Abstract: Injection molding apparati, systems and methods are provided for limiting forward valve pin movement during flow control. According to one embodiment, an injection molding apparatus is provided that includes an actuator, and a valve pin coupled to the actuator. The valve pin is adapted to open and close a gate to a mold, and to control a rate of material flow through the gate during an injection cycle. The actuator is further adapted to control the valve pin in a first range of movement in which the valve pin is adapted to control the rate of material flow and cannot close the gate, and to control the valve pin in a second range of movement which includes the valve pin closing the gate.

Abstract: A technique for determining cell starting times for DVD titles entails maintaining a snapshot in memory of starting times for the “most likely” to be played cells, and maintaining in memory a list of “hints” so that starting times for cells outside this most likely list can be quickly accessed. The “most likely” to be played cells are those of an active program chain. An active program chain is the program chain currently being played at any particular time. The hints list can be provided by a chapter array which contains starting times of only chapters (e.g., PTTs) of an active program chain (e.g., PGC). The snapshot in memory of starting times of most likely to be played cells can be provided by a cell array that contains cell starting times for only cells of the active PGC. The stored information is sufficient to determine current running time of a title. There is no need to store starting times for PTTs or cells of non-active program chains.

Abstract: Speculative prefetching during DMA reads in a message-passing, queue-oriented bus system is controlled by creating a special data structure, called a “DMA scoreboard”, for each work queue entry associated with a DMA read. The DMA scoreboard tracks the completion of DMA writes and reads by monitoring acknowledgements received from DMA writes and data tags received from DMA read responses. The DMA scoreboard also contains a section that indicates the current PCI address, and size and number of prefetches to be performed. After a DMA read has completed, the PCI current address is incremented to obtain a new PCI address for the first prefetch request. A new work queue entry is then created from the information in the DMA scoreboard to perform the prefetch.

Abstract: A technique for determining cell starting times for DVD titles entails maintaining a snapshot in memory of starting times for the “most likely” to be played cells, and maintaining in memory a list of “hints” so that starting times for cells outside this most likely list can be quickly accessed. The “most likely” to be played cells are those of an active program chain. An active program chain is the program chain currently being played at any particular time. The hints list can be provided by a chapter array which contains starting times of only chapters (e.g., PTTs) of an active program chain (e.g., PGC). The snapshot in memory of starting times of most likely to be played cells can be provided by a cell array that contains cell starting times for only cells of the active PGC. The stored information is sufficient to determine current running time of a title. There is no need to store starting times for PTTs or cells of non-active program chains.

Abstract: In a bundled link system which partitions a data packet into varying size cells, a data packet is partitioned into a stream of cells of which the last two cells are partial cells. When the data has been partitioned so that less than the data required to fill two maximum size cells remains, the remaining data is divided into two cells where the cell size is selected so that each cell is larger than a predetermined minimum size. In a preferred embodiment, the remaining data is equally divided into partial size cells. In particular, in accordance with one embodiment, when there is less than two times the maximum size cell of data remaining to be partitioned in a packet and the remaining data is more than the maximum cell size, then the cell size used for the last two cells is the size of the remaining data divided by two.

Abstract: An electronic rights management and authorization system to account for the dynamic, multi-dimensional, and granular nature of rights. A database structure divides works and rights into two related tables. A works table includes information sufficient to identify works managed by the system, while a rights table identifies a right associated with a work and includes one or more date fields delimiting the right. The rights table may also include type of use information. Additional tables, such as a work relation table, a party table, or an order table, may be provided. Software is used to manage and to query the database structure. The system has broad applicability to intellectual, real, and personal property; contract management; and similar items. The system may be implemented in standalone mode, through the client/server model of computing, or over the Internet.

Abstract: For stream or block ciphers, a sequence generator using a quasi-crystal function is used to prepare an encryption or decryption pad. Various techniques for generating purely aperiodic sequences using quasi-crystal functions are available, including geometric, algebraic and symbolic substitution. The aperiodic sequence is generated using minimal processing power, and generation may continue for extended periods of time in the case of long messages or extended period encryption of a data transmission channel.

Abstract: In order to allow viewers to interact with a television broadcast, a central control establishes a virtual environment in which viewers participate with characters designed by them. Viewers can create a character with the aid of a computer and then submit the character to the television show on disk or transmit the character via a web site. In order to create characters, a user “preprograms” a character by setting certain parameters and characteristics. Thereafter, the character would operate autonomously. During the television broadcast, some of the characters submitted to the television show or web site can be selected for appearance on the show by any conventional means, such as by lottery, sequentially or based on the merits of characters submitted to the television show, etc. Characters may also be submitted before the show and selected based on a “virtual interview.

Abstract: Data processing is performed by multiple “plug-in” processing modules controlled by an execution management framework. The framework includes an order determining mechanism that controls the plug-in processing modules to execute in series, or in parallel, to speed processing by the plug-ins while accommodating computational dependencies. In one embodiment, the order determining mechanism can include a dependency counter associated with each plug-in processing module for determining an operational sequence position of the associated plug-in processing module, and means for conditioning the count value (e.g., decrementing or incrementing the count value) in response to operation of another of the plug-in processing modules on whose output the associated plug-in processing module depends, so that the associated plug-in processing module will commence operation in the proper order when the count value reaches a predetermined value.

Abstract: An injection molding apparatus and method are provided in which the rate of material flow during an injection cycle is controlled. According to one preferred embodiment, an injection molding apparatus is provided that includes a manifold, at least one injection nozzle coupled to the manifold, an actuator, and a valve pin adapted to reciprocate through the manifold and the injection nozzle. The valve pin has a first end coupled to the actuator, a second end that closes the gate in a forward position, and a control surface intermediate said first and second ends for adjusting the rate of material flow during an injection cycle. Retracting the valve pin tends to decrease the rate of material flow during the injection cycle and displacing the valve pin toward the gate tends to increase the rate of material flow during the injection cycle.

Abstract: A three-tiered data replication management system is used on a distributed computer system connected by a network. The lowest tier comprises management facade software running on each machine that converts a platform-dependent interface written in low-level kernel routines that actually perform the data replication to platform-independent method calls. The middle tier is a set of federated Java beans, which communicate with each other, with the management facades, and with the upper tier of the system. The upper tier of the inventive system comprises presentation programs that can be directly manipulated by management personnel to view and control the system. The federated Java beans can run on any machine in the system and communicate via the network. A data replication bean runs on each host and at least one such bean communicates directly with a management interface that is controlled by a user.

Abstract: In a knowledge classification system, both the information sources and queries are processed to generate knowledge representation graph structures. The graph structures for both the query and the information sources are then converted to views and displayed to a searcher. By manipulating the graph structure views for each information source, the searcher can examine the source for relevance. A search can be performed by comparing the graph structure of the query to the graph structure of each information source by a graph matching computer algorithm. Information sources are classified by constructing hierarchies of knowledge representations. The simplest construction is obtained by using the knowledge representation of a query as the top of the hierarchy. The structures in the hierarchy are substructures of the query. The hierarchy of structures may also be constructed by using the knowledge representation of the query as the bottom of the hierarchy.

Abstract: An object-oriented window manager provides coordination between window displays generated by separate application programs by computing and storing the visible area of each application window each time displayed windows are changed. Each application program directly communicates with the screen buffer memory in order to redraw portions of the screen corresponding to its display area using the visible area computed by the window manager. Each application program communicates with the object-oriented window manager by creating a window object which provides flexible display capabilities that are transparent to the application program. Several techniques are used to decrease the visible area computation time. First, as mentioned above a copy of the visible area is stored or “cached” in each window object. This copy can be used if the application program needs to redraw the window area and the visible area has not been changed.

Abstract: An exercise apparatus that includes a frame, a rest member on the frame for receiving a user's feet, and a first and a second arm that are pivotably interconnected to each other such that the arms are pivotably movable between a start or rest position and an extended position. The first arm is coupled to the frame. A seat is provided for supporting the user and carried by the second arm. An inclined base support member is disposed under the second arm and is for supporting the second arm during the movement between start and extended positions. A carriage may be associated with the inclined base support member.

Abstract: Apparatus for mounting an elongated tube, the elongated tube extending from a receiving end to an opposing distal end, the receiving end comprising an open aperture and a hollow tubular receiving portion having a longitudinal axis and an inner wall surface radially disposed relative to the longitudinal axis, the apparatus comprising: a mount having an axis, the mount comprising one or more radially extending members having circumferential surfaces or projections for mating with the inner wall surface of the hollow tubular receiving portion of the elongated tube under friction or pressure, the mount being receivable within the hollow tubular portion of the elongated tube wherein the one or more circumferential surfaces are friction fittable against the inner wall surface of the hollow tubular receiving portion of the elongated tube such that the axis of the mount is substantially aligned with or parallel to the axis of the hollow tubular receiving portion of the elongated tube; the mount including one or mo