Abstract: A cellular phone based emergency vessel/vehicle location system which includes a navigation unit to determine position and speech synthesis to modulate a transmitter with the emergency message includes a combined dialer and activation detector, in which activation may either be from the cellular phone keypad or from a panic button, a Lojack/hijack sensor, a car theft alarm, airbag deployment, a man down sensor, or other form of remote activation. Upon activation, the activation detector/dialer causes DTMF tones to be generated for telephone number dialing. After dialing, the transmitter for the transceiver is modulated with the emergency message in natural speech. In one embodiment, the dialer and activation detector is actuated from the keypad of the cellular phone, such as 911, *CG, *SP or other predetermined activation code.

Abstract: Voxel-based objects are manipulated and interacted with in a physically ristic way such that during movement of the graphical objects, collisions are automatically detected and the graphical objects are prevented from penetrating each other. Applications include computer graphics and animation, CAD/CAM, and virtual reality applications that require real-time interaction between complex three-dimensional object models. When objects are represented in a voxel-based format where objects consist of clusters of regularly or irregularly spaced sampled data points, rather than a conventional graphic format where objects are represented by lists of polygons, primitive surfaces, or geometries, moving objects in virtual space involves shifting the voxel-based data in a large memory array representing the virtual space of the system and detecting collisions among moving objects by checking the new memory locations of object voxels to see if they are already occupied.

Abstract: Apparatus for determining the structure of a hypermedia document containing ext and graphics that are to be laid out on several linked pages includes a system that specifies the assignment of text and graphics to pages and the links between the pages via a reduction to graph partitioning and the use of optimization techniques for graph partitioning. In one embodiment, display items and relations between these display items are listed along with a measure of their importance. These factors are captured in terms of numeric weights for edges between nodes in the associated graph to permit the system to assign display items to pages, and determine which pages should be linked, so that a user can move between pages in the most efficient manner.

Abstract: An all-audio, hands-free and eyes-free interactive tutor provides time-efficient and reduced-boredom instruction by varying a course of instruction based on the correct and incorrect responses of the user so as to frequently repeat and provide positive feedback for poorly-learned items of knowledge, to periodically refresh well-learned items and to suggest that rest be taken or to switch to easier material whenever too many human errors have occurred. The audio interactive tutor includes an audio input module, in the preferred embodiment a voice recognition unit based on a finite state grammar, an audio output module, a course of study and a user model. In a preferred embodiment, the course of study provides for human error control as well as for voice recognition unit error control, which synergistically cooperate to render the tutor substantially fault-tolerant and therewith enables the employment of commercially-available but not excessively accurate voice recognition units.

Abstract: In a grammar checking system in which a sentence is first tagged as to parts of speech, the probability of the sequence of the parts of speech being correct is utilized to correct improper use of troublesome words, especially those identical sounding words which are spelled differently. The system corrects word usage based not on the probability of the entire sentence being correct but rather on the probability of the sequence of the parts of speech being correct. As part of the subject invention, the parts of speech sequence probability is utilized in part of speech sequence verification, underlying spelling recovery, auxiliary verb correction, determiner correction, and in a context-sensitive dictionary lookup.

Abstract: In a grammar checking system which includes first tagging a sentence as to parts of speech, a module is provided for correcting incorrect auxiliary verb sequences involving two or more verbs by first detecting the starting and ending points of the error and then correcting the indicated verbs through the utilization of a directed acyclic graph containing the set of correct auxiliary verb sequences constructed for all possible such sequences. Thereafter, a further directed graph functions as a finite state transducer for proposing corrections for incorrect auxiliary verb sequences as determined by the aforementioned acyclic graph of incorrect verb sequences.

Abstract: In an ATM network, a traffic shaping system is provided with a number of timing subchains each having slots at which cells are queued and each having a pointer to specify the readout of cells at a slot. The system eliminates the necessity for providing large numbers of slots for low data rate traffic while at the same time accommodating high data rate transmission by moving pointers for low data rate traffic at slower rates than pointers for higher data rates. In one embodiment, this is accomplished by increasing the time scale for slots far away from the current time by moving the time pointer increasingly slower for ever more distant slots. When a pointer is at a slot, cells queued at this slot are moved to a slot in the next prior subchain, with cells in the top subchain transmitted when selected by the associated pointer.

Abstract: An improvement to a system for controlling traffic in a digital communication network eliminates the necessity for separate buffer queues in a credit-based traffic control system by providing switches at intermediate nodes that provide credit numbers back to the source reflecting either credit numbers from downstream nodes or the numbers of buffers allocated to virtual connections at the node, whichever is the smaller. In one embodiment, this is accomplished by dividing the buffers at a node among the number of virtual connections at that node to establish a number of buffers, each allocated to a different virtual connection, and comparing the numbers of credits received at that node with the number of buffers.

Abstract: A technique is provided to remove noise from images and to enhance their visual appearance through the utilization of a technique which converts an image into a set of coefficients in a multi-scale image decomposition process, followed by modification of each coefficient based on its value and the value of coefficients of related orientation, position, or scale, which is in turn followed by a reconstruction or synthesis process to generate the enhanced image. Also contributing to the improved enhancement is a set of orientation tuned filters of a specialized design to permit steering, with the analysis and synthesis filters also having a self-inverting characteristic. Additionally, steerable pyramid architecture is used for image enhancement for the first time, with the steering being provided by the above orientation tuned filters.

Abstract: High resolution modular large screen displays which can require tens of minutes to display or "paint" an image are updated in real time through the use of active modules, each having its own display device, display driver, processor, memory and interfacing. Communication channels are provided between modules themselves as well as between the modules and a network interface that distributes the video source material in parallel to the modules. The modular approach coupled with the use of active modules permits significant communication reduction that in turn permits real time image production across large areas due to the use of parallel data paths to the display memory distributed across the modules, and through the transmission of structured data, including compressed images, compressed video, sampled data and graphics primitives, permitted by the provision in each module of a processor which converts structured data to images.

Abstract: In a grammar checking system which includes first tagging a sentence as to parts of speech and recovery of underlying spellings, a system for the correction of inflections includes identifying typical example of words which do not follow normal rules either as to pluralization, past tense, past participle, comparative formation and superlative formation, with this unique list of incorrect words forming the basis for suggesting suitable replacement words the system first performs a conventional spell check to detect mispellings by dictionary lookup system. Thereafter correct words are suggested based on an English dictionary and on the root forms and the morphological features derived from the incorrect words in the compendium.

Abstract: A system for controlling traffic in a digital communication network to avoid data loss due to congestion utilizes an integrated credit-based and rate-based traffic control approach, and adjusts the rate at which data is transmitted from a source in accordance with feedback in the form of rate and credit adjustment information from a network reflecting the ability of the network to transmit data and the destination to receive data. In one embodiment, a source end system sends out resource management cells composed of various fields containing rate and credit information. The intermediate systems of the network and the destination end system update the corresponding fields according to their congestion status and send the resource management cells back to the source end system so that the source end system controls the data transmission accordingly.

Abstract: A dual pivoted hook line stowing or flaking system is provided for storing coiled line either vertically as on a mast or horizontally as on a deck, in which both of the hooks contain tabs rotatable in a plane parallel to the plane of the loops from outwardly pointed positions to inwardly pointed positions. The rotation of the tabs to the interior of the coiled or looped line permits easy removal of the line for rapid lowering of the sails or to permit unfettered casting or throwing of the line from a coiled position on deck. In one embodiment, the pivoted hook includes a two part structure, with a fixed flange base and an integral fixed barrel into which is inserted a rotatable barrel with the top secured to the top of the rotatable barrel.

Abstract: A three degree-of-freedom locator device for the control of graphical objects on a computer display mimics natural two-dimensional movement of the user's hand by providing for simultaneous translation and rotation of the graphical object. In one embodiment, a computer mouse-type locator with two trackball and position-encoder sensor systems detects movement of the locator over a stationary pad or like device. The graphical object is selected by a mouse button click. Subsequent two-dimensional translation and rotation of the locator are detected by the dual trackball system and used to control the position and orientation of the graphical object. The result is intuitive control of the placement of the selected object on the computer screen. The natural movement of the mouse in the user's hand is transformed into simultaneously translation and rotation of the object.

Abstract: In a grammar checking system which includes first tagging a sentence as to parts of speech, underlying spelling is recovered by removing the effects of capitalization of a word so that appropriate inflection and or spelling can be suggested by the system. In order to determine the underlying spelling the system determines whether a noun is a proper noun through the utilization of a part of speech tagger and the utilization of part of speech trigram probabilities, with capitalized and uncapitalized versions of the word having different trigram probabilities. The system also establishes whether a word is an ordinary word as opposed to a proper noun or other intrinsically capitalized word. With the system further determining which of two interpretations of the word is the best one.

Abstract: In integrated circuit testing which involves partitioning of tailored test vectors into subsets and filling of the subsets with similar vectors starting with vectors close to the initially selected vector and continuing to add vectors farther away until an optimal number of vectors are in the subset, a system is provided for selecting a number of test vectors to go into a subset by using a unique "distance" measure to measure how far away the candidate vector is from what is already in the subset. Distance determination involves comparing the candidate vector with the weights generated from randomization of the previous vectors in the subset. Having provided a unique distance or "closeness" measure for each candidate vector, the distance of a number of candidate vectors is ascertained. The one with the smallest distance from those vectors already in the subset is selected for determination as to whether its inclusion in the subset results in more rapid and accurate fault detection.

Abstract: In a grammar checking system which includes first tagging a sentence as to parts of speech, an improper determiner correction module detects improper referents of a noun phrase and suggests insertion of a determiner should one be necessary or the deletion of an improper determiner. To detect improper use of a determiner, parts of speech tags are utilized to characterize a sentence, thus to identify noun phrases by maximally matching a pattern that defines which sequences of parts of speech tags constitute valid noun phrases. This is accomplished by identifying the start of the noun phrase and its end to permit checking for either missing determiners, extraneous determiners, or lack of agreement in number for the constituents of the noun phrase.

Abstract: A system is provided for dramatically decreasing the time required to parse a sentence by automatically converting a context-free grammar into a lexicalized form called lexicalized context-free grammar (LCFG) which is used in the parsing process. Lexicalized context-free grammar employs adjoining but, to decrease parsing time, only allows non-wrapping adjoining. The lexicalized context-free grammar is parsed using a parser that decreases parsing time by filtering the grammar based on the words in a sentence and maintaining the valid prefix property while parsing.