the liquid. |
| US08711564B2 |
Method and system for cooling of integrated circuits
A system of motherboard, socket and convective cooling cells is providing cooling of both sides—top and bottom—of an integrated circuit, which keeps the temperature deviation inside circuit up to 4 times lower and is up to 4 times more efficient than at the cooling of the same circuit from only one of its side. |
| US08711563B2 |
Dry-cooling unit with gravity-assisted coolant flow
A cooling unit is provided to facilitate cooling of coolant passing through a coolant loop. The cooling unit includes one or more heat rejection units and an elevated coolant tank. The heat rejection unit(s) rejects heat from coolant passing through the coolant loop to air passing across the heat rejection unit. The heat rejection unit(s) includes one or more heat exchange assemblies coupled to the coolant loop for at least a portion of coolant to pass through the one or more heat exchange assemblies. The elevated coolant tank, which is elevated above at least a portion of the coolant loop, is coupled in fluid communication with the one or more heat exchange assemblies of the heat rejection unit(s), and facilitates return of coolant to the coolant loop at a substantially constant pressure. |
| US08711562B2 |
Robot control device
A robot control device according to one aspect of the embodiment includes a casing, a control circuit, and a fan. The control circuit is allocated in the inside of the casing and controls a robot to be controlled. In the casing, an intake portion is arranged in a top plate and one side plate, and an exhaust portion is arranged in a side plate adjacent to the side plate in which the intake portion is arranged. Further, the fan releases outside air sucked into the casing from the intake portion to the outside of the casing through the exhaust portion. |
| US08711560B2 |
Snap-engagement structure
It is a snap-engagement structure whereby a mother body and a daughter body of a portable electronic device are snap-engaged with each other and thereby fixed to each other. The mother body includes two installation units. The snap-engagement structure includes a key unit, fastening units, and a first restoring unit. The key unit and the fastening units move relative to each other in different directions to effectuate enhanced snap-engagement, watertightness, and miniaturization. |
| US08711557B2 |
Support tray for server
A support tray for a server includes a main body defining an opening in a front end, and a first cover and a second cover with different sizes. When the first cover is mounted to the front end of the main body, a cover plate of the first cover shields the opening of the main body. Therefore, the main body and the first cover cooperatively bound a first receiving space adapted to accommodate a first computing unit. When the second cover is mounted to the front end of the main body, a cover plate of the second cover shields the opening of the main body. Therefore, the main body and the second cover cooperatively bound a second receiving space adapted to accommodate a second computing unit. The first receiving space is longer than the second receiving space. |
| US08711554B2 |
Portable electronic device housing including hinge
A portable electronic device includes a hinge assembly comprising an axle, the hinge assembly coupling a first mating end of a first housing to a second mating end of a second housing, the second housing being movable relative to the first housing from an open position in which the axle is in a first position near to the first mating end and the second mating end and a folded position in which the axle is in a second position spaced from the first mating end and the second mating end such that the first mating end and the second mating end are movable toward one another to move the portable electronic device to a partially open position for clipping to an object; and a processor in electrical communication with electrical components in one of the first housing and the second housing. |
| US08711550B2 |
Cooling method and device for cooling a medium-voltage electrical installation in a protective sheath
A device including a phase-change heat-transfer fluid cooling mechanism to cool a sheath in which is placed switchgear such as a circuit breaker. An evaporator is thus created which is connected to condensers that are placed on a roof of the sheath. The device can be for application to a medium-voltage high-current electrical installation. The device requires little maintenance and only consumes a reduced amount of energy, or even no energy. |
| US08711547B2 |
Compact bus bar assembly, switching device and power distribution system
A contact bus bar assembly for supplying power to a load, and further pertains to a switching device which can be connected to such a compact bus bar assembly, and to a power distribution system. The bus bar assembly includes at least two electrically conductive tracks which are at least partly covered by an electrically insulating cover. An outer surface of said insulating cover is provided with a plurality of ribs arranged in a region connecting pin terminals. The switching device may additionally comprise a separating element provided with a plurality of second ribs. |
| US08711545B2 |
Multilayered ceramic electronic component and fabrication method thereof
A multilayered ceramic electronic component includes: a ceramic element having a plurality of dielectric layers laminated therein; first inner electrodes formed on the dielectric layers disposed in upper and lower portions in the ceramic element, the width of a portion of each of the first inner electrodes exposed from one end face of the ceramic element being less than that of a portion thereof disposed within the ceramic element; and second inner electrodes formed on the dielectric layers disposed in the middle portion in the ceramic element, the width of a portion of each of the second inner electrodes exposed from one end face of the ceramic element being equal to that of a portion thereof disposed within the ceramic element. |
| US08711542B2 |
Systems and methods for dissipating an electric charge while insulating a structure
Embodiments of the invention provide methods and systems for insulating a cavity of a structure. A system may include an insulation machine having an insulation blower that blows insulation into the cavity and a hose having a lumen throughwhich the loose fill insulation is blown. The system may also include a cover positionable atop the cavity of the structure. The cover may include an aperture throughwhich the distal end of the hose is inserted to blow the loose fill insulation into the cavity and an electrically conductive material or layer. The electrically conductive material or layer may electrically contact the hose when the hose is inserted through the aperture. The system may further include a ground wire electrically coupled with the cover to dissipate a charge from the hose by providing an electric path for the charge. |
| US08711541B2 |
Lightning-protective explosion-preventive fastener
In an insulating cover 50A according to the present invention, a dimension of each of an outer-circumferential-side cylindrical part 50c and an inner-circumferential-side cylindrical part 50b fitting in step parts 40 and 41 in an axial direction of a fastener body 25 is set large with respect to a tip covering part 50a covering a tip surface 26a of a fastening member 26. As a result, on an outer circumferential side and an inner circumferential side of the fastening member 26, a distance from a member 22 is sufficiently ensured by the cylindrical part 50b and 50c. The tip covering part 50a is thinner than the cylindrical part 50B and 50c. Therefore, when the fastener body 25 and the fastening member 26 are fastened together, the amount of deformation of the tip covering part 50a in a thickness direction can be made small. |
| US08711539B2 |
Switchgear operating apparatus and three-phase switchgear
A switchgear operating apparatus provided with an electronic switching device (7) connected to a negative electrode side of a DC power supply and a plurality of operating coils (4) which are simultaneously energized and controlled by the electronic switching device (7) for performing on/off operations of a three-phase switchgear includes diodes (6a, 6b, 6c) connected between the individual operating coils (4) and the electronic switching device (7), and a voltage detector (9) for detecting potential differences applied to the individual diodes (6a, 6b, 6c) and the electronic switching device (7). |
| US08711535B2 |
ESD protection circuit and ESD protection device thereof
The ESD protection circuit is electrically connected between a first power rail and a second power rail, and includes an ESD protection device, a switching device electrically connected between the ESD protection device and a first power rail, and a low-pass filter electrically connected between the first power rail and the first switching device. The ESD protection device includes a BJT and a first resistor electrically connected between a base of the BJT and a first power rail. When no ESD event occurs, a potential of the base is larger than or equal to a potential of an emitter of the BJT. When the ESD event occurs, the potential of the base is smaller than the potential of the emitter. |
| US08711531B2 |
Electrical installation arrangement
An arc detector comprises an analysis unit for evaluating the first measurement signal according to at least one first evaluation scheme for detecting an arc or at least one electrical effect of the arc on the electrical load network (2), wherein the electrical installation arrangement (1) further comprises at least one first tripping unit (6), which switches off the first switch (3) and disconnects the load (4) (2) in such a way if an arc is detected by the arc detector (31), wherein in order to reduce false tripping events, a second analysis and/or evaluation scheme is provided, the first evaluation scheme has a higher sensitivity than the second evaluation scheme, the second evaluation scheme is provided if a first living being of a specifiable type is present in a specifiable first surrounding area around the first load (4), and the first evaluation scheme is provided if the first living being is present in the first surrounding area. |
| US08711529B2 |
Switching apparatus and controlling method thereof
A switching apparatus includes a DC voltage output unit, a switching element to supply the DC voltage to a load, a power detection unit to detect power supplied from the switching element to the load, a drive unit to control the switching element in PWM manner according to an output from the power detection unit, and a stop unit to stop the PWM control if a value of the DC voltage is lower than a first threshold value. The first threshold value is lower than a minimum operation voltage value of the power detection unit. |
| US08711524B2 |
Patterned MR device with controlled shape anisotropy
A magnetic sensor with increased sensitivity, lower noise, and improved frequency response is described. The sensor's free layer is ribbon shaped and is closely flanked at each long edge by a ribbon of magnetically soft, high permeability material. This side pattern absorbs external field flux, concentrating it to flow into the sensor's edges to promote larger MR sensor magnetization rotation. |
| US08711518B1 |
System and method for deposition in high aspect ratio magnetic writer heads
Systems and methods for fabricating a microelectric device are provided herein. Various embodiments provide for systems and methods for fabricating a magnetic recording pole using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) when depositing seed material. For some embodiments, fabrication of the magnetic recording pole may comprise using plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) Ru as an adhesion layer for a plating seed layer. |
| US08711516B2 |
Rotating device
A rotating device includes a sleeve which encircles a shaft, a housing which supports the shaft and which forms an annular supporting recess where the lower end of the sleeve enters together with the shaft, a ring member which is provided above the sleeve and which is fixed to the shaft in a manner encircling the shaft. A first gap between the sleeve and the shaft includes first and second radial dynamic pressure generating portions. An annular sleeve recess is formed in upper face of the sleeve. The ring member includes a ring entering portion that enters the sleeve recess in a non-contact manner. An outward gap in the radial direction where the ring entering portion and the sleeve recess face with each other in the radial direction includes a second air-liquid interface of a lubricant. |
| US08711515B2 |
Stopper, motor, and disk drive apparatus
A motor includes a stator and a rotor including a disk portion, a cylindrical portion, and a stopper. The stopper includes a stopper protruding portion and is fixed to an inner surface of the cylindrical portion. The cylindrical portion includes a cylindrical portion protruding portion that opposes an outer surface of the stopper. Adhesive is included between the cylindrical portion and the stopper. A gap between an upper end portion of the outer surface of the stopper and an inner peripheral surface of the cylindrical portion protruding portion defines a first tapered gap. A gap between a lower end portion of the outer surface of the stopper and an inner peripheral surface of the cylindrical portion defines a second tapered gap. The adhesive is included in the first tapered gap and the second tapered gap. The stator includes an annular or substantially annular surface below the second tapered gap. |
| US08711514B2 |
Motor and disk drive apparatus
A motor includes a shaft component including an inner shaft portion and an outer shaft portion. A radial gap is defined between a sleeve portion and the outer shaft portion. A radial dynamic pressure generating groove array is arranged on at least one surface of an inner circumferential surface of the sleeve portion and an outer circumferential surface of the outer shaft portion, which define the radial gap. The radial dynamic pressure generating groove array includes an upper and lower radial dynamic pressure generating groove array. The inner shaft portion is fixed to the outer shaft portion in an interference fit. An axial range of a fixing region of the inner shaft portion and the outer shaft portion which is in the interference fit is included in a range between the upper and lower radial dynamic pressure generating groove array. |
| US08711511B2 |
Vibration disturbance estimation and control
A tape drive configured to accurately position a head actuator in the presence of physical disturbances is disclosed. The tape drive includes a track-follow controller to position a head actuator over data tracks on magnetic tape. The tape drive further includes a disturbance observer configured to estimate a vibration disturbance and output a compensation signal to assist the track-follow controller to accurately position the head actuator over the data tracks in the presence of vibration. When estimating the vibration disturbance, the disturbance observer takes into account vibration frequency characteristics, such as frequency characteristics derived from a vibration specification associated with the tape drive, or frequency characteristics derived from known vibration disturbances experienced by the tape drive. A corresponding method is also disclosed. |
| US08711509B2 |
Disk-based storage device having read channel memory that is selectively accessible to disk controller
A hard disk drive or other disk-based storage device comprises a storage disk, a read/write head configured to read data from and write data to the storage disk, and control circuitry coupled to the read/write head and configured to process data received from and supplied to the read/write head and to control positioning of the read/write head relative to the storage disk. The control circuitry comprises a disk controller and read channel circuitry, with the read channel circuitry comprising a read channel memory. The control circuitry is further configured to selectively permit the disk controller to access the read channel memory. For example, the disk controller may be permitted to access the read channel memory only when the read channel circuitry is not performing a read operation. |
| US08711508B2 |
Contact detection between a disk and magnetic head
A HDD including a magnetic disk, a magnetic head, an embedded contact sensor embedded in the magnetic head and configured to detect a contact between the magnetic disk and the magnetic head, and TFC embedded in the magnetic head and configured to facilitate in detecting the contact between the magnetic disk and said magnetic head. |
| US08711507B1 |
Gate timing for short servo wedge in disk memory systems
The present disclosure describes systems and methods for controlling synchronization of a servo clock by tying the triggering of the gate signal of the position error signal field of the short servo wedge portion directly to the synchronization marker in the full servo wedge. The systems and methods described herein include controlling synchronization of a servo clock for reading servo information from a disk that is rotating relative to a read head. The systems and methods may include estimating a gate delay corresponding to a position error signal (PES) field in a short null servo wedge based, at least in part, on the location of the servo synchronization marker. The systems and methods include producing a servo clock timing control signal based on the estimated gate delay, and applying the servo clock timing control signal to the servo clock. |
| US08711506B1 |
Disk drive increasing capacity by adjusting a servo gate during write operations
A disk drive is disclosed comprising a disk comprising a plurality of servo tracks defined by servo sectors. The disk drive further comprises a head comprising a read element offset linearly from a write element by a gap such that when the disk rotates, the read element reaches a servo sector before the write element. During a first operation, a first length of a beginning of the servo sector is read, and during a write operation, a second length of the beginning of the servo sector shorter than the first length is read to enable data to be written while the read element is over at least part of the servo sector. |
| US08711504B1 |
Disk drive with a subset of sectors with reduced write-to-read gap
Disk drives are described in which the conventional write-to-read gap is omitted in selected sectors which frees up space that can be used for other purposes including writing a higher number of bits in the user data area in the gapless selected sectors. Alternative embodiments can use the additional space for servo information such as a repeatable run out (RRO) field. Conventional servo sector SID formats can be used for both gapped and gapless SIDs, which means that during seeking and reading operations full SIDs can be read for every wedge. The tradeoff for being able to write data much closer to the gapless SIDs is that the servo system does not detect the SAM or read the TID in the gapless SIDs during write operations. |
| US08711499B1 |
Methods for measuring media performance associated with adjacent track interference
Methods for measuring media performance associated with adjacent track interference are provided. One such method includes iteratively writing data to a target track for each of a plurality of n frequencies, measuring a first signal amplitude and a first noise for each of the n sectors on the target track, writing an aggressor track pattern proximate the target track, measuring a second signal amplitude and a second noise for each of the n sectors on the target track, calculating a weighted sum for each of the signal amplitude measurements for each of the plurality of n frequencies, and calculating a weighted sum for each of the noise measurements for each of the plurality of n frequencies, and repeating the writing the aggressor track pattern, the measuring the second signal amplitude and the second noise, and calculating the weighted sums for preselected numbers of times. |
| US08711496B2 |
Magnetic levitation motor used in lens module
A magnetic levitation motor includes a fastening unit and a moving unit. The fastening unit includes a fixing frame and a first magnet assembly. The fixing frame includes a lower plate and four guiding poles extending upward from corners of the lower plate. The first magnet assembly includes four first magnets supported on the lower plate. Each first magnet is positioned between two adjacent guiding poles. The moving unit includes a moving frame and a second magnet assembly. The moving frame includes an outer surface and defines a receiving recess on the outer surface. The second magnet assembly includes four second magnets received in the receiving recess. The first magnets are positioned above the second magnets along an optical axis of the magnetic levitation motor. |
| US08711492B2 |
Monofocal photographing lens assembly
A monofocal photographing lens assembly includes, in order from an object side to an image side, a first lens element, a second lens element, a third lens element, a fourth lens element, a fifth lens element and a sixth lens element. The first lens element with negative refractive power has a concave image-side surface. The second lens element has refractive power. The third lens element has refractive power. The fourth lens element has refractive power. The fifth lens element has negative refractive power. The sixth lens element with positive refractive power has a convex image-side surface. |
| US08711487B2 |
Virtual image display device and manufacturing method of virtual image display device
In fabrication of a light guiding unit, a half mirror layer as a reflection film for folding light is covered by a light transmission main body part as a coating member, i.e., a light transmission member, and a hard coating layer is deposited thereon. Therefore, even when the surfaces of a light guide main body part and the light transmission main body part forming the light guiding unit are cleansed as pre-processing of the deposition of the hard coating layer, the situations such that the half mirror layer is separated thereby may be avoided and optical properties of the half mirror layer may not be lost. |
| US08711485B2 |
Vehicle display system or projection display for a motor vehicle, and calibration method
A vehicle display system comprises a display device and an optical system for generating a virtual image for a user. Correction means distorts image information after the optical system is traversed to display the virtual image with reduced distortion. The optical system comprises at least one element that can be adjusted to change the position of the virtual image. Distortion resulting from adjustment of the adjustment element. The display system has a memory device for storing correction data that determine the distortion of the correction means as a function of the selected adjustment of the adjustment element. |
| US08711480B2 |
Film, polarizing plate and display device, and method of manufacturing film
Provided is a film of which the slow axis in plane does not comply with TD direction nor MD direction of the film and which is excellent in adequacy of pasting with other components. The film is a film comprising at least a first molecule expressing positive intrinsic birefringence and a second molecule expressing negative intrinsic birefringence, having a slow axis in plane in a direction which is neither parallel nor orthogonal to the longitudinal direction of the film, and the direction of the slow axis in plane being neither parallel nor orthogonal to the individual directions of alignment of the first and second molecules. |
| US08711478B2 |
Stereoscopic display
A stereoscopic display includes: a display panel in which sub-pixels of a plurality of colors are arranged in a predetermined arrangement pattern; and a parallax barrier having a barrier pattern including transmission sections allowing light to pass therethrough and a shielding section shielding light. The arrangement pattern and the barrier pattern are configured in such a manner that stereoscopic vision is achieved when the display panel and the parallax barrier are both in a first arrangement state and in a second arrangement state, the first arrangement state and the second arrangement state having such a positional relationship that vertical direction and horizontal direction are interchanged with each other. |
| US08711475B2 |
Projection screen and projection system having the same
A projection screen is provided, which includes a reflective layer having plural reflective patterns which are spaced apart from one another and each of which includes an image reflective surface having an inclination angle against a horizontal direction so as to guide an image light toward a front of the screen, and plural external light absorption layers absorbing external lights incident to the screen. |
| US08711474B2 |
Modular microscope construction
A system, apparatus and method for using modular microscopes is disclosed. Connecting the housings of the individual microscope modules provide the structural framework of the modular microscope. Furthermore, the modular microscope can include specialized software, the distribution and use of which can be controlled using security keys or identifiers stored on one or more of the microscope modules. The security keys and identifiers can be based on calibration data associated with the physical, electrical, or optical properties of one of more of the modules. The illumination modules disclosed provide for selectable wavelengths and controllable levels of output illumination for both bright field and dark field illumination. |
| US08711469B2 |
Electrophoretic element and display device
An electrophoretic element includes: an electrophoretic particle; a porous layer formed of a fibrous structure containing a non-migrating particle having optical reflective characteristics different from those of the electrophoretic particle and having a plurality of pores; and a partition that is partially adjacent to the porous layer and defines a space for accommodating the electrophoretic particle. An area rate of the pores per unit area of the porous layer is small in an adjacent region where the partition is adjacent to the porous layer compared with in a non-adjacent region where the partition is not adjacent to the porous layer. |
| US08711468B2 |
Display sheet, display device, and electronic apparatus
A display device includes: a substrate provided on a side of the display surface; a counter substrate disposed to face the substrate; a display layer provided between the substrate and the counter substrate and filled with a dispersion liquid formed of a dispersion medium in which white particles and black particles charged with polarities opposite to each other are dispersed; and a particle constrained layer provided in the display layer, and suppresses the white particles and the black particles from moving in an in-plane direction of the display layer, while allowing the particles to move in the thickness direction of the display layer. In the display device, a particle constrained layer is provided to be separated from the substrate. |
| US08711465B2 |
Spacers for insulated glass units
This disclosure provides spacers for smart windows. In one aspect, a window assembly includes a first substantially transparent substrate having an optically switchable device on a surface of the first substrate. The optically switchable device includes electrodes. A first electrode of the electrodes has a length about the length of a side of the optically switchable device. The window assembly further includes a second substantially transparent substrate a metal spacer between the first and the second substrates. The metal spacer has a substantially rectangular cross section, with one side of the metal spacer including a recess configured to accommodate the length of the first electrode such that there is no contact between the first electrode and the metal spacer. A primary seal material bonds the first substrate to the metal spacer and bonds the second substrate to the metal spacer. |
| US08711464B2 |
Protection circuit, substrate for electro-optical device, electro-optical device, electrophoretic display device, electronic apparatus, and manufacturing method of electro-optical device
A protection circuit includes: a first electrode; a second electrode; and an ionic material which comes into contact with the first electrode and the second electrode, wherein when a given difference in potential is generated between the first electrode and the second electrode, an electric current flows between the first electrode and the second electrode through the ionic material. |
| US08711460B2 |
Moving structure and micro-mirror device using the same
In a moving structure, stability of swing motion of a moving plate is increased by enhancing tensional rigidity or flexural rigidity while restraining torsion rigidity of the hinge units. The hinge units of ladder shape with honeycombed portions are formed by twin supporting rods and crosspieces bridged between the twin supporting rods so as to support the moving plate rotatably. The tensional rigidity or the flexural rigidity is increased while restraining the torsion rigidity of the hinge units by the honeycombed portions of the hinge units. |
| US08711457B2 |
Optical scanner and image-forming device
An scanning unit scanner includes a light source and a polygon mirror unit. A front-to-rear rib is disposed between the light source and the polygon mirror unit and near the polygon mirror unit. An input side opening having a slit shape is formed as a cutout in the top edge of the front-to-rear rib. When laser light from the light source passes through the input side opening, the input side opening restricts the width of the light in a main scanning direction. |
| US08711453B2 |
Data processing apparatus and data processing method for reducing an uneven color made up of two or more ink colors
The present invention reduces an uneven color of a color having two or more colors of inks, the uneven color occurring due to manufacturing variations of ink ejection nozzles and so on. Each of a plurality of correction tables that is assigned to each predetermined number of nozzles that are used for printing on a common region in the print medium, of a plurality of nozzle arrays formed on a print head, each of the nozzle arrays ejecting a plurality of inks including a first ink and a second ink whose color is different from the color of the first ink, is generated on the basis of at least an ink ejection property of nozzles ejecting the first and second inks. |
| US08711452B2 |
Processing color and panchromatic pixels
A method for forming a final digital color image includes capturing an image using an image sensor having panchromatic pixels and color pixels corresponding to at least two color photoresponses; providing from the captured image a digital panchromatic image and an intermediate digital color image; and using the digital panchromatic image and the intermediate digital color image to provide the final digital color image. |
| US08711442B2 |
Image reading apparatus
The object of the present invention is to provide an image reading apparatus having a large depth of field and being compact in size.The image reading apparatus includes a light source, an imaging optics system, an image pickup device unit, a memory, and a processor. The imaging optics system has a plurality of cells each being an independent optics system arranged in a main scanning direction, and arranged in two rows in a sub-scanning direction. In each of the cells, a first reflective light-gathering optical element, a first plane mirror, an aperture, and a second reflective light-gathering optical element are arranged in this order from a document, and the aperture is arranged at the back focal point position of the first reflective light-gathering optical element to form a telecentric optics system at the side of the document. |
| US08711441B2 |
Image forming apparatus, image forming method, and computer readable medium for identifying target-recording element using detection pattern
An image forming apparatus includes an image forming unit, a reading unit, a controller, and an identifying unit. The image forming unit includes multiple recording elements arrayed in a first predetermined direction and drives the recording elements in accordance with input image information so as to form an image on a recording medium that moves relatively to the recording elements in a second direction orthogonal to the first direction. The reading unit reads the image formed by the image forming unit and outputs read data. The controller controls the image forming unit so as to form a detection pattern in a detection-pattern region located upstream or downstream, in the second direction, of a region where the image is formed in the recording medium. The identifying unit identifies a target recording element on the basis of read data obtained by reading the detection pattern using the reading unit. |
| US08711440B2 |
Method of producing probabilities of being a template shape
A method of identifying a printed page from a scan of the printed page is disclosed. The method comprises the steps of generating a page key of the printed page on the basis of the scan (710), searching a database (199) for a similar page key (730). For each found similar page key (740), the method further comprises; retrieving from the database an instance key location (750), generating an instance key for the printed page (530), based on the retrieved instance key location of the referenced page instance; and comparing the generated instance key for the printed page with the retrieved instance key of the referenced page instance (770). A match between the instance keys indicates that the printed page is the referenced page instance. |
| US08711434B2 |
Image processing device, image forming apparatus, and non-transitory computer readable recording medium
An image processing device includes a processor. The processor executes a screen process by using different screens for respective color components which are newly used in response to N colors ranging from a primary color in an output color space to a Nth color, in the output color space, obtained by mixing the primary color with other primary colors in order, where N denotes natural number equal to or larger than 2. |
| US08711433B2 |
Image forming apparatus and method for making density correction in a low resolution image based on edge determination
The image forming apparatus comprises a resolution converting unit configured to convert a high-resolution image data into a low-resolution image data, an edge judgment unit configured to judge a shape of an edge in the high-resolution image data, and a density correcting unit configured to make a density correction in the low-resolution image data in accordance with the shape of the edge judged by the edge judgment unit. |
| US08711432B2 |
Image processing device, printing apparatus, image processing method, and method of producing printing apparatus
An image processing device performs an image process on image data and outputs printing image data to a printing apparatus which performs printing using special luster ink having special luster, and the image processing device includes: an input unit that inputs the image data; a specification unit that specifies an ink amount set that is combination of ink amounts of inks used in printing by the printing apparatus on the basis of color information and luster degree information of the input image data; and an output unit that outputs the printing image data for printing based on the specified ink amount set to the printing apparatus, wherein the image data includes the color information that is information representing a color of an image and the luster degree information that is information representing a degree of luster of the image based on spectrum reflectances at a plurality of angles. |
| US08711421B2 |
Image forming apparatus detecting color patterns and generating interleaf images at predetermined position
An image forming apparatus or an image output system includes a main image forming section for imposing a plurality of jobs and thereby generating at least one piece of main image data, and an interleaf image forming section for generating an interleaf image depending on the jobs of the main image data and generating interleaf image data including the interleaf image. |
| US08711416B1 |
Server providing pseudo print preview and final regular preview to device
The embodiments provide a print server including an application manager configured to receive, over a network, a print request for content to be printed in accordance with at least one selected printing option from an application associated with a device, and configured to provide a print dialog, over the network, to a user of the application in response to the print request, a pseudo preview generator configured to provide a pseudo print preview for display within the print dialog while a print preview is being generated, and a print preview generator configured to access the content in response to the print request and generate the print preview providing the at least a portion of the content displayed in accordance with at least one selected printing option, and further configured to transmit the print preview, over the network, for display within the print dialog thereby replacing the pseudo print preview. |
| US08711411B2 |
Print control server, print controlling method, and print control program
A print control server includes a print request receiving section which receives an e-mail to an e-mail address assigned to a specific printer as a print request; an induction section which transmits identification information related to the print request to a source of the print request by an e-mail; a print control demand receiving section which transmits the print control page related to the print request after acquiring a print control page demand based on the identification information, and receives a print execution demand to the print request related to the print control page; a data conversion section which creates the print data based on the print request; and a print data transmission section which transmits the print data to the specific printer depending on the print execution demand. |
| US08711406B2 |
Movable assemblies for an image reader unit and a cover unit in an image formation apparatus
An image forming apparatus is provided. The image forming apparatus includes a main chassis, an image reader unit, a cover unit, a first movable assembly, which rotatably supports the cover unit to be rotatable with respect to the image reader unit, and a second movable assembly, which rotatably supports the image reader unit to be rotatable with respect to the main chassis. The first movable assembly includes a support member, which supports the cover unit to be vertically movable with respect to the image reader unit, and a frame, which is arranged on the image reader unit and accommodates the support member. The first movable assembly is arranged to have a lower end thereof to be in a lower position with respect to a lower end of the image reader unit. The second movable assembly is arranged in a lower position with respect to the first movable assembly. |
| US08711403B2 |
Printer driver, printer control method, and recording medium
A printer driver, printer control method, and printer control program can prevent a printer from operating in unintended ways even when an old version of an application that is not multi-application capable is executed through a new version of a dedicated driver that is multi-application capable. A printer driver 20 has a dedicated driver 22 that can switch operation between a plurality of dedicated applications 27 and 28 by means of occupy requests and release requests. The occupy requests and release requests are requests that are received from the dedicated applications 27 and 28 to occupy or release a POS printer 30. When a request to start using the POS printer 30 is received from the dedicated application 27 the dedicated driver 22 tells the communication module 25 that the POS printer 30 is occupied by the dedicated application 27 and sets the POS printer 30 to an occupied status. |
| US08711400B2 |
Profile and template based dynamic portable user workflow
A printing device receives a user profile from a computerized device. The user profile comprises at least one template and the template comprises selections of menu options offered by the printing device. The method stores the user profile within a computer readable storage medium of the printing device. The user will operate the printing device using the profile and the template more than one time. Therefore, the method presents the user with an option to access the user profile and the template maintained within the computer readable storage medium of the printing device, through a graphic user interface of the printing device, each time the user operates the printing device. Further, the method automatically selects the menu options offered by the printing device according to selected menu options identified by the template, each time the user accesses the user profile and the template. The method performs various operations according to the selected menu options identified by the template using the printing device after automatically selecting the menu options. |
| US08711398B2 |
Image processing system, image processing apparatus, control method for image processing apparatus, and storage medium
An image processing system which can distribute suitable distribution values to an apparatus that has newly joined the system. Device information on a plurality of already-connected image processing apparatuses among a plurality of image processing apparatuses connected together for communication with each other is obtained. Device information on a newly-connected image processing apparatus among the plurality of image processing apparatuses is obtained. An image processing apparatus that is to distribute common distribution values to the newly-connected image processing apparatus among the already-connected plurality of image processing apparatuses is determined based on the obtained device information. |
| US08711394B2 |
Image forming apparatus forming images in response to image formation request from operation unit or external device
A multifunctional printer 10 comprises an operation unit 13 making image formation requests, an image forming unit 16 forming an image in response to an image formation request issued from the operation unit 13 or an external device, a determination unit determining whether the image formation request is issued from the operation unit 13 or the external device, a main power source 23 activating the operation unit 13 and image forming unit 16 to bring them into a usable state, and a control unit actuating the image forming unit 16, when the main power source 23 completely activates the image forming unit 16 and the determination unit determines that the image formation request is a request issued from the external device, regardless of whether the operation unit 13 is activated or not. |
| US08711392B2 |
Information processing apparatus, information processing method, and program
A print area is acquired from a spool file of each page, and the acquired print area is compared with a print area of a target sheet fed from a printing apparatus. It is determined whether the sheet can be replaced with a sheet smaller than a sheet size set in print data. If it is determined that the sheet can be replaced with a sheet smaller than the sheet size set in the print data, a sheet size changing screen showing information concerning replaceable sheet size candidates is displayed in a display unit. A print control command used for changing the sheet size set in drawing information that is input to a sheet size selected on the sheet size changing screen is added to the print data and the print data to which the print control command is added is transmitted to the printing apparatus. |
| US08711391B2 |
Image forming apparatus to automatically select a communication condition
An image forming apparatus comprises a communicator for performing communications with a plurality of host apparatuses, a memory for memorizing a plurality of communication conditions, a selector for selecting a single communication condition among the plurality of communication conditions stored in the memory, wherein the communicator performs communications based on the single communication condition selected with the selector. |
| US08711390B2 |
Method and apparatus for executing load distributed printing
This invention provides a load distributed printing technique which efficiently uses a plurality of printing apparatuses by using small resources. To accomplish this, an information processing apparatus, which can transmit a print job to a plurality of printing apparatuses, is provided. The information processing apparatus comprises print queue setting means for setting one of a plurality of print queues corresponding to the plurality of printing apparatuses as a basic print queue and setting remaining print queues other than the basic print queue as backup print queues, print job registration means for registering print job information in the basic print queue, backup job registration means for generating backup job information corresponding to the print job information registered in the basic print queue and registering the backup job information in the backup print queue, and job control means for, when the print job information is registered in each of the basic print queue and the backup print queue, preferentially outputting a print job corresponding to the print job information to a corresponding printing apparatus, and when no print job information is registered, and a print job corresponding to the backup job information can be output, changing the backup job information to print job information and outputting the print job to a corresponding printing apparatus. |
| US08711388B2 |
Image forming apparatus and warming up method thereof
A controlling method of an image forming apparatus includes receiving a wake up command for the image forming apparatus in a power save mode; confirming prestored authority of a user to use a plurality of operations of the image forming apparatus; and selectively performing warming up for at least one operation of the image forming apparatus according to the authority of the user. |
| US08711387B2 |
Non-transitory computer readable recording medium storing print management program, print management device, print management method, and print system
A non-transitory computer readable recording medium that stores a print management program causing a computer to function as a retrieval unit that retrieves information about first functions of an image forming device and information about second functions of plural second devices; and a determination unit that determines whether the second functions of the second devices can process a print job, when the first functions of the image forming device cannot process the print job. Here, the image forming device and the second devices are connected to a print system including the computer. When the determination unit determines that the second functions of the second devices cannot process the print job, the print management program constrains the second functions of the second devices from being utilized. |
| US08711386B2 |
Utilizing virtually stored media snapshots for rasterizing print jobs
Methods and systems herein provide for the use of virtually stored media “snapshots” for rasterizing print jobs. In one embodiment, a print controller receives a print job. The print controller identifies a virtually stored media that specifies a media property utilized for rasterizing the print job, where the virtually stored media is associated with a media tray of a printer. The print controller identifies the media property specified by the virtually stored media, and rasterizes the print job based on the media property specified by the virtually stored media. |
| US08711382B2 |
Print system
In one embodiment of a print system, a client terminal (10) that generates a print job, a server function portion that stores the print job, a printer (30) that performs pull printing of the print job are connected via the network (40). The print job holds print data and authority information including user information for specifying a user having print authority over the print data. The client terminal (10) is provided with an authority setting means for setting authority information. A server (20) is provided with the server function portion, and is configured to update authority information, identify a user, authenticate whether or not to permit printing based on the authority information and the identification result obtained by a user identification means, and transmit print data. |
| US08711380B2 |
Automatic image-content based adjustment of printer printing procedures
The disclosure proposes the automatic use of the job or image content information of a print job. This information is used to automatically adjust the general printing procedure for a print engine. The job's image content information is analyzed in the context of the constraints of the print engine to determine an improved printing procedure, which may include cycle-up operation, process control cycles, or maintenance cycles for that particular print job. |
| US08711379B2 |
Method and apparatus for executing load distributed printing
There is disclosed an information processing apparatus which efficiently and effectively executes printing even when interruption of printing occurs in a printing apparatus. The apparatus which includes a plurality of print queues each functioning as one of a backup print queue and a basic print queue and executes output to a printing apparatus based on print job information with higher priority than output to a printing apparatus based on backup job information, comprising, output means for outputting a print job in accordance with schedule up of one of pieces of print job information and backup job information registered in the plurality of print queues, and registration means for, in accordance with interruption of printing based on job information registered in one of the basic print queue and the backup print queue, registering backup job information in the print queues except the print queue corresponding to the printing apparatus which has interrupted printing. |
| US08711375B2 |
Information processing apparatus and method
When a document is to be edited and the edited document is to be output to a printing apparatus, a printing apparatus to be used is designated. Either of the first mode in which all predetermined setting items stored in a storage medium in advance are selected, and the second mode in which, of the predetermined setting items, setting items controllable by the designated printing apparatus are selected is set. Setting items to be selected are determined based on the designated printing apparatus and/or set mode. The document is so controlled as to enable editing it on the basis of contents set in the selected setting items. |
| US08711369B2 |
Laser receiver for detecting a relative position
The invention relates to a laser receiver for detecting a relative position of a defined zero point of said laser receiver with respect to a reference laser beam. Therefore, the laser receiver comprises a laser light photo sensor having a plurality of photo sensitive elements providing an electrical output when illuminated by said reference laser beam, a circuitry connected to said photo sensor for determination of said relative position and a visible readout for indication of said relative position, in particular for indicating if said zero point is on-grade with respect to said reference laser beam. According to the invention, at least a first laser fan emitter, with a laser light source and at least one fan-generating optical element, is provided for projecting a visible laser line onto a target surface, particularly in order to re-project a sharp marking-line through the vertical center of the reference laser beam. |
| US08711366B2 |
Method of motion correction in optical coherence tomography imaging
An image data set acquired by an optical coherence tomography (OCT) system is corrected for effects due to motion of the sample. A first set of A-scans is acquired within a time short enough to avoid any significant motion of the sample. A second more extensive set of A-scans is acquired over an overlapping region on the sample. A-scans from the first set are matched with A-scans from the second set. Comparison of the OCT scanner coordinates that produced each A-scan in a matching pair reveals the displacement of the sample between acquisition of the first and second A-scans in the pair. Estimates of the sample displacement are used to correct the transverse and longitudinal coordinates of the A-scans in the second set, to form a motion-corrected OCT data set. |
| US08711365B2 |
Coordinate measuring device and method for measuring with a coordinate measuring device
The invention relates to a method for the measurement of workpiece geometries with a coordinate measuring device (10) and to the device itself. According to the invention, measuring tasks may be optimally carried out without a requirement for devices of differing types, whereby one or more sensors (30), which are of optimal application for the relevant measuring task, are used. |
| US08711364B2 |
Optical coherence tomography with multiple sample arms
A multiplexed OCT imaging system includes a plurality of sample arms, an imaging engine, and an optical controller. The sample arms are optically coupled to the imaging engine via the optical controller; the optical controller multiplexes optical signals from the sample arms to permit some of the sample arms to operate sequentially or simultaneously. |
| US08711363B2 |
Gyroscope utilizing torsional springs and optical sensing
A gyroscope and a method of detecting rotation are provided. The gyroscope includes a structure configured to be driven to move about a drive axis. The structure is further configured to move about a sense axis in response to a Coriolis force generated by rotation of the structure about a rotational axis while moving about the drive axis. The structure further includes at least one first torsional spring extending generally along the drive axis and at least one second torsional spring extending generally along the sense axis. The gyroscope further includes an optical sensor system configured to optically measure movement of the structure about the sense axis. |
| US08711361B2 |
Methods and devices for detecting and measuring environmental conditions in high performance device packages
An environmental condition sensing device includes an interferometric modulator with optical properties, which change in response to being exposed to a predetermined environmental threshold or condition. The device includes an environmental reactive layer, which alters composition, in an optically-detectable manner, in response to being exposed to a predetermined environmental threshold or condition. |
| US08711357B2 |
Dynamic reconstruction of a calibration state of an absorption spectrometer
A reference harmonic absorption curve of a laser absorption spectrometer, which can include a tunable or scannable laser light source and a detector, can have a reference curve shape and can include a first, second, or higher order harmonic signal of a reference signal generated by the detector in response to light passing from the laser light source through a reference gas or gas mixture. The reference gas or gas mixture can include one or more of a target analyte and a background gas expected to be present during analysis of the target analyte. The reference harmonic absorption curve can have been determined for the laser absorption spectrometer in a known or calibrated state. A test harmonic absorption curve having a test curve shape is compared with the reference harmonic absorption curve to detect a difference between the test curve shape and the reference curve shape. Operating and/or analytical parameters of the laser absorption spectrometer are adjusted to correct the test curve shape to reduce the difference between the test curve shape and the reference curve shape. |
| US08711355B2 |
Method for evaluating performance characteristics of dental curing lights
The present invention is directed to methods and related systems for evaluating and demonstrating various performance characteristics of one or more dental curing lights. The method and system employs a performance evaluation member (e.g., in the shape of a disc) comprising a carrier material (e.g., any of various suitable polymeric materials) and a color-changing material on or within (e.g., impregnated within) the body material. A user is able to use the performance evaluation member to demonstrate and evaluate performance characteristics relating to the presence of particularly desired wavelengths within the light emitted by a dental curing light, footprint size and shape of emitted light, uniformity of intensity within the emitted footprint, as well as relative intensities of desired wavelengths provided by two or more dental curing lights. |
| US08711353B2 |
Fluid-borne particle detector
There is disclosed improved apparatus and methods for detection of shape, size and intrinsic fluorescence properties of a fluid borne particle wherein the apparatus comprises a laser, two light sources, two detectors, and optionally a third detector. The apparatus is particularly suitable for detection of airborne biological particles. |
| US08711348B2 |
Method of inspecting wafer
Wafer inspection method to perform wafer inspection based on photo map information. The wafer inspection method may include: detecting a sample center location on a wafer; compensating the detected sample center location to a compensated center location based on photo map information; and detecting defective dies included in the wafer based on the compensated center location. |
| US08711343B1 |
Apparatus for focus beam analysis of high power lasers
An in-line laser beam waist analyzer system includes an optical prism that picks off a portion of a second surface reflection from either a laser processing focus lens or a protective debris shield for the processing lens and directs that focused light to a pixelated detector. This provides real time monitoring of the focused laser beam while it is processing material by welding, cutting, drilling, scribing or marking, without disrupting the process. |
| US08711339B2 |
Spectral sensor for checking documents of value
A spectral sensor for inspecting value documents, includes an illumination device for illuminating the value document, imaging optics and a detection device. The illumination device contains a plurality of light sources with emission spectra that differ from one another, and which are switched on and off in succession, to illuminate a region of the value document with an illumination sequence consisting of light pulses with different emission spectra. One measured value is detected for each of the light pulses to record the spectral intensity distribution of the detected light. The plurality of light sources cover a section of the near infra-red spectral range and/or a section of the visible spectral range in such a way that the spectral sensor can record a spectral intensity distribution in the section of the near infra-red spectral range and/or in the section of the visible spectral range. |
| US08711338B2 |
Apparatus for counting particles in a gas
The present disclosure describes a method and apparatus for detecting particles in a gas by saturating the gas with vapor and causing the gas to flow through a chamber with walls that are at a temperature different than the temperature of the entering gas creating a gas turbulence within the chamber resulting in the gas becoming super-saturated with vapor and causing said super-saturated vapor to condense on said particles and form droplets, which are then detected and counted by an optical light-scattering detector. |
| US08711329B2 |
Lithographic apparatus and device manufacturing method
A lithographic apparatus and method are used for manufacturing a device. A projection system is configured to project a patterned radiation beam onto a target portion of the substrate. A Higher Order Wafer Alignment (HOWA) model is applied so as to model higher order distortions across the substrate. The model is applied using at least one input parameter for which at least one intra-field effect has been taken into account. In an example, the intra-field effect taken into account is the ScanUp-ScanDown effect and/or the ScanLeft-ScanRight effect. |
| US08711324B2 |
Exposure method, exposure apparatus, and method for producing device
An exposure method exposes a substrate by projecting an image of a pattern onto the substrate through a liquid by using a projection optical system while moving the substrate in a predetermined direction. A temperature distribution of the liquid in a direction intersecting the predetermined direction is measured. A projection state of the image of the pattern is adjusted on the basis of information about the measured temperature distribution. The substrate is exposed to the image of the pattern in the projection state. |
| US08711322B2 |
Electrowetting display devices with a reflective plate structure
Electrowetting display devices are presented. The electrowetting display includes a first substrate and an opposing second substrate with a transparent polar fluid layer and an opaque non-polar fluid layer insoluble with each other and interposed between the first and second substrates. A first transparent electrode is disposed on the first substrate. A second transparent electrode is disposed on the second substrate. A dielectric layer is disposed on the second transparent electrode. A reflective plate structure is interposed between the second transparent electrode and the second substrate, thereby defining a reflective region and a transmission region. A backlight plate is disposed on the back of the second substrate. During operation, the opaque non-polar fluid converges, therefore, exposing equal areas of reflective region and transmission region. |
| US08711321B2 |
System for thermally controlling displays
Exemplary embodiments provide a system for thermally controlling an electronic display. A glass substrate containing a pyrolytic electrically conductive layer is utilized. The electrically conductive layer may be used as a passive thermal insulator or may be electrically energized to further heat the glass substrate. The glass may be used with a closed loop plenum which may further heat/cool the display. Additional glass layers may be added in order to polarize light or provide anti-reflective properties. |
| US08711319B2 |
Liquid crystal display device
A liquid crystal display device restraining display defects even in a structure having a potential difference between an externally-connected electrode potential and the mean potential of the drive waveform of a liquid crystal material. An electrostatic charge stored in the vicinity of a liquid crystal layer of the liquid crystal display device as a result of the potential difference between an externally-connected electrode potential and the mean potential of the drive waveform of the liquid crystal material is dispersed by employing a capacitor or an arrester connected to ground. Accordingly, discharge of the stored charge is facilitated, and occurrence of display defects is restrained. |
| US08711316B2 |
Liquid crystal display and manufacturing method thereof
A liquid crystal display includes a substrate, a plurality of pixel electrodes formed on the substrate, a common electrode facing the pixel electrodes, and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the pixel electrodes and the common electrode. The pixel electrode includes at least one oblique edge including a plurality of protruded and depressed portions. |
| US08711309B2 |
Liquid crystal display having wide viewing angle
A tetragonal ring shape aperture is formed in the common electrode on one substrate and a cross shape aperture is formed at the position corresponding to the center of the tetragonal ring shape aperture in the pixel electrode on the other substrate. A liquid crystal layer between two electrodes are divided to four domains where the directors of the liquid crystal layer have different angles when a voltage is applied to the electrodes. The directors in adjacent domains make a right angle. The tetragonal ring shape aperture is broken at midpoint of each side of the tetragon, and the width of the aperture decreases as goes from the bent point to the edge. Wide viewing angle is obtained by four domains where the directors of the liquid crystal layer indicate different directions, disclination is removed and luminance increases. |
| US08711306B2 |
Liquid crystal display device
A liquid crystal display device includes a light transmitting substrate arranged on a parallax barrier liquid crystal panel; a light blocking frame formed on the light transmitting substrate; and a frame positioned in a state where the frame faces an end surface of a light guide plate. The light blocking frame is formed to cover a portion of the frame arranged adjacent to the light guide plate and a portion of the frame outside the portion The frame includes a body made of a material which reflects some of light incident on the body and allows some of the light to pass through the body, and a light blocking film formed on a portion of a surface of the body on a liquid-crystal-display-panel side which projects from the liquid crystal display panel while avoiding a surface of the body which faces the light guide plate. |
| US08711301B2 |
Cellulose acylate laminate film, method for producing cellulose acylate laminate film, polarizer and liquid crystal display device
A cellulose acylate laminate film, which comprises a low-substitution layer comprising a non-phosphate compound and a cellulose acylate having a total degree of acyl substitution of more than 2.0 and less than 2.7 and a high-substitution layer comprising a cellulose acylate having a total degree of acyl substitution of more than 2.7 |
| US08711300B2 |
Process for producing liquid crystal element, and liquid crystal element
In a process for producing a liquid crystal element comprising an alignment-treated substrate and a layer of polymer liquid crystal having a pattern, mesogenic groups in cross-linkable polymer liquid crystal are aligned, and the cross-linkable polymer liquid crystal is cross-linked while the mold is pressed against the layer of cross-linkable polymer liquid crystal, at a temperature higher than the glass transition temperature of the cross-linkable polymer liquid crystal and lower than the clearing point temperature of the cross-linkable polymer liquid crystal. |
| US08711297B2 |
Display device and method of repairing display device
A display device includes a substrate; a matrix of scan lines and signal lines formed on the substrate; switching elements formed in pixel areas defined by the scan lines and the signal lines crossing each other; a first insulating film formed over the scan lines, the signal lines, and the switching elements; and display elements to be driven by the switching elements. The pixel areas are located in a display area and the first insulating film has openings above the scan lines or the signal lines in an outer area outside of the display area. |
| US08711295B2 |
Liquid crystal display device
A liquid crystal display device includes: an active matrix substrate with a pixel electrode in each of a plurality of pixels; a counter substrate including a counter electrode that opposes the pixel electrode; a liquid crystal layer between the active matrix substrate and the counter substrate; and a pair of polarizers oppose each other via the liquid crystal layer and are in a crossed Nicols arrangement. The pixel electrode- includes a cruciform trunk portion arranged to coincide with polarization axes of the polarizers, a plurality of branch portions extending from the trunk portion, and a plurality of slits between the branch portions. The active matrix substrate further includes an auxiliary electrode which is arranged to oppose the pixel electrode via an insulation layer. The auxiliary electrode and the pixel electrode define a storage capacitor. |
| US08711291B2 |
Display apparatus
A display apparatus has a structure in which a circumference of a front surface thereof is exposed to the outside. A front panel manufactured by an injection compression molding and formed of a transparent material is attached to a front surface of a display module. |
| US08711286B2 |
Image output method and device, and image display
First and second division patterns are defined so that main areas A and A′ are similar to each other in shape, having the same horizontal-to-vertical ratio. Even if an image output apparatus is connected to a display unit having both first and second display screens, the image output apparatus generates an identical image for the main area A or A′ regardless of the aspect ratio of the display screen. The main areas A and A′ display important information and the like. Sub areas B and B′ display auxiliary information. The first and second division patterns may be determined so that the sub areas B and B′ are similar to each other in shape like the main areas. |
| US08711283B2 |
Digital broadcast receiver and method for processing caption thereof
A digital cable broadcast receiver and a method for automatically processing caption data of various standards and types, is disclosed. The digital broadcast receiver includes: a demultiplexer for dividing a received broadcast stream into video data, audio data, supplementary information; a controller for determining whether caption data included in the video data is digital caption data or analog caption data on the basis of caption information included in the supplementary information, and outputting a control signal according to a result of the determining; a digital caption decoder for extracting and decoding digital caption data from the video data according to the control signal; and an analog caption decoder for extracting and decoding analog caption data from the video data according to the control signal. |
| US08711281B2 |
Digital broadcast receiver and method for processing caption thereof
A digital cable broadcast receiver and a method for automatically processing caption data of various standards and types, is disclosed. The digital broadcast receiver includes: a demultiplexer for dividing a received broadcast stream into video data, audio data, supplementary information; a controller for determining whether caption data included in the video data is digital caption data or analog caption data on the basis of caption information included in the supplementary information, and outputting a control signal according to a result of the determining; a digital caption decoder for extracting and decoding digital caption data from the video data according to the control signal; and an analog caption decoder for extracting and decoding analog caption data from the video data according to the control signal. |
| US08711280B2 |
Solid-state image sensing apparatus and electronic apparatus
A solid-state image sensing apparatus includes a solid-state image sensing device, signal processing circuit device, and a multi-layer wiring package. The solid-state image sensing device has a pixel in an image sensing area thereof. The pixel receives incident light and generate a signal electric charge. The signal processing circuit device is arranged to face the image sensing area and applies signal processing to a signal output from the solid-state image sensing device. The multi-layer wiring package has wiring layers, the solid-state image sensing device, and the signal processing circuit device. Each of the wiring layers is laminated via an insulator. The multi-layer wiring package is formed such that a first wiring layer provided between the solid-state image sensing device and the signal processing circuit device has a greater thickness than second wiring layers and has heat conductivity higher than or equal to heat conductivity of the second wiring layers. |
| US08711278B2 |
Sealed, waterproof digital electronic camera system and method of fabricating same
A hermetically sealed digital electronic camera that is designed to operate both on land and underwater to great depths, and method of making same. The present invention is a camera which is hermetically sealed by being totally encapsulated, preferably by being cast in plastic, with no seals, holes, joints, penetrating pins, wires or other objects. Wireless means are used for communicating information, electrical power and control signals. The invention is impervious to atmospheric contamination and absolutely incapable of leaking under water to great depths and pressures. In an alternate embodiment camera optics are not encapsulated but are immersed in water when the encapsulated digital camera is placed in water. |
| US08711269B2 |
Image sensing apparatus and method of controlling the image sensing apparatus
A sensed image generated from an image signal output from an image sensor for receiving light that becomes incident sequentially through an imaging lens and a microlens array that is a two-dimensional array including a plurality of microlenses is acquired. A list is created in which, for each pixel position on the image sensor, the correspondence between the coordinates of the light incident at the pixel position on the imaging lens and the coordinates of the pixel position is registered. Images obtained by rearranging pixels at the coordinate positions on the image sensor corresponding to the coordinates in accordance with the arrangement order of the coordinates on the imaging lens are generated as a parallax image group. |
| US08711262B2 |
Solid-state image sensing device and control method of solid-state image sensing device
A solid-state image sensing device includes an image sensing region having pixels arranged in a two-dimensional array. A vertical shift register circuit selects a desired pixel row of the pixels by changing the number of one or more clock signals supplied and timing thereof in one horizontal period. A pulse selector circuit supplies a drive pulse to the desired pixel row selected by the vertical shift register circuit. |
| US08711261B2 |
Method of controlling semiconductor device, signal processing method, semiconductor device, and electronic apparatus
A pre-amplifier (column region unit) of a solid-state imaging device including a pixel-signal controller. The pixel-signal controller, for each vertical signal line, detects the level of each pixel signal independently by a pixel-signal detector on the output side of a pixel-signal amplifier, and sets a gain independently to the pixel-signal amplifier according to the level of the signal. At a subsequent stage of the solid-state imaging device, an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter and a signal extending unit are provided. The A/D converter digitizes a pixel signal, and the digitized pixel signal is corrected by a gain set to the pixel-signal amplifier with reference to a classification signal from the pixel-signal detector, so that the dynamic range of signals of one screen is extended. |
| US08711255B2 |
Visual processing apparatus and visual processing method
A visual processing apparatus comprises a spatial processing unit and a visual processing unit. The spatial processing unit is operable to perform a predetermined process to an inputted image signal using surrounding pixels of a target pixel and output an processed signal. The visual processing unit is operable to input the inputted image signal and the processed signal and output an output signal that is visual-processed. The visual processing unit has a property in which, in an area where a value of the image signal is almost equal to a value of the processed signal, a proportion of a change of the output signal to a change of the inputted image signal when the processed signal is fixed to a predetermined level is greater than the proportion when the image signal is equal to the processed signal. |
| US08711252B2 |
Image processing device and information storage medium including motion vector information calculation
An image processing device includes a normal light image acquisition section that acquires a normal light image, the normal light image being an image that includes information within a wavelength band of white light, a special light image acquisition section that acquires a special light image, the special light image being an image that includes information within a specific wavelength band, a normal light motion vector information calculation section that calculates normal light motion vector information based on a feature quantity included in the normal light image, the normal light motion vector information indicating a motion vector between a plurality of normal light images, and a noise reduction section that reduces an amount of noise included in the special light image based on the normal light motion vector information calculated by the normal light motion vector information calculation section. |
| US08711250B2 |
Image signal processing apparatus and image signal processing method
An image signal processing apparatus that performs a noise reduction process on an image signal of an image captured by an imaging device is provided. By performing a first smoothing process on an input signal of an image signal that is received from an imaging unit and that is subjected to a first image processing, a first smoothed signal creating unit creates a first smoothed signal in which noise is reduced. By performing a second smoothing process that is different from the first smoothing process on the input signal, the second smoothed signal creating unit creates a second smoothed signal in which noise is reduced. A mixing processing unit mixes the first smoothed signal and the second smoothed signal in accordance with a mixing ratio according to a value of the input signal. |
| US08711246B2 |
Single-lens reflex digital camera which displays an image for live view
The single-lens reflex digital camera includes a CCD for imaging an image for storage and a CCD for imaging an image for live view. A pixel signal output from the CCD is processed in an image preprocessing unit, an image general processing unit, and a JPEG processing unit and stored in a memory card as JPEG data. A pixel signal output from the CCD is processed in a live image processing unit and stored in the memory card as YUV data for display. A display control unit reads the YUV data for display from the main memory and outputs the data to a LCD. The CPU adjusts frame rate of the live view image depending on the usage rate of the band of a main bus. |
| US08711245B2 |
Methods and systems for flicker correction
Techniques for detecting and addressing image flicker are disclosed. An imaging device that senses a distorted image and subsequently removes the distortion during processing can utilize an analysis module that obtains statistics indicative of image flicker prior to removing the distortion. An imaging device that features a diode for illuminating a field of view can utilize the diode as a photosensor to determine one or more flicker statistics to determine whether ambient lighting conditions are of the type that cause image flicker. |
| US08711243B2 |
Image playback device and method and electronic camera with image playback function
An image playback device, which may be part of an electronic camera, reads out recorded information that has been recorded on a recording medium. A time period discriminator receives the recorded information read out by the image playback device and discriminates periods of time during which recorded information agrees with certain pre-set conditions. Moving-picture image information contained in the recorded information is played back and displayed in accordance with results of the discrimination. |
| US08711241B2 |
Image capturing apparatus, control method thereof, and program
This invention enables suppression of the influence on a captured image of dust even when dust sticks to an image sensor, a protective glass fixed on the image sensor, or a filter. An image capturing apparatus includes an image sensor which generates an image signal by photo-electric conversion of an object image, a dust position detection unit which detects, from a dust detection image signal as the image signal generated by causing the image sensor to capture a dust detection object as an object having an almost uniform color, dust position information that is information of the position and size of dust in the image sensing plane of the image sensor, a lens information acquisition unit which acquires lens information of a lens used upon capturing the object, and a recording unit which records the dust position information detected by the dust position detection unit and the lens information acquired by the lens information acquisition unit in association with captured image data. |
| US08711238B2 |
Systems and methods for synchronizing and controlling multiple image sensors
An Electronic device may include a master camera module, a slave camera module, and host subsystems. The master camera module may control some of the operations of the slave camera module. The master camera module may transmit data to the slave camera module. The master camera module may interrupt data transmission to the slave camera module, when a delay-sensitive event occurs, to transmit information corresponding to the delay-sensitive event. The slave camera module may respond to the event information with a predetermined fixed delay relative to the occurrence of the event at the master camera module. |
| US08711236B2 |
Blur correction device and imaging apparatus
A blur correction device includes: a base body; a holder that holds an optical element; a drive section that moves the holder with respect to the base body in two directions that are orthogonal to a direction of an optical axis of the optical element and that are orthogonal to each other; and a plate spring that couples the base body and the holder to each other and that urges the holder in the optical axis direction to position the optical element with respect to the base body, the plate spring being elastically deformed when the holder is moved with respect to the base body in the two directions. |
| US08711235B2 |
Image stabilization
A system to stabilize images of a digital camera adjusting to unintentional movements of the camera during capture of an image has been achieved. A gyroscopic sensor senses any movement of a camera by angular speed detection and via an electronic regulator at least two linear motors move an x-y table, carrying an optical sensor or a lens barrel of the camera, in a way to adjust the optical sensor to these movements. Position sensors, as e.g. sensors integrated in the linear motors, capacitive sensors, inductive sensors, or Hall sensors, sense the actual position of one or more movable plates of the x-y table and feed it back to the regulator. The movable plates of x-y table are guided by a multitude of rolling elements, e.g. ball bearings. |
| US08711234B2 |
Image enhancement based on multiple frames and motion estimation
A system and method for capturing images is provided. In the system and method, preview images are acquired and global local and local motion are estimated based on at least a portion of the preview images. If the local motion is less than or equal to the global motion, a final image is captured based at least on an exposure time based on the global motion. If the local motion is greater than the global motion, a first image is captured based on at least a first exposure time and at least a second image is captured based on at least one second exposure time less than the first exposure time. After capturing the first and second images, global motion regions are separated from local motion regions in the first and second images, and the final image is reconstructed at least based on the local motion regions. |
| US08711229B2 |
Image processing unit, image processing method and program
An image processing unit which includes: an input section which inputs a plurality of images each of which is associated with a difference from an in-focus state detected in accordance with differences among images of a subject which is divided during production of each of the plurality of images, the images being produced in continuous shooting in which a series of images are produced continuously in time series; and a selecting section which selects an image with the highest focusing degree in accordance with the difference from the in-focus state from among the plurality of images. |
| US08711228B2 |
Collaborative image capture
A method of populating a placeholder of a document as images are captured by one or more image capture devices. A reference image is captured using the image capture device with a first set of capture settings. The reference image is inserted into a placeholder of a document. Target characteristics of a subsequent image to be captured are determined using one of the image capture devices. The target characteristics are determined based the reference image and at least one remaining placeholder in the document. A second set of capture settings are determined based on the determined target characteristics. The second set of capture settings are communicated to at least one of the image capture devices in order to enable the at least one image capture device to capture the subsequent image with the second set of capture settings. A placeholder of the document is populated with the subsequent image. |
| US08711224B2 |
Image capture system and method
Video capture systems, methods and computer program products can be provided and configured to capture video sequences of one or more participants during an activity. The video capture system can be configured to include one or more video capture devices positioned at predetermined locations in an activity area; a tracking device configured to track a location of the participant during the activity; a content storage device communicatively coupled to the video capture devices and configured to store video content received from the video capture devices; and a content assembly device communicatively coupled to the content storage device and to the tracking device, and configured to use tracking information from the tracking device to retrieve video sequences of the participant from the tracking device and to assemble the retrieved video sequences into a composite participant video. |
| US08711223B2 |
Vehicle-mounted camera stabilized passively by vibration isolators
System, including method and apparatus, for imaging with a vehicle-mounted camera having an optical axis that is restricted from angular displacement, in response to vibration, by passive stabilization via a set of vibration isolators. |
| US08711220B2 |
Automatic detection of image degradation in enhanced vision systems
Systems and methods are described that directly detect whether or not enhanced vision system images obtained from a moving vehicle are degraded. If they are, image display is turned off to reduce operator distraction. When image quality is restored, image display is turned back on so operators can take advantage of EVS capabilities. |
| US08711217B2 |
Video surveillance system employing video primitives
A video surveillance system is set up, calibrated, tasked, and operated. The system extracts video primitives and extracts event occurrences from the video primitives using event discriminators. The system can undertake a response, such as an alarm, based on extracted event occurrences. |
| US08711216B2 |
Device having built-in digital data device and light for insertion into a lamp holder
A device having built-in digital data means is powered by an unlimited power source for a lamp-holder, LED bulb, or light device connected to unlimited power source by prongs or a base that can be inserted into a socket that would otherwise receiving a bulb. The device may take the form of a webcam having auto tracking functions and retractable prongs that plug directly into a wall outlet. |
| US08711214B2 |
Position and orientation measurement apparatus, position and orientation measurement method, and storage medium
A position/orientation measurement apparatus comprises an obtaining unit to obtain a range image to the target object; a determination unit to determine a coarse position/orientation of the target object based on the range image; a calculation unit to calculate a variation degree of distance information on a region of the range image, which region corresponds to a predetermined region on the shape model; a sampling unit to sample, for each predetermined region on the shape model, sample-points from the predetermined region to reduce the number of sample-points as the variation degree is smaller; an association unit to associate the sample-points and three-dimensional measurement points obtained by converting two-dimensional measurement points on the range image into three-dimensional coordinates based on the coarse position/orientation; and a position/orientation determination unit to determine the position/orientation of the target object based on a sum total of distances between the sample-points and the three-dimensional measurement points. |
| US08711213B2 |
Correction information calculating device, image processing apparatus, image display system, and image correcting method
A correction information calculating device calculates correction information representing correspondence relationship between positions of pixels in an image projected onto projection areas of a projection surface from projectors each including an image forming element and positions of pixels in the image forming element. The correction information calculating device includes a correction information calculating unit that calculates the correction information by associating and comparing positions of a plurality of characteristic points defined in original data of the characteristic point patterns that includes the plurality of the characteristic points and is supplied to the projectors and the positions of the plurality of characteristic points inside the photographed image acquired by photographing the characteristic point patterns projected based on the original data based on a correspondence information representing the correspondence relationship between identification patterns on the projection surface and the projectors projecting the identification patterns. |
| US08711206B2 |
Mobile camera localization using depth maps
Mobile camera localization using depth maps is described for robotics, immersive gaming, augmented reality and other applications. In an embodiment a mobile depth camera is tracked in an environment at the same time as a 3D model of the environment is formed using the sensed depth data. In an embodiment, when camera tracking fails, this is detected and the camera is relocalized either by using previously gathered keyframes or in other ways. In an embodiment, loop closures are detected in which the mobile camera revisits a location, by comparing features of a current depth map with the 3D model in real time. In embodiments the detected loop closures are used to improve the consistency and accuracy of the 3D model of the environment. |
| US08711204B2 |
Stereoscopic editing for video production, post-production and display adaptation
Systems, methods and articles of manufacture are disclosed for stereoscopically editing video content. In one embodiment, image pairs of a sequence may be stereoscopically modified by altering at least one image of the image pair. The at least one image may be altered using at least one mapping function. The at least one image may also be altered based on a saliency of the image pair. The at least one image may also be altered based on disparities between the image pair. Advantageously, stereoscopic properties of video content may be edited more conveniently and efficiently. |
| US08711199B2 |
Method and apparatus for communications
A system that incorporates teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, a set-top-box (STB) having a controller to operate the STB coupled to an interactive television network as an audio visual answering machine using a digital video recorder forming a part of the STB, use at least one camera coupled to the STB to capture video, use at least one microphone coupled to the STB to capture audio, present video from at least a calling party on a television set coupled to the STB, and present audio from at least the calling party on speakers coupled to the STB. Other embodiments are disclosed. |
| US08711194B2 |
Printer
A printer includes a printer main body, a lid part including a lid main body, a block unit, and a first rotation shaft providing a connection between the lid main body and the block unit, the block unit being rotatable around the axis of the first rotation shaft, a print head attached to one of the printer main body and the block unit, a platen roller attached to the other one thereof, and a second rotation shaft situated on one of two opposite side faces of the printer main body and the lid part, the second rotation shaft providing a connection between the printer main body and the lid part, and lid part being rotatable around the axis of the second rotation shaft, wherein the first rotation shaft is parallel to a longitudinal direction of the print head, and the second rotation shaft is perpendicular to the first rotation shaft. |
| US08711192B2 |
Image decolorizing device
According to embodiments, the image decolorizing device has a first heating conveying unit, a second heating conveying unit, and a guide. The first heating conveying unit has a first heating member that heats a first surface of the sheet and a first pressure member that presses the sheet to the first heating member. The second heating conveying unit has a second heating member that heats the second surface of the sheet and a second pressure member that presses the sheet to the second heating member. The guide is provided between the first heating conveying unit and the second heating conveying unit and that guides the sheet that is conveyed through the first heating conveying unit, to the second heating member of the second heating conveying unit. |
| US08711191B2 |
Image erasing apparatus and recording medium conveying method for image erasing apparatus
An image erasing apparatus includes: a paper feeding tray configured to feed a recording medium; a sensor group including a double-feed detection sensor configured to detect double feed of the recording medium and a media sensor configured to detect the thickness of the recording medium; a recording-medium collecting device, a collection box, or a discharge box configured to collect the recording medium; and a recording-medium conveying device connecting the paper feeding tray, the sensor group, and the recording-medium collecting device, the collection box, or the discharge box on a straight line. |
| US08711190B2 |
Linerless labels
Linerless labels are presented. A label includes a specific pattern or set of patterns of adhesive applied to one side of the label. The adhesive pattern(s) reduces contact between a cutter blade of a printer and the adhesive on the one side of the label. Moreover, the adhesive patterns reduce buildup of adhesive on the cutter blade and reduce buildup at specific locations on the cutter blade. That is, the adhesive patterns more evenly distribute adhesive buildup across the cutter blade. Consequently, the cutter blade can be used for a longer period of time before the cutter blade needs to be cleaned of the adhesive. |
| US08711189B2 |
Resolution setting apparatus, resolution setting method, and recording medium recording a resolution setting program when a television is used as a monitor of a computer
S1: BIOS invokes the second OS only at the first power-up. S2: Two resolution setting tools are invoked on the second OS. S3,S4: A mode check module verifies whether the display mode of the monitor is either an overscan mode or an underscan mode. S5: A test image and an Adjust button are displayed in the verified display mode, and Adjust information and EDID information upon completion of the adjustment that a user visually makes are output to a particular file. S7: The particular file is copied to a predetermined folder of the first OS. S8: The settings of BIOS are changed according to the contents of the particular file. S9: BIOS is restarted. S10 to S14: A POST screen, a logo of an OS maker, and a screen for opening the package of the first OS are displayed in a state where the rim of the screen is not cropped. |
| US08711188B2 |
Portable reading device with mode processing
A reading device includes a computing device and an image input device coupled to the computing device for capturing low resolution images and high resolution images. The reading machine also includes a computer program product residing on a computer readable medium. The medium is in communication with the computing device and includes instructions to operate in a plurality of modes to optimize performance for specific uses of the reading device and process low and high resolution images during operation of at least one of the plurality of modes. |
| US08711187B2 |
Picture quality control method and image display using same
A definition control method and an image display device using the same are provided. The definition control method includes displaying a first pattern and a second pattern, inputting a control value, and changing a display state of the first pattern according to the input control value, wherein a display state of the second pattern is not changed by the control value. |
| US08711182B2 |
Information processing apparatus and display control method
An information processing apparatus is provided which includes a display unit on which an object is displayed, a position detector for detecting a position of an operating tool that is made to contact a surface of the display unit, a reference position determination unit for determining as a reference position a position of an operating tool that is detected first by the position detector when a plurality of operating tools are made to contact the display unit, a display change operation specifying unit for specifying, according to a moving direction of a position of an operating tool that is detected N-th (N≧2) by the position detector, a specific display change operation associated with the direction, and a display controller for performing on the object the display change operation specified by the display change operation specifying unit with the reference position determined by the reference position determination unit as a reference. |
| US08711174B2 |
Method, apparatus and computer program product for visualizing whole streets based on imagery generated from panoramic street views
A method is provided for visualizing both sides of a street based on imagery generated from panoramic street views. In particular, example methods may include directing presentation of a first panoramic view representing a first side of a street, and directing presentation of a second panoramic view representing a second side of the street. The first and second panoramic views may be presented in a street view in a perspective representation where a bottom of the first panoramic view and a bottom of the second panoramic view may be foreshortened relative to a top of each respective panoramic view, and where the bottom of each of the first panoramic view and the second panoramic view are located on either side of a representation of the street. The first panoramic view and the second panoramic view may each be formed of at least two image segments stitched together. |
| US08711172B2 |
Dithering method and apparatus
A dithering method prevents the gray level saturation in a gray level region having high luminance and expresses all gray levels. The dithering method includes performing the temporal/spatial compensation on input data, generating dithering data by adding a head bit to the data on which the temporal/spatial compensation is performed, and selecting a corresponding gamma voltage according to the dithering data. |
| US08711170B2 |
Edge alphas for image translation
A video display pipe used for processing pixels of video and/or image frames may include edge Alpha registers for storing edge Alpha values corresponding to the edges of an image to be translated across a display screen. The edge Alpha values may be specified based on the fractional pixel value by which the image is to be moved in the current frame. The video pipe may copy the column and row of pixels that are in the direction of travel, and may apply the edge Alpha values to the copied column and row. The edge Alpha values may control blending of the additional column and row of the translated image with the adjacent pixels in the original frame, providing the effect of the partial pixel movement, simulating a sub-pixel rate of movement. |
| US08711155B2 |
Early kill removal graphics processing system and method
A pixel processing system and method which permits rendering of complicated three dimensional images using a shallow graphics pipeline including reduced gate counts and low power operation. Pixel packet information includes pixel surface attribute values retrieved in a single unified data fetch stage. A determination is made if the pixel packet information contributes to an image display presentation (e.g., a depth comparison of Z values may be performed). The pixel packet information processing is handled in accordance with results of the determining. The pixel surface attribute values and pixel packet information are removed from further processing if the pixel surface attribute values are occluded. In one exemplary implementation, the pixel packet includes a plurality of rows and the handling is coordinated for the plurality of rows. Any of a number of downstream pipestages may remove the occluded pixel information, and in response thereto, may notify a gatekeeper pipestage of the slack increase so that more pixels can be allowed into the pipeline. |
| US08711150B2 |
Methods and apparatus for deactivating internal constraint curves when inflating an N-sided patch
Methods and apparatus for deactivating internal constraint curves when inflating an N-Sided patch. Given a patch representation, the methods simplify the construction of 3D models from 2D sketches. At least some interior constraint curves may be deactivated when inflating an N-sided patch generated from a 2D sketch, or when performing other surface deformation tasks. An inactive constraint is a passive curve that stays on the surface and that gets modified along with the surface when the surface is inflated, but that does not affect the surface itself. By changing parameters stored at the active constraints, embodiments may modify the surface and turn the inactive constraints from flat 2D curves into 3D space curves. The inactive constraints can be activated at any time when their 3D shape meets the user's expectations. |
| US08711147B2 |
Method and system for generating and displaying an interactive dynamic graph view of multiply connected objects
A method and system for generating and displaying an interactive dynamic graph view of multiply connected objects, is provided. One implementation involves a process implemented in a system for generating a graph view on a user interface in a computing environment, including: at a server, generating coordinate data for a graph representing multiply connected objects; transmitting the coordinate data to a client as lightweight object data; and at the client, based on the lightweight object data, rendering an interactive dynamic graph view of the multiply connected objects on a user interface such as a browser client using vector graphics. |
| US08711142B2 |
Visual model importation
Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art with respect to modeling a process having a visual representation and provide a method, system and computer program product for importing a visual representation of a process for use in an application. In one embodiment, a computer-implemented visual process model importation method can include identifying an arrangement of one or more visual objects in a visual process model, selecting associations between the visual objects and corresponding representative elements for a target process model, mapping the visual objects in the source model into the selected corresponding representative elements for the target process model, and producing the target process model for the visual process model using the mapping. The method subsequently can include providing the target process model as input to an application such as a simulation engine, a workflow engine or a visual collaboration and documentation system. |
| US08711139B2 |
Method of driving stereoscopic display apparatus and stereoscopic display apparatus
A stereoscopic display includes an image displayer. The image displayer includes a display that is configured to sequentially display a right-eye image and a left-eye image. The display includes a first region that includes first rows and a second region that includes second rows. A method of driving the stereoscopic display includes sequentially repeating: writing first image data to the second region when the first region is in an image displaying state; setting the second region to the image displaying state and the first region to an image not-displaying state after the image data is written to the second region; writing second image data to the first region when the second region is in the image displaying state; and setting the first region to the image displaying state and the second region to the image not-displaying state after the second image data is written to the first region. |
| US08711138B2 |
Pixel circuit
A pixel circuit for an electroluminescent element with a first storage capacitor formed overlapping a data line and which comprises a section where a semiconductor thin film constituting the switching transistor or the reset transistor extends, an insulating film, and a metal layer which is connected to the data line as a first terminal. A first terminal of a switching transistor and a first terminal of a reset transistor are connected to the second terminal of the first storage capacitor. The second terminal of the switching transistor is connected to a driving transistor. A second storage capacitor connects the control terminal and the first terminal of the switching transistor. The electroluminescent element is connected to the second terminal of the driving transistor through a light emission controlling transistor. |
| US08711137B2 |
Liquid crystal display device with a control mechanism for eliminating images
The present invention discloses a liquid crystal display device and a control method thereof. In the present invention, a clock controller detects an external clock signal and outputs a switching signal according to the external clock signal. According the information carried by the switching signal, a shutoff switching circuit controls a gamma voltage generator and a common voltage circuit to output voltages making a pixel electrode and a common electrode have a zero voltage difference. Thereby, the pixel charges are completely released after system shutoff, and the shutoff retained images are instantly eliminated. |
| US08711136B2 |
System and method for calibrating display device using transfer functions
The present invention provides a voltage transfer function, a luminance transfer function, and a transfer factors (for example, efficiency, critical point, and slope) between these two functions, derives the correlation (based on the condition change in all cases) between an input grayscale voltage and output luminance, and calibrates the input grayscale voltage by a difference between measurement luminance and target luminance using the transfer functions. Therefore, the present invention can respond to change in conditions for all cases, and increase the accuracy, easiness, and generalization of calibration compared to the existing calibration scheme that relies on the lookup table by checking the actual measurement data and readjusting the transfer factors in each calibration stage. Moreover, the present invention can further increase the manufacturing yield by an average of 35% than the existing yield, significantly saving the manufacturing cost. |
| US08711134B2 |
Organic elelectroluminescent display
According to one embodiment, an organic EL display includes a substrate and a pixel. The pixel is disposed on the substrate and includes a first color displaying portion and a second color displaying portion. The first color displaying portion has a first organic light emitting layer. The second color displaying portion has a second organic light emitting layer having an emission spectrum different from an emission spectrum of the first organic light emitting layer. The first color displaying portion has two sub-pixels. One of the two sub-pixels has a color filter. |
| US08711131B2 |
Switching module and switching synchronization system
There are provided a switching module and a switching synchronization system. The switching module includes a plurality of first to n-th switching modules according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, wherein each of the first to n-th switching modules includes: a button unit that includes a plurality of switching buttons; a state display unit that includes a plurality of display lamps corresponding to each of the plurality of switching buttons in the button unit; a switch controller that controls the operation of the state display unit according to the operation of each of the plurality of switching buttons in the button unit; and a switch communication unit that transmits the wireless switching control signal including the switching control and provides the switching control signals included in the wireless switching control signals received to the switch controller. |
| US08711121B2 |
Architecture and method for multi-aspect touchscreen scanning
Architecture and method for multi-aspect touchscreen scanning. This architectures employs a single type of circuitry capable to perform both signal generation and signal detection for performing both zone scanning and cross point within a touchscreen to identify a user's interaction with the touchscreen and to discriminate actual touch locations on the touchscreen (including multiple, concurrent user touch locations on the touchscreen). This signal generation/detection circuitry can be implemented multiple times within the architecture (e.g., one for providing/detecting signals of conductors aligned in a first direction across the touchscreen, and another for providing/detecting signals of conductors aligned in a second direction across the touchscreen). Moreover, a combination of both zone scanning and cross point within the touchscreen allows for a very accurate discrimination between false/phantom touch locations and actual/real touch locations made by a user interacting with the touchscreen. |
| US08711119B2 |
Display systems with touch screens
A display system includes a touch screen and a driving circuit. The touch screen includes touch sensors and a light source. A converter of the driving circuit receives an input voltage and provides a first output voltage to the light source according to a driving signal. A controller of the driving circuit converts the first output voltage to a second output voltage to drive the touch sensors, compares a voltage feedback signal indicating whether the second output voltage reaches a desired voltage level with a current feedback signal indicating whether a current through the light source reaches a desired current level, selects a feedback signal from the voltage feedback signal and the current feedback signal according to the comparison, and generates the driving signal to adjust the first output voltage according to the selected feedback signal. |
| US08711116B2 |
Navigating applications using side-mounted touchpad
In one embodiment, a user of a mobile device navigates between application user interface layers by using touch inputs to the mobile device's side-mounted touchpad. |
| US08711114B2 |
Touch-sensitive device and communication device
Touch-sensitive device (10) that comprises a substrate (12) comprising a first set of holes extending in a first direction (14) through said substrate (12) whereby each hole forms an opening at a first side (12a) of said substrate (12) and a second set of holes extending in a second direction (16) through said substrate (12) whereby each hole forms an opening at said first side (12a) of said substrate (12), where said second direction (16) intersects said first direction (14). A transmitter (18) arranged to transmit electromagnetic radiation through said first set of holes, and a receiver (20) is arranged to receive electromagnetic radiation transmitted through said second set of holes, whereby the touch-sensitive device (10) is arranged to detect the presence and/or position of an object (22) on or above said first side (12a) of said substrate (12). |
| US08711112B2 |
Electronic device and recording medium
A mobile communication terminal 100 has a touch panel unit 150 as an input unit. Touch detection is performed by scanning detection signals from the touch panel unit 150 at a given operation frequency. A radio device 120 performs communication such as cellular communication and reception of broadcast such as digital broadcast. When the radio device 120 performs radio transmission/reception operation, a touch detection processing unit 112 identifies an operation frequency of the touch panel unit 150 that is not interfered by the frequency of radio transmission/reception by the radio device 120 and a touch panel control unit 111 controls the touch panel unit 150 to scan it at that operation frequency. |
| US08711111B2 |
Holding structure for a touch panel
A holding structure for a touch panel has a display panel, a touch panel for allowing an input operation, a supporting frame for holding the display panel at an entire peripheral edge a piezoelectric device for applying vibration to the touch panel in accordance with the operation of the touch panel, a casing for holding the display panel and the touch panel via the supporting frame, and a flexible resin sheet integrally provided to the front surface side of the touch panel. The flexible substrate is formed to have a size entirely larger than a glass substrate on a rear surface side of the touch panel. The peripheral edge of the flexible substrate is held by a rear surface of a peripheral edge of the opening of the casing and a supporting member fixed to the casing. |
| US08711110B2 |
Touchscreen with Z-velocity enhancement
A system and a method are disclosed for detecting an interaction, such as physical contact, with a touch-sensitive screen. The screen comprises a plurality of cells each associated with a signal value, such as a capacitance, that is modified based on the proximity of an object to the screen. During a first time interval, a first signal value associated with a cell is captured and during a second time interval a second signal value associated with the cell is captured. A difference is computed by subtracting the second signal value from the first signal value. The difference is used to classify the proximity of the object to the screen. For example, the object is classified as approaching the screen if the difference is positive and non-zero or the object is classified as moving away from the screen if the difference is negative and non-zero. |
| US08711109B2 |
Touch sensing technology
The present touch sensing technology enables detecting the position of touch between an object and a surface, and the direction of this object in three dimensions while touching the surface. Said object can be a user's finger, a pen, or the like, while said surface can be a touchpad, a touch screen, a computer mouse, a button of a computer keyboard, a 3D computer input device, or the like. |
| US08711104B2 |
Pointer display device, pointer display/detection method, pointer display/detection program and information apparatus
Disclosed herein is a pointer display device, including, a touch panel provided on a display screen of a display section, a pointer display section configured to detect a contact point in a touch operation on the touch panel and to display a pointer in an area containing the contact point, and a hotspot detection section configured to detect as a hotspot a position corresponding to one part of the pointer exclusive of the contact point. |
| US08711093B2 |
Input device with photodetector pairs
Input devices configured to provide user interface by detecting three dimensional movement of an external object are disclosed. The input device comprises at least two photodetector pairs, a radiation source and a circuit configurable to detect differential and common mode signals generated in the photodetector pairs. By detecting the common mode and differential signals, movement of an external object may be determined and used to control a pointer, or a cursor. |
| US08711089B2 |
Position detection device, pointing device and input device
A position detection device includes an electromagnetic conversion element and a magnetic field generator. The electromagnetic conversion element is arranged on a given plane. The magnetic field generator is arranged facing one side of the electromagnetic conversion element in a direction vertical to the given plane and generates a magnetic field covering the electromagnetic conversion element. A relative position between the electromagnetic conversion element and the magnetic field generator is detected when a relative displacement parallel to the given plane is made by the electromagnetic conversion element and the magnetic field generator based on an output signal of the electromagnetic conversion element. The magnetic field generator has an opposed face that tilts to the electromagnetic conversion element, and generates the magnetic field from the opposed face. |
| US08711086B2 |
Method of manufacturing touch panel
A method of manufacturing touch panel includes the steps of providing a backlight module having at least one extended wall portion formed therewith, so that a receiving space is enclosed in the extended wall portion; providing a liquid crystal display (LCD) layer and a capacitive sensing layer; providing a bonding layer to bond the LCD layer and the capacitive sensing layer to each other; and positioning the bonded LCD layer and capacitive sensing layer in the receiving space of the backlight module. Any extra amount of the bonding layer flowing out from between the bonded LCD layer and capacitive sensing layer forms an overflowed portion that is stopped by the extended wall portion from entering into the receiving space, so that time and labor costs for removing the overflowed portion in assembling the touch panel are saved and the production yield is increased. |
| US08711081B2 |
Driving apparatus having an optical sensor and a thermal sensor for thermal and aging compensation of backlight module and driving method of backlight module
A driving apparatus and a driving method of a backlight module are provided. The backlight module includes multiple LEDs. The driving apparatus includes at least one thermal sensor, an optical sensor, and a processor. The thermal sensor is for detecting a working temperature of the LEDs. The optical sensor is for detecting brightness and color of the backlight module after a calibration function is enabled, to obtain difference values of the detected brightness and color with respect to predetermined brightness and color. The processor is for providing at least one initial thermal compensation table, to determine working currents of the LEDs associated with the working temperature. The processor further is for calibrating a content of the initial thermal compensation table corresponding with a current working temperature of the LEDs and storing the calibrated thermal compensation table as the initial thermal compensation table after the calibration function is enabled. |
| US08711079B2 |
Data driver and liquid crystal display device using the same
A liquid crystal display having data driving apparatus comprising first and second output switches, a charge sharing line, and first and second charge sharing switches. The first output switch switches an electrical connection between a first amplifier providing a positive gradation voltage and a first data line in response to a control signal. The second output switch switches an electrical connection between a second amplifier providing a negative gradation voltage and a second data line in response to the control signal. The first charge sharing switch switches an electrical connection between the first data line and the charge sharing line in response to the control signal. The second charge sharing switch switches an electrical connection between the second data line and the charge sharing line in response to the control signal. |
| US08711073B2 |
Flat panel crystal display employing simultaneous charging of main and subsidiary pixel electrodes
A display system includes a display panel having a plurality of pixel units, each of the pixel units having first and second divided pixel parts; a first driver for applying a first gate signal to the first divided pixel part; and a second driver for applying a second gate signal to the second divided pixel part, wherein the first and second drivers are integrally formed in the display panel and apply the first and second gate signals to be at least partially time-overlapped through independent driving. |
| US08711069B2 |
Circuit board and display panel assembly having the same
A circuit board includes a capacitor and a circuit substrate. The capacitor is mounted on the first insulation layer, and a first conductive layer is disposed between the first and second insulation layers. A plurality of first holes is disposed extended through the first conductive layer, and has a mesh pattern to decrease the spread of vibration generated by the capacitor. A third insulation layer is disposed in the first holes, and the third and first insulation layers may include the same material. |
| US08711062B2 |
Display unit and display method
In a structure in which six active matrix regions 103 to 108 are integrated on one glass substrate, horizontal scanning control circuits 101 and 102 are commonly disposed for the respective active matrix regions 103 to 105 and 106 to 108. Then the horizontal scanning control circuits 101 and 102 are operated at different timings, and images formed by the active matrix regions 103 to 105 and 106 to 108 are synthesized and projected. With this operation, the horizontal scanning frequency required for one horizontal scanning control circuit can be made half of the horizontal scanning frequency of the display screen. |
| US08711060B2 |
Time sharing type autostereoscopic display apparatus and method for driving the same
A time sharing type autostereoscopic display apparatus and a method for driving the same are provided. The display apparatus includes a display panel; a polarization switch; and a control unit which controls the polarization switch so that each of N segments of the polarization switch is driven in synchronization with an image scanning time of the display panel corresponding to each segment, and controls the polarization switch so that a time when a driving signal is applied to an initial segment is delayed relative to a time when an image starts to be scanned after a vertical synchronization signal is applied to the display panel. The method includes controlling the display apparatus so that a time when a driving signal is applied to an initial segment delayed relative to a time when an image starts to be scanned. |
| US08711059B2 |
Display apparatus
The present invention relates to a display apparatus comprising front display unit (10), and rear display unit (50) arranged behind the front display unit (10). The front display unit (10) comprise: a display panel (20); a front backlight (30) arranged behind the display panel (20) and including a first light guide plate (36) having a projection window (16) through which an image on the rear display unit (50) is visible, a first light source (38) arranged along the circumference of the first light guide plate (36), and a reflection sheet (39) arranged at the rear surface of the first light guide plate (36) to reflect light and having an image hole (18) formed at the region thereof that corresponds to the projection window (16); and a rear backlight (40) arranged behind the front backlight (30) and including a second light guide plate (42) and second light sources (44), wherein the second light guide plate (42) corresponds to the projection window (16) and is bent into a V-shape, and has a first light guide surface (42a) inclined upwardly as it extends toward the rear thereof, and a second light guide surface (42b) inclined downwardly as it extends from an end of the first light guide surface (42a) toward the rear thereof, and wherein the second light sources (44) are arranged at an upper end and a lower end of the second light guide plate (42), respectively, to illuminate the first light guide surface (42a) and the second light guide surface (42b), respectively. The rear display unit and the front display unit cooperate with one another to display a combined image. The entire screen of the front display unit is capable of displaying a clear image without any disconnection of the image. |
| US08711050B2 |
Multi-band dipole antenna
A multi-band dipole antenna includes spaced part first and second radiator sections, first and second mirroring radiator sections, and a balun, which are disposed on a substrate. The first mirroring radiator section is symmetrically disposed with respect to the first radiator section and is spaced apart from the first radiator section. The first radiator section and the first mirroring radiator section cooperate to resonate in a first frequency band. The second radiator section cooperates with the second mirroring radiator section to resonate in a second frequency band. |
| US08711046B2 |
Wide bandwidth hybrid antenna for combination EAS and RFID label or tag
A radio frequency identification (RFID) antenna exhibiting a multiple resonance is disclosed. In one exemplary embodiment, a dipole antenna and a loop antenna are disposed upon a substrate and have dimensions and orientation to exhibit the multiple resonance. The dipole antenna may exhibit a first dipole section having a first length and second dipole section having a second length. The loop antenna may be disposed in a region of the dipole antenna. The ratio of the perimeter of the loop antenna to the sum of the lengths of the dipole sections may be selected to exhibit the multiple resonance. |
| US08711045B2 |
Downhole telemetry system
An EM antenna for location on a pipe (10) surrounded by a casing (12). The antenna has a power source (21) for injecting a current across a first insulated section (25) of the pipe (10) and an electrode (22) for conducting the current from the pipe (10) to the casing (12). There is also a second insulated section (23) of the pipe arranged to operate together with the electrode (22) and first insulated section (25) for directing a path flow of the current. Such antennas are described both in relation to repeater arrangements as well as land and sea applications. |
| US08711044B2 |
Antenna arrangement and antenna housing
An antenna arrangement including an antenna occupying at least a first plane; a conductive structure that is isolated from the antenna but is arranged to be parasitically fed by the antenna, the conductive structure having a slot and occupying at least a second plane different to but adjacent the first plane. |
| US08711043B2 |
Wideband antenna
A wideband antenna for a wireless communication device includes a grounding element, a radiating element, extending in a first direction, for transmitting and receiving wireless signals, a feed-in terminal electrically connected to the radiating element, for transmitting a feed-in signal to the radiating element, and a first parasitic radiating element, extending in the first direction, having a side separated from a side of the radiating element by a first distance, and another side separated from the grounding element by a second distance. The first distance allows the first parasitic radiating element and the radiating element to generate a coupling effect to form a slot antenna for transmitting and receiving wireless signals, and the second distance allows the first parasitic radiating element and the grounding element to generate a coupling effect to form a coupling path to the grounding element to increase bandwidth. |
| US08711039B2 |
Antenna module and wireless communication apparatus
An antenna module includes a base member made of a resin and a copper-foil material, a first ground layer formed on a first surface of the base member, a second ground layer formed on a second surface of the base member, and an inverted-F metal-plate antenna provided on the first surface, formed by punch-cutting and folding a metal plate and including a rectangular conductive plate, a grounding conductor portion connected to the first ground layer, and a feeding conductor portion connected to a feeding point. The rectangular conductive plate is folded at a folding portion extending in a length direction and is divided in a width direction at the folding portion into a first rectangular conductive plate and a second rectangular conductive plate. The first rectangular conductive plate is parallel to the base member whereas the second rectangular conductive plate is inclined to the base member. |
| US08711036B2 |
System and method to obtain signal acquisition assistance data
Signal acquisition assistance data is obtained for receiving devices such as wireless position assisted location devices seeking signals from any source, such as satellite vehicles and base stations. The data may be obtained from previously acquired data, based upon evaluation of changes in parameters such as time and location that may jeopardize validity. In some cases the data may be adjusted for the changes in parameters. Refined data may be calculated by a receiver using partial measurements of signal sets, particularly if the acquisition assistance data provided by a remote entity includes more distinct parameters than have typically been provided. New data need not be obtained until the validity of previous data expires due to limitations upon temporal extrapolation using Doppler coefficients, unless mobile station movement that cannot be compensated is detected, and jeopardizes validity of the previous data. |
| US08711035B1 |
Systems and methods for tracking power modulation
Apparatus and methods determine the rotational position of a spinning object. A satellite positioning system can be used to determine the spatial position of an object, which in turn can be used to guide the object. However, when the object is spinning, such as an artillery shell, then the rotational orientation should be known in order to properly actuate the control surfaces, such as fins, which will also be spinning. |
| US08711034B2 |
Geographically self-labeling access points
The present invention provides systems and methods for self-labeling access points with their geographic location from received beacon frames. In particular, the present invention transmits beacon frames including temporary location information from mobile devices. The beacon frames are received by an access point, filtered by the access point and then used to determine a location. Once the location has been determined, the access point uses the determined location to self-label itself by converting the location information to a geographic code and inserting it as part of the SSID of the access point's beacon signal. The present invention also includes a number of methods using geographic codes including a method for generating and transmitting geographic codes for mobile devices, a method for determining a location of an access point, a method for self-labeling an access point, and a method for filtering beacon frames. |
| US08711031B2 |
Apparatus and sensor for adjusting vertical sensor-alignment
Disclosed are a sensor, the vertical alignment of which can be adjusted, and a vertical sensor-alignment adjustment apparatus using the same. In particular, in order to allow the vertical alignment to be adjusted, the sensor has a construction including a plurality of switchable transmitting antennas or a plurality of switchable receiving antennas or a construction including a tilting motor for adjusting an transmitting angle or a receiving angle. The vertical sensor-alignment adjustment apparatus employing such a sensor determines whether the sensor is misaligned in terms of its vertical alignment, and corrects the vertical misalignment of the sensor by executing variable switching to one of the transmitting antennas, by executing variable switching to one of the receiving antennas, or by controlling the tilting motor, so that the transmitting angle of sensor signals or the receiving angle of reflected waves for the sensor signals can be adjusted. |
| US08711029B2 |
Process for filtering interferograms obtained from SAR images acquired on the same area
A process for filtering interferograms obtained from SAR images, acquired on the same area by synthetic aperture radars, comprising the following steps: a) acquiring a series of N radar images (Al . . . AN) by means of a SAR sensor on a same area with acquisition geometries such as to allow re-sampling of the data on a common grid; b) after re-sampling on a common grid, selecting a pixel from the common grid; c) calculating the coherence matrix of the selected pixel, that is estimating the complex coherence values for each possible pair of available images; d) maximizing, with respect of the source vector θ, here an unknown element, the functional: (formula) being R the operator which extracts the real part of a complex number, γnm the modulus of the element (n,m) of the coherence matrix, k a positive real number, φnm the phase of the element (n,m) of the coherence matrix, θn and θm the elements n and m of the unknown vector θ. Given that only phase differences appear in the functional T, the values of the unknown factor are estimated less an additive constant, which can be fixed by setting for example θ1=0, and the phase values θn thus obtained constitute the vector of the filtered phase values. T = { ∑ n = 1 N ∑ m = 1 N γ n m k · ⅇ ⅈϕ n m ⅇ - ⅈ ( θ n - θ m ) } ( I ) |
| US08711025B2 |
Method for configuring analog-to-digital converter keys and non-transitory machine readable medium storing program code executed for performing such method
A method for configuring a plurality of analog-to-digital converter (ADC) keys includes: utilizing a processor for determining a plurality of divided-voltages respectively corresponding to the Keys according to a plurality of voltage variation ranges respectively corresponding to the Keys; and calculating a plurality of resistive values of a voltage dividing model according to at least the divided-voltages, wherein the voltage dividing model has a plurality of voltage dividing configurations respectively corresponding to the keys. |
| US08711024B2 |
Switched capacitor amplifier
A switched capacitor amplifier having an amplification unit adapted to amplify a differential signal; a first switched capacitor block including a first plurality of capacitors operable to sample a first differential input signal during a first sampling phase and to drive the amplification unit during a first drive phase; and a second switched capacitor block including a second plurality of capacitors operable to sample a second differential input signal during a second sampling phase and to drive the amplification unit during a second drive phase. |
| US08711023B2 |
Analog-to-digital converter control using signal objects
A method and apparatus for detecting an event and sampling first value from a pin in response to the event. For example, the event is identified by a signal object of a plurality of signal objects stored in a memory. Each signal object of the plurality of signal objects identifies a single analog input pin and a trigger. |
| US08711019B1 |
Context-based adaptive binary arithmetic coding engine
A system including a binarization module, a prediction module, and a shifting module. The encoding module is configured to encode symbols using context-adaptive binary arithmetic coding, in which the symbols are generated by binarizing a syntax element. The prediction module is configured to generate a prediction for a number of renormalizations to be performed to renormalize an interval range when encoding one of the symbols. The shifting module is configured to generate a renormalized interval range by shifting the binarized syntax element R times, where R is a number of leading zeros before a 1 in the binarized syntax element. The encoding module is configured to encode a next symbol following the one of the symbols based on the renormalized interval range. |
| US08711018B2 |
Providing a feedback loop in a low latency serial interconnect architecture
In one embodiment, the present invention includes a de-serializer to receive serial data at a first rate and to output a parallel data frame corresponding to the serial data aligned to a frame alignment boundary in response to a phase control signal received from a feedback loop coupled between the de-serializer and a receiver logic coupled to an output of the de-serializer. Other embodiments are described and claimed. |
| US08711017B2 |
Serial transmission system including transmitter apparatus and receiver apparatus, for use in transmission of AV data
A transmitter apparatus is provided for converting parallel data of natural number n×12 bits into n pieces of serial data, and transmitting n transmission signals each of natural number m bits. In the transmitter apparatus, a dividing buffer divides inputted parallel data into n pieces of 12-bit parallel data, and an encoder circuit 12B14B-converts the n pieces of 12-bit parallel data into n pieces of 14-bit parallel data, respectively, and outputs resulting data. A parallel-to-serial converter circuit parallel-to-serial converts the n pieces of 14-bit parallel data into n pieces of 1-bit serial data, respectively, and outputs resulting data, and an m-bit driver circuit amplifies and transmits the n pieces of 1-bit serial data, as n transmission signals each of m bits, respectively, to n transmission paths. |
| US08711014B2 |
Methods and devices for creating, compressing and searching binary tree
Methods and devices for creating, compressing and searching a binary tree are provided by the present disclosure, which relates to the field of traffic classification. Binary tree compression includes: determining a number of a compression layer or a number of an intermediate node, compressing a binary tree according to the number of the compression layer or the number of the intermediate node to form at least one compression node, and creating a bitmap of the compression node. Therefore, the depth of the decision tree is reduced, the search speed is increased, rule expansion is avoided, and rule replication is reduced. |
| US08711013B2 |
Coding circuitry for difference-based data transformation
Coding circuitry for difference-based data transformation in an illustrative embodiment comprises a difference-based encoder having a plurality of processing stages, with the difference-based encoder being configured to generate respective orders of difference from a sequence of data samples and to output encoded data determined based on at least a selected one of the orders of difference. The coding circuitry may be configured to implement lossless, linear compression of the sequence of data samples. The coding circuitry may additionally or alternatively comprise a difference-based decoder having a plurality of processing stages, with the difference-based decoder being configured to process encoded data comprising selected ones of a plurality of orders of difference and to reconstruct a sequence of data samples based on the selected orders of difference. |
| US08711009B2 |
Ice data collection system
Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUV) collect and transmit information about ice floes with respect to their areal extent, vertical underwater profile, thickness, density, location, speed, direction and other properties to determine the possible trajectory of the ice floe. This information is used to alert drilling platforms in icy ocean conditions of pending ice floe dangers. |
| US08711008B2 |
Methods and systems for detecting icing conditions
Methods and systems for detecting icing or incipient icing conditions external to a vehicle (100) are disclosed. An apparatus in accordance with one embodiment of the invention includes a temperature sensor (120) configured to direct a first signal corresponding to a temperature of an airstream, and a water content sensor (130) configured to direct a second signal corresponding to a water content of the airstream. A processing unit (140) can receive the first and second signals and, based on at least the first and second signals, provide an indication (150) when at least the first and second signals taken together correspond to an at least incipient icing condition. Accordingly, the system can be installed on aircraft to provide notice to the crew of incipient or existing icing conditions. |
| US08711005B2 |
Variable speed traffic control system
A variable speed limit sign including a controller and a display operatively coupled to the controller is provided. A traffic control system including a variable speed limit sign and methods of use thereof are also provided. |
| US08711004B2 |
Method and apparatus for reducing and controlling highway congestion to save on fuel costs
One estimate indicates that rubbernecking and congestion consumes about 4% of this country's fuel. Two approaches are presented to help solve this problem. The first uses shields to block the view of a car accident. Rubbernecking is reduced since the visibility of the car accident is reduced. A second approach uses mobile flat units that can be remotely controlled to enter a roadway that is carrying active traffic. The traffic runs over these units that are being moved until the master processor indicates that the mobile flat units are in position. A post is extended from the flat unit that issues commands to the motorists so the master processor can begin to control and reduce congestion. Both approaches can be used to help decrease fuel waste in the US. |
| US08710999B2 |
Emergency power-off button with proximity alarm
An emergency power off system is provided including an emergency power off button, a proximity sensor, and alarm connected to the proximity sensor, wherein the proximity sensor is configured to detect an object within a predetermined distance from the power off button, and further wherein the proximity sensor is configured to activate the alarm when an object is within a predetermined distance from the power off button. |
| US08710998B2 |
Method and laser receiver for acoustically indicating a laser beam
A laser receiver (1) for acoustically indicating a laser beam, including a housing (4), a detector unit (6) that ascertains the actual position (2) of the laser beam, an evaluation unit (8) that determines the difference between the actual position (2) and the target position (3), and an acoustic indication device (7) that uses an acoustic signal to indicate whether the actual position (2) of the laser beam is above, below or at the target position (3), wherein a control unit (9) is provided that, as a function of the difference between the actual position (2) and the target position (3), generates a scanning signal to modulate a basic signal, and then sends the scanning signal to the acoustic indication device (7). |
| US08710994B2 |
Flood protection apparatus and container data center including the same
A flood protection apparatus includes an adjustable base, a first water level detector, and a controller. The adjustable base supports the container and is operable to adjust a height of the container. The first water level detector is mounted on the base. When the first water level detector detects water has reached the first level, the first water level detector outputs a first detection signal. The controller receives the first detection signal to activate the base to heighten the container, until the first detection signal ceases or the base is at a highest point. |
| US08710992B2 |
Biological information monitoring system
A biological information monitoring system includes: a transmitter to which first channel information is allocated, the transmitter collecting biological information from a living body and outputting the biological information; a first receiver in which the first channel information is set, the first receiver receiving the biological information from the transmitter to which the first channel information is allocated, the first receiver outputting the biological information; a monitoring apparatus receiving the biological information from the first receiver and displaying the received biological information; a setting unit setting the first channel information in the first receiver; a second receiver in which second channel information is set; and a detector determining whether the first channel information is identical with the second channel information. |
| US08710991B2 |
Disposable and tamper-resistant RFID lock
Implementations described and claimed herein provide an RFID locking apparatus including an RFID tag, a locking member, and a disabling member. The RFID tag is disposed inside a housing and has a chip and an antenna that emits a signal. The locking member extends outwardly from within the housing and is configured to compress a spring into a loaded state. The disabling member is disposed near the spring inside the housing and is configured to destroy the antenna and/or the chip, such that the signal cannot be emitted, upon release of the spring from the loaded state. The RFID locking apparatus is configured to release the spring when the locking member is damaged. |
| US08710986B2 |
Gaze tracking password input method and device utilizing the same
A gaze tracking password input method and a device utilizing the same wherein the method includes the following steps: picking up photo images of a person's eyes by a photographing unit which continually takes photo shots at a particular area as the person approaches to the photographing unit and his eye enters the particular area; transmitting the photo images taken at the particular area to an operation unit; setting a script associated with a particular point as a password; and then determining the person's gaze tracking direction which indicates the script to be input by the operation unit. The operation unit comparing the multiple input scripts with predetermined passwords, if the input scripts are matched with the predetermined passwords, then the person is officially authorized. |
| US08710985B2 |
Wine cellar alarm system
A notification device includes wine cellar temperature and humidity sensors, a processing device, an alarm and an automatic telephone dialer that notifies designated recipients when wine cellar temperature and humidity values are outside of preset limits. |
| US08710976B2 |
Automated incorporation of expert feedback into a monitoring system
A system, computer-readable medium, and method for updating a decisioning algorithm are provided. In the method, operational parameter data from a first device is evaluated using a decisioning algorithm to determine if an alert should be sent. The alert indicates a possible performance issue associated with a component of the first device. The operational parameter data includes a value of an operating characteristic of the first device. When a determination is made to send the alert, an alert message including a first indicator indicating the possible performance issue of the component of the first device is created. The alert message is sent to a second device. The decisioning algorithm is updated based on a second indicator received from a third device. The second indicator indicates either that the alert was useful or that the alert was not useful. |
| US08710975B2 |
Method for indicating the process of leaving a parking space
In an automated method for providing an indication, with the aid of a turn signal indicator, that a vehicle is leaving a parking space, a vehicle control system detects initially whether an executed driving maneuver is a maneuver related to leaving a parking space, in which case the maneuvering out of a parking space is indicated by activating the turn signal indicator, and the turn signal indicator is kept activated until the process of maneuvering out of the parking space has been concluded. |
| US08710974B2 |
Sound producing apparatus for vehicle
A sound producing apparatus for a vehicle notifying a vehicle's approach outside the vehicle comprising an original-tone generating portion generating an original tone of a vehicle's approaching sound for recognition of a vehicle's approach, a modulation-tone generating portion generating a modulation tone from the original tone with a comb filter function which is configured to apply gains to frequency components so that a gain to be applied to a specified frequency component of a times-tone row which has frequencies of n-times of a fundamental frequency is greater than that to be applied to the other frequency component than the specified frequency component of the times-tone row, a sound-pressure setting portion setting a sound pressure of the approaching sound of the modulation tone, and a speaker producing outside the vehicle the vehicle's approaching sound of the modulation tone with the set sound pressure. |
| US08710972B2 |
System for alarming upon occurrence of secession of smart key for vehicles
The present invention relates to a system for alarming upon occurrence of secession of a smart key for a vehicle, in which wireless communication technology called near field communication (NFC) is applied to both a vehicle and a smart key such that a situation can be prevented in which a driver loses a smart key or does not carry it during the driving. The inventive system includes a signal generation unit, a signal response unit, a signal analysis unit, and an alarm generation unit. Thus, when the smart key secedes from the vehicle by a predetermined distance or the signal generation unit does not receive the response signal from the signal response unit in a state in which the engine of the vehicle is started, an alarm signal is produced from the alarm generation unit. |
| US08710971B2 |
Control method of LPI lamp for LPI vehicle and logic therefor
A control method of an LPI lamp for an LPI vehicle and logic for the control method can turn on again an LPG switch when the LPG switch is unintentionally turned off, by making a driver recognize whether the LPG switch is turned off, by switching an LPI lamp on and off. For this configuration, the control method of an LPI lamp for an LPI vehicle includes checking whether an LPG switch that stops fuel supply to an engine has been turned on or off, and switching the LPI lamp on and off, when it is determined that the LPG switch has been turned off, in an LPI vehicle in an ignition-on state. |
| US08710966B2 |
Methods and apparatus to provide haptic feedback
Methods and apparatus to provide haptic feedback are disclosed. One example method includes receiving a goal condition at a mobile device, requesting information from a host device using a first close-proximity communication, receiving the information at a mobile device using a second close-proximity communication, determining a level of haptic feedback based on the received information and the goal condition, and causing a haptic effect on the mobile device based on the level of haptic feedback. Other implementations are possible. |
| US08710964B2 |
Reception circuit and signal reception method
A reception circuit according to the present invention is a reception circuit (6) that operates based on a first power supply GND1 belonging to a first power supply system and receives, through an AC coupling element (10), a transmission signal V1 output by a transmission circuit (5) that operates based on a second power supply GND2 belonging to a second power supply system, the reception circuit including: a noise rejection unit (21) that generates a transmission-use signal V2a by reducing a signal level of noise between the power supplies generated in the AC coupling element (10) due to a potential difference between the first power supply GND1 and the second power supply GND2; and a reception buffer (22) that reproduces a data signal based on the transmission-use signal. This prevents a malfunction from occurring due to noise between the power supplies caused by a relative potential variation between the power supply of the transmission circuit and the power supply of the reception circuit. |
| US08710956B2 |
Fingerprinting apparatus, system, and method
An apparatus, system and method for surreptitious biometric acquisition are disclosed. In one embodiment, a sensor is configured to produce an electrical signal corresponding to a biometric signature of a subject. The sensor is configured to be surreptitiously mounted to a surface. Various sensors are disclosed as being operative with the surreptitious biometric acquisition apparatus. A vehicle with a surreptitiously mounted biometric acquisition apparatus is disclosed. A method for surreptitious identification of suspects is also disclosed. |
| US08710952B2 |
RFID reader revocation checking using low power attached displays
A method of authenticating a radio frequency identification (RFID) reader to efficiently and timely check of revocation status of the RFID reader includes the steps of checking whether a given certificate is expired or revoked, and allowing a user of an RFID tag to verify that the credentials and revocation status information reported to the tag by reader is correct and current/valid before permitting information transmission from the RFID tag to the reader. An RFID tag includes a passively powered display and a user activatable control which allows the method to be carried out with the tag. The tag may include encrypted communication ability and automatic certificate revocation list checking. (This method is applicable not just to RFID but to any technology involving purely passive operation, i.e., where the tag obtains power from a reader). |
| US08710948B2 |
Method for operation of multi-layer-multi-turn high efficiency inductors
A multi-layer, multi-turn structure for an inductor having a plurality of conductor layers separated by layers of insulator is described. The inductor further comprises a connector electrically connected between the conductor layers. The structure of the inductor may comprise a cavity therewithin. The structure of the inductor constructed such that electrical resistance is reduced therewithin, thus increasing the efficiency of the inductor. The inductor is particularly useful at operating within the radio frequency range and greater. |
| US08710946B2 |
Rupture resistant system
A rupture resistant system comprises a tank comprising a top member, a sidewall member, and a bottom member, and a component situated within the tank and susceptible to creating increasing pressure within the tank when under a fault condition. At least one of the top, sidewall, and bottom members is connected to another of the top, sidewall, and bottom members in a manner so as to cause an increase in inner volume of the tank under increased pressure conditions. |
| US08710940B2 |
Elastic wave device having a capacitive electrode on the piezoelectric substrate
An elastic wave device includes a piezoelectric substrate, an IDT electrode located on the piezoelectric substrate, and a capacitive electrode that is located on the piezoelectric substrate and is connected in series with the IDT electrode. The capacitive electrode includes a plurality of capacitive electrode portions, each of which includes a pair of mutually interdigitated comb-shaped electrodes. The plurality of capacitive electrode portions are connected with each other in parallel. The plurality of capacitive electrode portions are arranged such that an intersecting width direction D1 of the capacitive electrode portions is inclined with respect to an intersecting width direction D2 of the IDT electrode. The plurality of capacitive electrode portions are arrayed in an elastic-wave propagating direction D3 of the IDT electrode. |
| US08710937B1 |
Low power voltage controlled oscillator (VCO)
An apparatus includes a tank circuit of a voltage controlled oscillator. A pair of alternating current coupling capacitors respectively couple the gates of the pair of transistors to the drains of the pair of transistors. A bias circuit is coupled to the gates of the pair of transistors and biases the transistors in accordance with a bias voltage such that the transistors alternatingly turn on during a plurality of peaks of an oscillating signal of the tank circuit and the transistors turn off during a plurality of crossing points of the oscillating signal. A feedback loop may be configured to detect a peak oscillating amplitude of the oscillating signal and adjust a bias voltage of the bias circuit based on the peak oscillating amplitude. Also, a supply capacitor may be coupled to the tank circuit and to the transistors to provide an instantaneous current to the VCO. |
| US08710931B2 |
Piezoelectric device and fabricating method thereof
A piezoelectric device and a fabricating method thereof are provided. Variation of output frequency is suppressed by forming an organic resin to protect an IC chip that is mounted in a cavity of a container body, and damage that may occur to the IC chip during the mounting process is prevented. The piezoelectric device includes a container body, a crystal resonator, an IC chip and a cover body. A surface of the IC chip, which is a mounting surface for mounting to the container body, has bumps thereon for connecting to terminal pads of a circuit wiring pattern configured on a bottom surface of a bottom cavity of the container body, and the other surface of the IC chip has an insulating protective sheet adhered and fixed thereon. |
| US08710929B1 |
System and method for combined I/Q generation and selective phase interpolation
A system and method are provided for combined generation of I and Q signal references according to a periodic input signal and selective phase interpolation of an output signal with reference thereto. A ring oscillator portion generates an oscillator signal, and includes a plurality of delay stages interconnected in cascade to collectively execute an odd number of signal state inversions within a closed loop. The delay stages establish at respective nodes defined therebetween correspondingly delayed oscillator signal versions, successively shifted in phase by a predetermined phase difference. A signal injection portion selectively applies to at least one node of the ring oscillator portion a current bias according to the periodic input signal, and selectively adjusts each current bias in amplitude. The oscillator signal is thereby frequency locked to the periodic input signal, defining I/Q references with respect to the delayed oscillator signal version established at the current biased node. |
| US08710928B2 |
Semiconductor power amplifier
A semiconductor power amplifier of an embodiment includes: a plurality of unit FETs disposed in parallel in a direction of a substantially straight line connecting source electrodes of the unit FETs; a first via hole which connects the two source electrodes positioned between adjacent ones of the unit FETs in common and an RF ground electrode; and a second via hole which connects the source electrode on a side having no adjacent unit FET and the RF ground electrode. Each unit FET includes: a gate electrode which connects gate finger electrodes and leads out the gate finger electrodes; a drain electrode which connects drain finger electrodes disposed facing the gate finger electrodes and leads out the drain finger electrodes; and two source electrodes which connects source finger electrodes disposed facing the gate finger electrodes and lead out the source finger electrodes to opposing sides in a widthwise direction thereof. |
| US08710920B2 |
Charge domain filter and method thereof
A charge domain filter (CDF) and a method thereof are provided. The CDF includes an amplifier, a first switch-capacitor network (SCN), a second SCN, a third SCN and a fourth SCN. Input terminals of the first and the second SCNs are coupled to first and second output terminals of the amplifier, respectively. Input and output terminals of the third SCN are coupled to output terminals of the first and the second SCNs, respectively. Input and output terminals of the fourth SCN are coupled to output terminals of the second and the first SCNs, respectively. A mode control terminal of the third SCN receives a first mode signal to set an impulse response mode of the third SCN. A mode control terminal of the fourth SCN receives a second mode signal to set an impulse response mode of the fourth SCN. |
| US08710918B2 |
Electronic component and reflected-wave cancelling method
An electronic component includes a driver that outputs a signal to a reception apparatus; a storage device storing therein reflection information related to a reflected wave that returns to the driver when the signal is reflected back by the reception apparatus; a reflected wave detector that based on the reflection information, determines a measurement period for measuring the reflected wave and that based on the measurement period, measures an arrival time and a peak amplitude of the reflected wave; and a controller that based on the arrival time and the peak amplitude, extracts reflected-wave cancelling information for inhibiting effects of the reflected wave from the reception apparatus and that sets the extracted reflected-wave cancelling information in the driver. |
| US08710914B1 |
Voltage regulators with improved wake-up response
Techniques are presented for improving the wake-up response of voltage regulation circuits. A first set of techniques relate to the inputs an op-amp in a regulation circuit. In regulated operation, one input receives feedback from the regulator's output. Instead, during reset, after resetting the op-amp's output node to the supply level, this input of op-amp is instead connected to ground in order to increase the amount of tail current through the op-amp in order to more quickly bring down the op-amp's output node. A detection circuit is introduced to determine when the op-amp's input is reconnected to receive feedback. In a complementary sets of techniques, when the circuit on which the regulator is formed receives an enable signal and the output of the regulator will be needed for an operation, and when the regulator is not yet back at operating levels, its supply is temporarily shorted to the supply level. |
| US08710913B2 |
Circuit arrangement and method for operating a circuit arrangement
According to one aspect of this disclosure, a circuit arrangement is provided, the circuit arrangement including an electronic component coupled to at least one common power supply node and configured to provide a first signal having a variation in time that is based on power supply via the at least one common power supply node; a detecting circuit coupled to the electronic component, the detecting circuit being configured to detect the first signal and to provide a digital switch array control signal based on the variation in time of the first signal; and a switch array coupled between the at least one common power supply node and at least one power supply source, the switch array being configured to control the power supply via the at least one common power supply node based on the digital switch array control signal. |
| US08710911B2 |
Charge pump circuit and power-supply method for dynamically adjusting output voltage
A charge pump circuit and power-supply method for dynamically adjusting output voltage is related to the charge pump circuit having three power-supply modes with different power conversion efficiencies. When supplying power, a pump unit controls the electrical connecting relations of a first flying capacitor, second flying capacitor, first storage capacitor and second storage capacitor through a first clock and second clock with non-overlapping working phases, to convert a source voltage into a positive output voltage and negative output voltage, thereby providing one of the three power-supply modes. |
| US08710909B2 |
Circuits for prevention of reverse leakage in Vth-cancellation charge pumps
Techniques are presented to reduce reversion leakage in charge pump circuits. The exemplary circuit is a charge pump of the voltage doubler type, where the output of each leg is supplied through a corresponding output transistor. An auxiliary charge pump is used to supply the gates of the output transistors in order to cancel the threshold voltage of these output transistors. To reduce reverse leakage back through the output transistors, in each leg of the charge pump a switch is connected between the gate of the output transistor and the output level of the leg so the these levels can be shorted when that particular is not supplying the pump's output. |
| US08710905B2 |
Bias voltage generating circuit and switching power supply thereof
Disclosed herein are bias voltage generating circuits configured for switching power supplies, and associated control methods. In one embodiment, a bias voltage generating circuit can include: (i) a first control circuit configured to compare a drain-source voltage of a switch against a bias voltage; (ii) a capacitor, with the bias voltage across the capacitor; (iii) a second control circuit configured to control the switch, and that is enabled when the bias voltage is at least as high as an expected bias voltage; (iv) the first control circuit being configured to control the capacitor to charge when the drain-source voltage of the switch is greater than the bias voltage; and (v) the bias voltage being less than an overvoltage protection voltage when the capacitor charges, and where the overvoltage protection voltage comprises a voltage that is a predetermined amount higher than the expected bias voltage. |
| US08710904B2 |
MOS resistor apparatus and methods
Apparatus and methods disclosed herein implement a MOS resistor using the current channel of a MOS transistor. The MOS resistance R(DS) is dependent upon MOS transistor geometry and nominal gate voltage. MOS resistor terminal-to-gate voltages are averaged and applied to the MOS transistor gate such as to maintain the MOS resistor terminal voltage to current ratio, resulting in a substantially constant R(DS). R(DS) is also compensated for temperature and process variations by adjusting gate voltages via negative feedback methods. |
| US08710903B2 |
Drive and startup for a switched capacitor divider
Drive and startup circuits are described particularly suitable for use with a switched capacitor divider. In one example, a drive circuit has a level shifter coupled to a gate of each switch of a switched capacitor drive circuit to couple alternating current into the respective gate, a positive phase low side driver coupled to each level shifter to drive the gates of the top switch path through the respective level shifters, and a negative phase low side driver coupled to each level shifter to drive gates of the bottom switch path through the respective level shifters. A startup circuit, such as a capacitive soft start circuit may be used to slow the application of the current to each switch. |
| US08710902B2 |
Trimming circuit and semiconductor device
Provided are a trimming circuit which does not need a dedicated terminal to which a current for cutting a fuse is input, and also a semiconductor device including the trimming circuit. The trimming circuit includes: an input terminal connected to a pad which is an external terminal of an internal circuit; a fuse provided between a power supply terminal and an output terminal; and a diode provided between the input terminal and the output terminal. The trimming circuit performs trimming by applying, to the pad, such a voltage that the diode is biased in the forward direction. |
| US08710900B2 |
Methods and apparatus for voltage selection for a MOSFET switch device
In one general aspect, an apparatus including a first voltage rail, and a second voltage rail. The apparatus includes a first P-type metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) PMOS device between the first voltage rail and the second voltage rail where the first PMOS device is configured to electrically couple the first voltage rail to the second voltage rail in response to the first PMOS device being activated. The apparatus can also include a second PMOS device configured to provide a charge pump voltage produced by a charge pump device to the second voltage rail in response to the second PMOS device being activated and the first PMOS device being deactivated. The apparatus can also include a pass gate, and a driver circuit coupled to the pass gate and configured to operate based on a voltage of the second voltage rail. |
| US08710897B2 |
Level shifter and method of using the same
A level shifter and a method of operating a level shifter are provided. The level shifter includes a first-level shifter unit configured to convert an external input signal into a signal in a preset first-voltage range using a plurality of transistors and output the converted signal and a second-level shifter unit configured to convert the signal output from the first-level shifter unit into a signal in a preset second-voltage range using a plurality of transistors and output the converted signal. |
| US08710889B1 |
Apparatus for controllable delay cell and associated methods
A delay cell includes a feed-forward inverter and a feedback inverter. The feedback inverter is coupled to the feed-forward inverter. The feed-forward inverter has an input and an output. Similarly, the feedback inverter has an input and an output. A drive strength of the feed-forward inverter is larger than a drive strength of the feedback inverter such that a transition at the input of the feed-forward inverter propagates to the output of the feed-forward inverter. |
| US08710888B2 |
System and method for oscillator frequency control
Techniques to compensate for sources of temperature and process dependent errors within an oscillator system for frequency control oscillator output clock signal. The oscillator system may include a controller and an oscillator circuit. The techniques may include generating a pair of voltages, a first of which is temperature variant, having (approximately) known temperature variations across process, and a second of which is (approximately) temperature invariant. Each voltage may be scaled by a corresponding trim factor. The scaled voltages may be combined to generate a reference voltage. The reference voltage may compensate for process and temperature dependent error sources within the oscillator system to set the oscillator output clock signal frequency. |
| US08710883B1 |
Phase lock loop with injection pulse control
An apparatus comprises a lock-loop circuit including an oscillator, a frequency detector, a charge pump, and a regulator. The regulator is coupled to provide a regulated signal to the oscillator to control frequency. The oscillator and the frequency detector are coupled to receive a reference clock signal. The reference clock signal is coupled to the oscillator to suppress noise in the oscillator by pulse injection. The frequency detector is coupled to receive an oscillator output from the oscillator. |
| US08710881B2 |
PLL circuit
A PLL circuit according to the present invention includes a VCO that outputs an VCO signal having a frequency according to an input voltage, a loop filter that feeds a voltage according to an input current to the VCO, a phase comparator that outputs a phase difference pulse having a width according to a phase difference between a first input signal and a second input signal, a charge pump circuit that receives the phase difference pulse, and inputs the current to the loop filter, and a phase-difference-pulse stop unit that stops the input of the phase difference pulse to the charge pump circuit in a non-input state in which an REF signal (reference frequency signal) is not input. The first input signal is the REF signal itself or a signal obtained by dividing the frequency of the REF signal, and the second input signal is the VCO signal itself or a signal obtained by dividing the frequency of the VCO signal. |
| US08710874B2 |
Transmission channel for ultrasound applications
A transmission channel configured to transmit high-voltage pulses and to receive echos of the high-voltage pulses includes a high voltage buffer, a voltage clamp and a switch. The voltage clamp may include clamping transistors and switching off transistors coupled together in series with body diodes in anti-series. The transmission channel may include a reset circuit configured to bias the transmission channel between pulses. The switch may include a bootstrap circuit. |
| US08710873B2 |
System and method for a driver circuit with a referenced control signal
In accordance with an embodiment, a method of operating a gate driving circuit includes receiving a reference timing pulse, measuring the received timing pulse according to a local clock generator of the gate driving circuit, and generating a switching control signal based on the measured received timing pulse. |
| US08710872B2 |
Driver circuit for driving semiconductor switches
A driver circuit can be used to drive a semiconductor switch to an on-state or an off-state in accordance with a control signal. The operating voltage range of the control signal is represented by a reference voltage. And input stage receives the control signal and the reference voltage and generates a modified control signal. An output stage is coupled to the input stage and receives the modified control signal. The output stage is configured to provide a driver signal for driving the semiconductor switch on and off in accordance with the modified control signal. The input stage is configured to scale the control signal dependent on the level of the reference voltage, to compare the scaled control signal with at least one threshold value that is responsive to the reference voltage, and to generate the modified control signal dependent on the result of the comparison. |
| US08710871B2 |
Delay lines, amplifier systems, transconductance compensating systems and methods of compensating
Embodiments of delay lines may include a plurality of delay stages coupled to each other in series from a first stage to a last stage. Each delay stage may include an input transistor receiving a signal being delayed by the delay line. The delay line may include a compensating circuit configured to compensate for a change in a transconductance of the input transistor resulting from various factors. One such compensating circuit may be configured to provide a bias signal at an output node having a magnitude that is a function of a transconductance of a transistor in the compensating circuit. The bias signal may be used by each of the delay stages to maintain the gain of the respective delay stage substantially constant, such as a gain of substantially unity, despite changes in a transconductance of the respective input transistor in each of the delay stages. |
| US08710862B2 |
Programming of DIMM termination resistance values
Systems, methods, and apparatus, including computer program products, for providing termination resistance in a memory module are provided. An apparatus is provided that includes a plurality of memory circuits; an interface circuit operable to communicate with the plurality of memory circuits and to communicate with a memory controller; and a transmission line electrically coupling the interface circuit to a memory controller, wherein the interface circuit is operable to terminate the transmission line with a single termination resistance that is selected based on a plurality of resistance-setting commands received from the memory controller. |
| US08710861B2 |
Semiconductor device and method of adjusting characteristic thereof
To suppress the number of clocks needed to adjust the impedance of an output buffer. A pull-up replica buffer is connected between a calibration terminal and power supply wiring, and is controlled in impedance by a DRZQP signal supplied from a counter. A pull-down replica buffer is connected between ground wiring and a connection node A, and is controlled in impedance by a DRZQN signal supplied from the counter. More specifically, the DRZQP signal and the DRZQN signal indicate count values. The impedances of the replica buffers are increased or decreased stepwise in proportion to the count values. The count values are updated according to a binary search method. |
| US08710860B2 |
Method and system for testing indirect bandgap semiconductor devices using luminescence imaging
Embodiments of methods and systems for identifying or determining spatially resolved properties in indirect bandgap semiconductor devices such as solar cells are described. In one embodiment, spatially resolved properties of an indirect bandgap semiconductor device are determined by externally exciting the indirect bandgap semiconductor device to cause the indirect bandgap semiconductor device to emit luminescence (110), capturing images of luminescence emitted from the indirect bandgap semiconductor device in response to the external excitation (120), and determining spatially resolved properties of the indirect bandgap semiconductor device based on a comparison of relative intensities of regions in one or more of the luminescence images (130). |
| US08710858B2 |
Micro positioning test socket and methods for active precision alignment and co-planarity feedback
Methods and structures for testing a microelectronic packaging structure/device are described. Those methods may include placing a device in a floating carrier, wherein the floating carrier is coupled to a socket housing by pin dowels disposed in four corners of the socket housing, and wherein at least two actuating motors are disposed within the socket housing, and micro adjusting the device by utilizing a capacitive coupled or a fiber optic alignment system wherein a maximum measured capacitance or maximum measured intensity between alignment structures disposed in the socket housing and alignment package balls disposed within the device indicate optimal alignment of the device. Methods further include methods for active co-planarity detection through the use of a capacitive-coupled techniques. |
| US08710855B2 |
Probe card holding apparatus with probe card engagement structure
A probe card holding apparatus is provided and may be configured to hold a probe card in a test head. The probe card may include a clamp head formed at a center part of a back surface of the probe card, and a holding device provided at the test head and configured to engage with the clamp head. |
| US08710854B2 |
Making transparent capacitor with multi-layer grid
A method of making a transparent capacitor apparatus includes: providing a first transparent substrate including a first patterned conductive layer having a first pattern; providing a second transparent substrate including a second patterned conductive layer having a second pattern different from the first pattern; locating the first transparent substrate over the second transparent substrate so that the first patterned conductive layer is effectively parallel to the second patterned conductive layer. Overlapping portions of both the first conductive layer and the second conductive layer are patterned time into spatially matching conductive areas and non-conductive areas by locally applying heat to melt conductive materials in the non-conductive areas so that the surface tension of the conductive materials causes the conductive materials to coalesce into structures with a reduced conductive layer area. |
| US08710853B2 |
Capacitance sensing
Embodiments related to sensing a capacitance are described and depicted. |
| US08710852B2 |
Method and apparatus for monitoring and/or controlling the curing of cements used in medical procedures
An apparatus for determining an initiation point of cement curing, with a vessel for containing at least a portion of freshly mixed cement, means for passing an electric signal through the cement, means for detecting an abrupt change in a dielectric or electric property of the cement as a result of the electric signal and a display unit for displaying the initiation point of polymerization of the cement from the abrupt change in the dielectric or electric property detected, the change in the dielectric or electric property being a phase shift in the electric signal passed through the cement or a change in capacitive properties of the cement or a change in resistivity of the cement. |
| US08710851B2 |
Method of measuring specific absorption rate of electromagnetic waves
Disclosed is an SAR measurement method that is capable of securing sufficient power within a short period of time and always maintaining the intensity of measurement signals irrespective of the measurement frequency. With the SAR measurement method, a plurality of measurement modules each with a control unit for processing location information and SAR measurement values, a memory unit for storing data, an antenna for making signal transception with the external, and a storage battery charged by way of inductive power are prepared. Thereafter, the plurality of measurement modules are arranged and installed within a phantom formed with a homogeneous material that conforms to the electrical characteristics of human body tissue. An electronic product to be measured in SAR is mounted at a predetermined location of the phantom with a predetermined posture. A high frequency of several hundred megahertz (MHz) to several hundred gigahertz (GHz) is scanned toward the phantom. The electronic product is operated with a predetermined pattern during a predetermined period of time. A measurement controller receives the data stored at the respective measurement modules to download and process the data, thereby verifying the SAR of the electronic product. |
| US08710844B2 |
Electronic time stamping apparatus for use with an inground transmitter
A device is described for use as part of a system in which a transmitter is moved through the ground while transmitting a signal that can be used to locate the transmitter. The device includes a receiver for receiving the signal to generate certain information about the position of the transmitter relative to the position of the device based on the signal. A processor establishes a current location of the transmitter and records the current location as one of a series of recorded locations of the transmitter based on the certain information and, at a time of recording the current location, electronically records a time stamp that designates at least the time at which the current location was recorded as part of the series of recorded locations of the transmitter. |
| US08710842B2 |
Apparatus and method to reduce noise in magnetic resonance imaging systems
An apparatus and method to reduce noise in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems are provided. One MRI system includes a gantry having a bore therethrough and at least one radio frequency (RF) coil supported by the gantry for imaging an object within the bore. The MRI system also includes a vacuum space between the at least one RF coil and the bore. |
| US08710841B2 |
Sensing during magnetic resonance imaging
Physiologic information can be received from a subject during a portion of a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) session using a sensing circuit of an implantable medical device (IMD). An indication of an active MRI scan can be received, and a time period to inhibit use of physiological information from the subject can be determined following the received indication of the active MRI scan. |
| US08710839B2 |
O-space imaging: highly efficient parallel imaging using complementary nonlinear encoding gradient fields and receive coil geometries
In MRI by excitation of nuclear spins and measurement of RF signals induced by these spins in the presence of spatially-varying encoding magnetic fields, signal localization is performed through recombination of measurements obtained in parallel by each coil in an encircling array of RF receiver coils. Through the use of magnetic gradient fields that vary both as first-order and second-order Z2 spherical harmonics with position, radially-symmetric magnetic encoding fields are created that are complementary to the spatial variation of the encircling receiver coils. The resultant hybrid encoding functions comprised of spatially-varying coil profiles and gradient fields permits unambiguous localization of signal contributed by spins. Using hybrid encoding functions in which the gradient shapes are thusly tailored to the encircling array of coil profiles, images are acquired in less time than is achievable from a conventional acquisition employing only first-order gradient fields with an encircling coil array. |
| US08710836B2 |
NMR, instrumentation, and flow meter/controller continuously detecting MR signals, from continuously flowing sample material
NMR technology disclosed herein, such as an NMR apparatus or an NMR method, for example, may be useful for purposes described herein, such as determining presence or absence of magnetic resonance from a sample, for example. Methods pertaining to such NMR technology include methods of designing or constructing NMR apparatus, methods of using NMR apparatus, methods of employing data obtained from NMR apparatus, and/or the like. Various apparatus and methods for detection of magnetic resonance in sample material are disclosed herein. Additionally, various apparatus and methods for usefully employing magnetic resonance data are disclosed herein. |
| US08710835B2 |
Magnetic impedance element and magnetic sensor using the same
In order to provide a magnetic impedance element capable of achieving a large magnetic impedance effect at room temperature or higher, the magnetic impedance element includes a ceramic body represented by the chemical formula Sr2-xBaxFeyMozO6 (0.8≦x≦2.0, y+z=2), and at least two electrode terminals are provided on the ceramic body. |
| US08710832B2 |
Rotation angle sensor
A rotation angle sensor includes a housing, a detected object, a magnetism generation section, a housing cover, a circuit substrate, a sensing IC, and a resin body. The sensing IC includes a magnetism detection element, a molded body, and leads. The magnetism detection element outputs a signal in accordance with a change in a magnetic field due to a rotation of the detected object. The molded body covers the magnetism detection element. One end portion of each lead is electrically coupled with the magnetism detection element and the other end portion of each lead protrudes from the molded body and is electrically coupled with the circuit substrate. The resin body seals a portion of the molded body located between the magnetism detection element and the housing cover, the leads, and the circuit substrate. |
| US08710827B2 |
Processing circuitry for use with a position sensor
A position encoder is described that generates a signal whose phase varies with a position to be determined. A phase detector determines a first phase measurement of the sensor signal during a first mode and a second phase measurement of said sensor signal during a second mode. The phase detector then differences the first and second phase measurements to obtain a phase difference measurement, which it uses to determine an indication of the position to be sensed. A controller controls a signal generator in order to set a start phase of signals generated in at least one of the first and second modes so that the timings at which said sensor signal crosses a reference level are substantially the same. |
| US08710826B2 |
Systems and methods for sensing external magnetic fields in implantable medical devices
Systems and methods for sensing external magnetic fields in implantable medical devices are provided. One aspect of this disclosure relates to an apparatus for sensing magnetic fields. An apparatus embodiment includes a sensing circuit with at least one inductor having a magnetic core that saturates in the presence of a magnetic field having a prescribed flux density. The apparatus embodiment also includes an impedance measuring circuit connected to the sensing circuit. The impedance measuring circuit is adapted to measure impedance of the sensing circuit and to provide a signal when the impedance changes by a prescribed amount. According to an embodiment, the sensing circuit includes a resistor-inductor-capacitor (RLC) circuit. The impedance measuring circuit includes a transthoracic impedance measurement module (TIMM), according to an embodiment. Other aspects and embodiments are provided herein. |
| US08710823B2 |
Contact sensor, driver device, and care bed
A contact sensor includes a conductive fabric, an insulative spacer having multiple openings, and a conductive sheet of a sheet-shaped conductor. The insulative spacer is interposed between the conductive fabric and the conductive sheet. Upon contact of a soft object such as a human body portion on the conductive fabric with force equal to or greater than a certain strength, the insulative spacer sinks in the soft object with the conductive fabric interposed therebetween. The conductive fabric is deformable in conformity with insulative pieces of the insulative spacer, such that touching of a portion of the conductive fabric on the conductive sheet provides detection of contact of the soft object. |
| US08710820B2 |
Switched capacitor hold-up scheme for constant boost output voltage
A power architecture receives an input signal at an input node and converts the input signal into an intermediate signal with a power conversion stage. The power conversion stage supplies the intermediate signal to an output node of the power conversion stage where the intermediate signal is filtered with an operating capacitance coupled to the output node. A hold-up capacitance is charged, and when a loss of the input signal is detected, the hold-up capacitance is coupled to the input node. |
| US08710818B2 |
Power converter and method of power conversion
A power converter includes a power converting unit and a driving circuit. The power converting unit generates a DC output voltage based on a pull up driving signal, a pull down driving signal, and a DC input voltage. The driving circuit compensates for an inductor peak current, and performs in a pulse-frequency-modulation (PFM) mode and a pulse-width-modulation (PWM) mode to generate the pull-up driving signal and the pull-down driving signal based on the DC output voltage and the compensated inductor peak current. The power converter performs a mode transition between the PFM and PWM modes at a uniform load current, even when a magnitude of the DC output voltage varies. |
| US08710814B1 |
Systems and methods for switching supply load current estimation
Systems and methods are disclosed to detect a load current in a power regulator by providing power output through power transistors each having a plurality of dead time periods during break-before-make (BBM) of the power transistors; and measuring the load current of the output power circuit during the dead time period. |
| US08710813B2 |
Low drop-out regulator providing constant current and maximum voltage limit
A low drop-out regulator is disclosed. An unregulated DC input terminal receives an input voltage. A pass circuit is coupled between the unregulated DC input terminal and a regulated DC output terminal for supplying a power to the regulated DC output terminal. An amplifying circuit controls the pass circuit for providing a constant voltage or/and a constant current in response to an output voltage or/and an output current. |
| US08710812B1 |
Regulating a supply voltage provided to a load circuit
A method of regulating a supply voltage (Vgg) provided to a load circuit. The method can include generating at least one reference voltage (Vr1, Vr2, Vr3) having a negative voltage-temperature coefficient. The method further can include applying the reference voltage as a bias voltage (Vbias) to a current sink that is electrically coupled in parallel with a path of a leakage current (Ileak) drawn by the load circuit. A related voltage regulator can include a current sink that is electrically coupled in parallel with a path of a leakage current drawn by a load circuit, and a bias control circuit that generates at least one reference voltage having a negative voltage-temperature coefficient and applies the reference voltage as a bias voltage to a current sink. |
| US08710810B1 |
Systems and methods for DC-to-DC converter control
A regulated, power supply system is described using multiphase DC-DC converters with dynamic fast-turnon, slow-turnoff phase shedding, early phase turn-on, and both load-voltage and drive-transistor feedback to pulsewidth modulators to provide fast response to load transients. In an embodiment, a system master can automatically determine whether all, or only some, slave phase units are fully populated. The programmable system includes fault detection with current and voltage sensing, telemetry capability, and automatic shutdown capability. In an embodiment, these are buck-type converters with or without coupled inductors, however some of the embodiments illustrated include boost configurations. |
| US08710807B2 |
Electric rotating machine for vehicle
A generator has a field coil of a rotor, an armature coil of a stator, a control device supplying an exciting current to the field coil when detecting rotation of the rotor, and a control circuit alternately setting an upper arm transistor and a lower arm transistor in on state in a rectifier module to generate a phase voltage. The control device detects the rotation from a periodic change in a sign of the difference between the phase voltage and a reference voltage. When the rectifier module is overheated, the control circuit sets the upper arm transistor in the off state and sets the lower arm transistor in the on state to almost fix the phase voltage, the control device detects no rotation and stops supplying the exciting current, and the rectifier module generates no phase voltage to decrease temperature of the rectifier module. |
| US08710796B2 |
Electric vehicle supply equipment having a socket and a method of charging an electric vehicle
A system for connecting an electric vehicle to a high voltage power source. The system including an electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) having an electrical plug compatible with a high voltage power outlet, the plug connected to a power cord. The power cord is connected to a housing containing a number of electrical components configured to control the power flow to an electric vehicle to recharge the vehicle's batteries. The power cord extends from the housing and is connected to a standard electric vehicle connector compatible with battery electric vehicles (BEV) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV). The EVSE further includes safety measures, such as a relay that controls the flow of power to the vehicle connector and a ground fault interrupter, to protect users from high voltage electric shocks. |
| US08710795B2 |
Refuelable battery-powered electric vehicle
The electrical vehicle energy storage system permits the electric refueling of the electric vehicle just like an automobile would be refueled with gasoline at a gas station. Circuitry on board the vehicle accessible by the electric refueling station enables the determination of the energy content of the battery module or modules returned to the electric refueling station and the owner of the vehicle is given credit for the energy remaining in the battery module or modules which have been exchanged. Selective refueling may take place for given battery modules by removing them from the battery system and charging them at home, office or factory. A process for operating an electric vehicle is also disclosed and claimed. |
| US08710776B2 |
Method for controlling a motor
A method for controlling a motor by an inverter and by a vectorial technique, comprising the following steps: determining the value of a quadrature current Iq necessary for said motor to generate the desired torque; calculating the value of a direct current to be supplied to the motor by an equation as a function of the phase of the current vector on which the torque constant of the motor depends; calculating the power current of said motor from the direct current and the quadrature current; supplying the power current to the motor through the inverter. |
| US08710761B2 |
Circuit arrangement for a piezo transformer, and method therefor
The invention relates to a circuit arrangement (20) for a piezo transformer (22) comprising a driver circuit (23), to which the piezo transformer (22) can be connected, and a current sensor (21) for the determining an incoming power signal (IM), which is subject to an incoming current (IE) flowing through the piezo transformer (22). The invention further relates to the circuit arrangement (20) of a control unit (24) for providing a control signal (ST), which is subject the incoming power signal (IM); and an oscillator (25) having an oscillator output (43) for emitting an oscillator signal (SO) to a driver signal input (44) of the driver circuit (23) subject to the control signal (ST). |
| US08710759B1 |
LED illumination control using a simple digital command structure
Disclosed is an illumination controller for use with at least one LED module. The illumination controller includes an input, a control output, and a processor. The command input receives at least one illumination control packet. The control output pulse modulates a signal that powers an illumination level. The processor controls the control output in accordance with an illumination level parameter associated with a first illumination control packet received at the input and a scaling parameter associated with a second illumination control packet received at the input. |
| US08710751B2 |
LED string with a capability to maintain a current path and LED unit thereof
An LED string with a capability to maintain a current path has multiple LED units electrically connected in series. Each of the LED units has a base, a holder, a bridge device, a cover and an LED device. The base has two conductive pads. The holder and the cover are mounted in the base. The bridge device is mounted in the holder. The LED device is mounted in the cover. The bridge device and the LED device are electrically connected in parallel and contact the conductive pads. When the LED device is damaged, the bridge device still contacts the conductive pads. Hence, the bridge device provides a path that allows a current to flow through the conductive pads. |
| US08710749B2 |
Semiconductor device
A semiconductor device includes a transistor, a light-emitting element, a first wiring, a driver circuit having a function of controlling the potential of the first wiring, a second wiring, a first switch, a second switch, a third switch, a fourth switch, a first capacitor, and a second capacitor. One of a source and a drain of the transistor is connected to the light-emitting element. With this structure, voltage applied between the source and the gate of the transistor can be corrected in anticipation of variations in threshold voltage, so that the current supplied to the light-emitting element can be corrected. |
| US08710744B2 |
Automotive lighting system
An automotive lighting system (20) is described with a signal emitting device (30) installed in a lamp socket (18). The lamp socket (18) is connected to a lighting connection (16) of a vehicle (10). The signal emitting device (30) emits a signal if the lighting connection (16) is energized. A lighting module (24) is connected to an electrical power supply (28) of the vehicle (10). The lighting module (24) comprises a receiver (42), a control unit (45) and a light source (22). The control unit (46) is disposed to operate the light source (22) in a first mode if a signal is received in the receiver, and in a second mode if the signal is not received. |
| US08710743B2 |
Discharge lamp comprising coated electrode
A discharge lamp (1) comprising a discharge vessel (4), at least one electrode (22, 24) arranged within the discharge vessel, wherein at least parts of the electrode (22) are provided with a particle composite coating (32) made up of a matrix layer and particles embedded in the matrix layer, wherein the extinction coefficient k of the material for the matrix layer is less than 0.1 in the spectral range between 600 nm and 2 μm, and wherein the extinction coefficient k of the material for the particles is greater than 0.1 in the spectral range between 600 nm and 2 μm. |
| US08710741B2 |
Illuminating device
An illuminating device comprises one or more luminescent devices (1). The luminescent device comprises a semiconductor light emitting element (10) emitting a excitation light having an peak within a wavelength range from 350 nm to 430 nm, and a luminescent part (20) comprising a sealing member (22) and a phosphor (21) absorbing the light from the semiconductor light emitting element (10) and emitting a light with different emission spectrum. For the luminescent device (1), an excitation light contribution degree ΔE, an index quantitatively representing what extent of a visible component of the excitation light is involved in color mixing of a combined light of the luminescent device (1), is 0.005 or less, and a mean color rendering index Ra is 70 or more. |
| US08710737B2 |
Light-emitting device
To improve the luminance of light emitted by a light-emitting device, the light-emitting device includes a base (1) that has an opening part (1p) constituted by a light-reflecting surface (1r) and a bottom surface (1u), a light-emitting chip (2) that is mounted on the bottom surface (1u) of the opening part (1p), a transparent member (3) that covers the light-emitting chip (2), and an optical member (4) that is disposed on the transparent member (3). The transparent member (3) is disposed on the bottom surface (1u) of the opening part (1p) in a state where the transparent member (3) is spaced away from the light-reflecting surface (1r) of the opening part (1p). |
| US08710734B2 |
Light emitting device
It is an object of the present invention to prevent an insulating film from peeling in a section where the insulating film is adjacent to a sealing region. Over a first substrate 104, a pixel portion 100 provided with a light emitting element, a source driver 101, a gate driver 102, and a sealing region 103 are provided. A light emitting element is sealed between the first substrate 104 and a second substrate 110 by a sealant 108. An insulating film 107 serves as a partition wall of the light emitting element. An end portion of the insulating film 107 which is adjacent to the sealing region 103 does not overlap with a step formed by a side surface and an upper surface of a conductive film 106 which serves as a wiring. |
| US08710733B2 |
Organic light-emitting display with black matrix
An organic light-emitting display includes a substrate, a black matrix disposed on the substrate having a first area, a buffer layer covering the black matrix having a second area substantially equaling to the first area of the black matrix, a thin film transistor disposed on the buffer layer, a display electrode electrically connected to the thin film transistor, and a light-emitting diode disposed on the display electrode. |
| US08710731B2 |
Method of patterning color conversion layer and method of manufacturing organic EL display using the patterning method
A method of patterning a color conversion layer for an organic EL device is provided together with a method of manufacturing a multiple color emitting organic EL display using the patterning method. The patterning method includes forming the color conversion layer on a base having an organic layer and patterning the color conversion layer by carrying out a thermal cycle nano imprint technique. |
| US08710727B2 |
Field emission cathode structure
A field emission cathode structure includes a first carbon nanotube structure including a plurality of first carbon nanotubes, and a second carbon nanotube structure located on the surface of the first carbon nanotube structure. The second carbon nanotube structure includes a plurality of second carbon nanotubes substantially perpendicular to the first carbon nanotubes structure. The second carbon nanotube structure includes a peak. The heights of the second carbon nanotubes at the peak are tallest. The heights of the carbon second carbon nanotubes gradually decrease along the direction away from the peak. A method for fabricating the field emission cathode structure is also presented. |
| US08710724B2 |
LED light source lamp having drive circuit arranged in outer periphery of LED light source
An LED light source lamp includes a housing configured to be attached to a lamp holder; an LED module provided in the housing; a drive circuit provided in the housing and configured to drive the LED module to cause the LED module to emit light; an LED installation plate on which the LED module is installed; a cover arranged to block an optical axis of the LED module and configured to transmit light emitted from the LED module; and a separation member configured to separate the drive circuit from a space between the LED module and the cover in the housing. The LED installation plate has a rear surface, opposite the surface on which the LED module is installed. The rear surface is configured to closely contact the lamp holder, and is a part of the housing. |
| US08710720B2 |
Generator with a segmented stator
A generator, a stator segment and a wind turbine are provided. The generator has a rotor and a stator. The stator includes stator segments attached to a circular holding structure. A stator segment has at least one first connection element being in engagement with at least one second connection element of the holding structure. The engagement is detachable in an axial direction and not detachable in a radial and a circumferential direction. |
| US08710719B2 |
Piezoelectric quasi-resonance linear motors based on acoustic standing waves with combined resonator
A piezoelectric device includes a piezoresonator body (3) having opposing first and second surfaces and opposing third and fourth surfaces. The device also includes at least one common electrode (8) disposed on the second surface (15) and electrodes (4a, 4b) disposed on the first surface (14) in pairs along a first longitudinal axis. The device further includes contact elements (5) disposed on the third (16) and the fourth (17) surfaces at contact locations along the first longitudinal axis and aligned between each pair of excitation electrodes. In the device, the piezoelectric body has a first order natural resonance frequency (v1) along a second longitudinal axis and an even order natural resonance frequency (v2) along the first longitudinal axis, where a percent difference between v1 and v2 is greater than 0% and less than or equal to 20%. |
| US08710718B2 |
Sealing member for piezoelectric resonator device, and piezoelectric resonator device
A sealing member is for a piezoelectric resonator device that includes a piezoelectric resonator piece and a plurality of sealing members hermetically sealing a resonance region of the piezoelectric resonator piece. The sealing member includes a base material having one principal surface and includes a protruding portion on the one principal surface. The base material has another principal surface having a flat surface and a curved surface. The flat surface is a region corresponding to the protruding portion. The curved surface is a region other than the region of the flat surface. The sealing member includes a plurality of external terminals on the flat surface. The plurality of external terminals are to be connected to an external circuit board. The sealing member includes a plurality of inspection terminals on the curved surface. The plurality of inspection terminals is configured to inspect the piezoelectric resonator piece. |
| US08710716B2 |
Actuator, actuator structure and method of manufacturing actuator
An actuator includes: a diaphragm having a thickness equal to or greater than 0.5 μm and equal to or less than 20 μm; a piezoelectric body layer which is provided on a first surface side of the diaphragm, and receives stress from the diaphragm; a pair of electrodes which is provided on the first surface side of the diaphragm together with the piezoelectric body layer, and is mutually opposing via the piezoelectric body layer; and a stress adjusting layer which is provided on a second surface side of the diaphragm on an opposite side to the first surface of the diaphragm, and receives stress from the diaphragm in a same direction as the stress that the piezoelectric body layer receives from the diaphragm. |