Abstract: The invention is a system and method for matching a two dimensional pattern of lines, e.g. a fingerprint, by creating a one dimensional representation of one or more points (e.g., minutiae) on the lines in the patterns to be matched. The one dimensional representations are created by finding a corresponding reference point (minutiae) in each of the patterns and creating an index of other points in each of the respective patterns with respect to the reference point (minutiae). The indexes are adaptively compared taking into account the elastic distortions of the lines.

Abstract: A removable data storage unit for an image capturing device. The data storage unit may be a film storage cylinder and the image capturing device may be a camera. An energy storage source is contained within a plastic film storage cylinder. The battery may be a rechargeable battery. The film storage cylinder includes a pair of electrical contacts, each of the pair being located at opposite ends of the cylinder and connected to a corresponding one of a pair of electrical contacts internally mounted within the film storage cylinder.

Abstract: A manufacturing tool and method for enhancing the speed with which display panels can be filled with the requisite liquid crystal is described. In essence, the panel walls are expanded by compression of opposite edges to provide a wider channel for the liquid to flow resulting in a substantial increase in the mass transfer of the liquid crystal per unit time thereby enhancing the panel throughput rate.

Abstract: A gateway enables point to multipoint connectivity from voice, data, or SVD clients over voice and data networks. The gateway connects one or more known voice networks (e.g. telephone networks) and one or more data networks (e.g. LANs, WANs, and internet) so that clients on either network may access any of the networks via various devices like analog telephones, data modems, SVD modems, or direct data network connections (e.g., ethernet, token ring). The gateway has connections to both the data network(s) as well as the voice network(s). The gateway is capable of splitting a signal with both voice and data streams and routing either and/or both of these streams over the voice network alone, the data network, or both. A process, executing on the gateway enables the gateway to establish connections on gateway paths and to control and direct a flow of voice and data information between the destinations on these networks.

Abstract: One or more novel switch controllers are used in a network of network devices to connect and disconnect to one another. The switch can be any general purpose computer that has one or more communication links that connect one or more outputs of the computer to one or more of the network devices. In the computer, the network is represented by a directed graph that has two or more nodes and one or more directional edges connecting one or more pairs of the nodes. Each node in the pair represents a device that is connected/disconnected (represented by the edge of the directed graph.) One or more commands are associated with each edge that is used to connect the network devices represented by the nodes that the edge connects.

Abstract: An antenna, used as a voltage and power source, is designed to operate with an arbitrary load, or front end. One or more stubs are added to one or more of the antenna elements. The stubs act as two conductor transmission line and are terminated either in a short-circuit or open-circuit. Where the transmission line is odd multiples of the guided wavelength in length, the short-circuit stubs act as lumped inductors and the open-circuit stubs act as lumped capacitors. The magnitude of these lumped capacitors and inductors (reactances) is affected by a stub length, a stub conductor width, and a stub spacing. Zero or more short-circuit stubs and zero or more open-circuit stubs are added to one or more of the antenna elements to change the reactive (imaginary) part of the antenna input impedance. In a preferred embodiment, the reactive part is changed to equal the negative magnitude of the reactive part of the front end input impedance.

Abstract: Using a graphical user interface (GUI), users manipulate, organize, classify, and/or arrange web-page icons by having the icons be consolidated in schedule-control icons (SCI) containing regions. Regions may be on icons, windows, or other graphical objects. For example, when an icon representing a web page is dragged close to a region on an SCI, the subscription update schedule for that web page is changed. The schedule value depends upon to which region on the SCI an icon is dragged.

Abstract: The invention is a system and method for determining a correspondence between a point selected from a set of points extracted from one image and an another point selected from the second set of points extracted from another image based on similarity of relationships of attributes associated with segments attached to the points.

Abstract: An antenna used as a voltage and power source is designed to operate with arbitrary load, or front end. The antenna has one or more (number of) loading bars that are placed adjacent to the elements of the antenna at a spacing distance. The real part of the antenna input impedance is changed by adjusting the loading bar length, width, and/or spacing distance and/or the number of loading bars. These changes are implemented to reduce the real part of the antenna input impedance to make it small enough to develop an adequate voltage, Vp, to operated the front end and connected circuitry. In a preferred embodiment, the real part of the antenna input impedance is reduced to the point at which Vp no longer increases. One or more stubs is added to one or more of the antenna elements. The stubs act as two-conductor transmission line and is terminated either in a short-circuit or open-circuit. The short-circuit stubs act as a lumped inductor. The open-circuit stub acts as a lumped capacitor.

Abstract: Phonetic Chinese (Pinyin and BPMF) is entered into a computer system and accurately converted into the Hanzi form. The system has a novel keyboard with diacritic keys (and corresponding ASCII coding) that permit the user to annotate each entered phonetic text syllable with a diacritic that indicates the tone of the syllable. A process executing on the system determines that a syllable has been entered when a diacritic (or delimiter) key is struck. An entered phonetic syllable is then compared to a list of acceptable phonetic syllables and abbreviations. If the entered syllable is on the list, the correctly spelled and accented syllable is stored in memory and displayed on a phonetic portion of a graphical display. The process continues for succeeding syllables until a delimiter is entered.

Abstract: A computer system progressively stores and transmits compressed clustered multi-resolution polygonal models. The computer uses a data structure that represents a clustered multi-resolution polygonal model in n-dimensional space. The data structure has a connectivity record which encodes the connectivity information of the highest level of detail. The data structure also has a clustering record which encodes how the vertices of each level of detal are clustered to obtain the vertices of the next lower level of detail. The clustering record is organized in decreasing order of level of detail. The data structure also has a data record with information describing the vertex positions of the levels of detail, and optionally the corresponding properties. The fields of the data record are organized in increasing order of level of detail.

Abstract: A fingerprint image is divided into blocks of pixels. The blocks are also determined to be within the foreground or background of the image. A dryness process determines a mean intensity of pixels within each foreground block, a second mean intensity of pixels for those pixels whose intensities are smaller than the mean intensity, a standard deviation of intensities of all pixels within the respective foreground block, and a contrast measure being a function of a first ratio of the second mean intensity to the standard deviation. A comparator that determines that the foreground block is a dry block if the contrast measure is larger than a dryness threshold and that the image is a dry image if a second ratio of the number of dry blocks to total number of foreground blocks is larger than a third dryness threshold.

Abstract: The invention is a radiofrequency identification tag comprising a semiconductor chip having radio frequency, logic, and memory circuits, and an antenna that are mounted on a substrate. The antenna may be used by the chip to modulate an incident RF signal to transfer information to a base station. The antenna comprises one or more lengths of thin wire that are connected directly to the chip by means of wire bonding. The chip and antenna combination are sealed with an organic film covering.

Abstract: The present invention is a switching system for a broadband network operating above five megahertz. The system connects to a first and second network through appropriate network connections. There are four components in the switching network. A first component with a first common connection, a first A branch, and a first B branch, the first common connection is connected to the first network terminal. A second component has a second common connector and a second A and B branch. The second common connector is connected to the second network terminal. The third component has a third A and B branch and one third common connector. The third A branch is connected to the first A branch. The third B branch is connected to the second B branch. The third common connector is connected to a first device terminal of a device. The fourth component has a fourth A and B branch and a fourth common connector. The fourth B branch is connected to the second B branch.

Abstract: The present invention is a system and method for determining whether the best category for an object under investigation is a mixture of preexisting categories, and how the mixture is constituted. This invention is useful both for suggesting the need for new categories, and for a fixed set of categories, determining whether a document should be assigned to multiple categories. The objects of the categorization system are typically, but need not be, documents. Categorization may be by subject-matter, language or other criteria. The invention causes extra information to be stored in a category index, so that the determination of mixed categories using the methods presented here is performed extremely efficiently.

Abstract: A Write Broadcast system and method uses a base station to write sent data associated with no particular destination tag or tags, by radio frequency signal, to all or some selected number (sub group) of tags in a base station field simultaneously. By unselecting the tags that have been successfully written to, and requesting a response from the remaining tags in the field (or sub group), the system determines, by receiving a response to the request, that there are tags in the field (sub group) that were unsuccessfully written to. Another Write Broadcast signal is sent to these tags. The system is useful for quickly (simultaneously) "stamping" information on the tag memory of a large number of tags in the field of the base station.

Abstract: A computer system stores and transmits compressed triangular meshes. The computer uses a data structure that represents a triangular mesh in n-dimensional space. The data structure has a table of vertex runs, a table of triangle runs, zero or more marching records, which provide the connectivity information of the triangular mesh. The data structure also has zero or more associated data records that include the geometric information of the triangular mesh. The table of triangle runs and the marching record have information that describes how to construct a triangular mesh (therefore, the polygon vertices and the boundary edges). The table of vertex runs describes a vertex spanning tree that provides additional connectivity information to construct the triangular mesh from the polygon. The associated data record determines the exact position of the triangular mesh in space.

Abstract: Phonetic Chinese (Pinyin and BPMF) is entered into a computer system and accurately converted into the Hanzi form. The system has a keyboard with diacritic keys (and corresponding ASCII coding) that permit the user to annotate each entered phonetic text syllable with a diacritic that indicates the tone of the syllable. A process executing on the system determines that a syllable has been entered when a diacritic (or delimiter) key is struck. An entered phonetic syllable is then compared to a list of acceptable phonetic syllables and abbreviations. If the entered syllable is on the list, the correctly spelled and accented syllable is stored in memory and displayed on a phonetic portion of a graphical display. The process continues for succeeding syllables until a delimiter is entered.

Abstract: A fingerprint image is divided into blocks of pixels. The blocks are determined to be within the foreground or background of the image. Poor quality images are examined to determine if the imaging process is corrupted, e.g. by a wet finger, by determining if a smudginess measure is above a smudginess threshold. For each foreground block, a mean intensity (.mu.) of pixels is computed for those pixels whose intensities are smaller than the mean intensity of all pixels within the respective foreground block. Further the standard deviation (.cuberoot.) of intensities of all pixels within the respective foreground block is computed. For a foreground block with good contrast, .mu. is small and .cuberoot. is large. But for a block with low contrast due to smudginess, .mu. is small and .cuberoot. is small. Subsequently, to measure the contrast (a contrast measure) within a block, a function of the product (C.sub.S) of corresponding .mu. and corresponding .cuberoot. is determined.

Abstract: A computer, e.g. a server or computer operated by a network provider sends one or more requesting computers (clients) a most likely predicted-to-be selected (predicted) page of information by determining a preference factor for this page based on one or more pages that are requested by the client. This page is added to a local cache of predicted-to-be-selected pages in the client. Once the predicted-to-be selected page is in the cache, the client can update the appearance of the link (i.e. by changing the color or otherwise changing the appearance of the link indicator) to indicate to the user that the page represented by that link is available in the local cache.