Abstract: Administrating content of a digital video disc (DVD) having, on-disc, a database involves storing, externally to the DVD, information of the database. Based on the stored information, a check is made as to whether the DVD is operable to accommodate a proposed change to the content. The change on the DVD is made and the on-disc database is correspondingly updated, if the check determines that the DVD is so operable, e.g., if remaining resources of the DVD suffice to make the change. Preferably, the making of the change and the updating on-disc are interactively subject to the user's acceptance by means of a user interface.

Abstract: A portable device detects a medical condition, such as an epileptic seizure. The device is implemented on a wrist band, possibly together with a watch, or in a helmet. The device may use heart rate detection to identify characteristic patterns associated with epileptic seizure. The device optionally combines more than one measurement to eliminate false positives. In the case of epileptic seizures, heart rate related measurements may be combined with body motion related measurements to ensure greater accuracy.

Abstract: The invention concerns a method for source decoding a variable-length soft-input codewords sequence (y [1: T]) into a soft-out-put bit sequence (Lv [1: T]), the variable-length soft-input input code-words sequence (y [1: T]) encoded in accordance with a VLC codewords table. It comprises—a first stage (100) of implementing a stack decoding algorithm for a sequential estimation of an hard-output bit sequence of said variable length soft-input codewords sequence, including storage of intermediate data contained in the stack and generated by the stack decoding algorithm; and—a second subsequent stage (102) of post-processing the stored intermediate data for generating the soft-output bit sequence (Lv [1: T]), a soft-output (L(x [t])) being provided for each bit.