Abstract: A system is disclosed for computing an initial partition of a graph comprising nodes and the edges that connect the nodes. In one embodiment this initial partition is presented for subsequent use by the Kernighan-Lin system of graph partitioning. The Subject System uses a combination of a seed-growth heuristic and a stochastic-search process to compute an initial partition. The seed-growth heuristic builds a partition by iteratively augmenting an initial set of seed nodes. The search process searches for good sets of seed nodes to use. The resulting combination of seed-growth heuristic, stochastic-search process, and the Kernighan-Lin algorithm constitutes a superior system for partitioning graphs. The Subject System can be applied to graph-partitioning problems that arise in circuit design, computer architecture, routing in computer networks, database design, distributed and parallel processing, and many other domains.

Abstract: In an ATM network interface controller, a traffic management system is provided to allow implementation of available bit rate, or ABR, flow control by an external processor and the use of a new ABR controller within the traffic management system which provides functions that enable an external processor to control the flow control behavior of the network interface controller. The ABR controller accesses an external memory to control the flow of cells injected into the network. In one embodiment, the subject system uses a traffic shaper to control cell transmission rates, submits requests to an external memory which are processed by an external processor, and reads data from an external memory to adjust cell transmission rates and/or generates Resource Management, or RM, cells.

Abstract: In a wireless emergency location system in which a cellular phone is utilized to communicate the location of an individual or vehicle by announcing position based on the output of a GPS receiver, time since last fix is computed and annunciated to permit emergency personnel to ascertain if the position information is valid. In a one embodiment, velocity and direction of travel are also annunciated for permitting emergency personnel to calculate the location of the phone and thus a stricken individual. Time since last fix as well as velocity and direction annunciation is also used to enable location of stolen or hijacked vehicles assuming location information is no longer available at the phone or satellite fix has been lost.

Abstract: A system for virtual environments in which graphical objects are depicted in a space to achieve the required high accuracy regardless of location through establishing locales or subdivisions of the global coordinate system and establishing an origin for each locale, such that the specification of position and movement of a graphical object in the locale can be made with greater precision than using a global coordinate system, thus eliminating the need for high-precision floating point processors or emulation. The system permits designers of virtual environments to work independently on their locales, with overlap being controlled through specifying distance between locale origins as well as relative orientation between the locales. The system also permits ignoring information from non-relevant distant locales to, minimize processing and network bandwidth requirements.

Abstract: A system for creating a constructive solid geometry (CSG) representation of bjects in bit map or voxel form iteratively creates, mutates and optimizes a population of potential CSG representations of the object. The system includes a first part which randomly generates and revises a population of CSG representations. Each CSG tree includes a random number of primitives of different types, sizes and positions. The primitives are randomly organized in a tree structure which includes randomly selected boolean operators at the nodes. The trees are modified through an evolutionary process to improve the CSG representation of the object. Trees are randomly mutated to form new trees. Mutations can include (1) changes in types of primitives, (2) changes in a subtree structure, (3) addition of new subtrees, and (4) deletions of subtrees. If the new tree better represents the object, then the old tree is replaced with the new tree. Mutations continue until no further improvements are obtained.

Abstract: There is disclosed a digital frequency synthesizer which converts an ultrnic burst from an echo-ranging sonar system into a continuous signal having a frequency exactly equal to the frequency of the cycles making up the burst. This burst is detected and a number representing the period of this burst generated and transmitted to a first counter. A clock pulse train is generated and transmitted to a second counter. When the numbers in the first and second counters coincide, a single output pulse is generated and the second counter reset. When this cycle is repeated, the frequency of the resultant pulse train reflects any change in frequency of the cycles making up the bursts.

Abstract: A network interface using per-application free buffer lists includes a pat processor which processes an incoming message and stores packet data into free buffers designated for the application for which the message intended. The packet processor has memory storing an internal free buffer list. The internal free buffer list is loaded from an external free buffer list memory, which contains a free buffer list for each application. Each time a message arrives for a given application, the packet processor retrieves a portion of the external free buffer list for the application and loads the portion into the internal free buffer list. The portion which is loaded is a number of free buffers which is thought to be sufficient to handle an anticipated size of the incoming message. As a packet is processed, data are deposited in the buffers specified in the internal list.

Abstract: A convenient interface for a grammar checking system in which improper utilization of words in a sentence is detected and in which corrected words are suggested for insertion in the sentence including means for underlining incorrectly used words and means for providing a caret or inverted V type indicia for words which are to be inserted, with the caret indicating a missing word in the sentence.

Abstract: The speed of a hardware-software debugger is markedly increased through the use of high speed simulators which ignore all systems operations except those where design errors are expected to manifest themselves, by skipping CPU bus cycles of no interest for the simulation, by not explicitly simulating periodic clock signals and generating only schedules of clock signals, and by caching instructions when alien computers are used in the simulation process to eliminate decoding of the instructions of the target computer.

Abstract: A system is provided for spelling correction in which the context of a word n a sentence is utilized to determine which of several alternative or possible words was intended. The probability that a particular alternative was the word that was intended is determined through Bayesian analysis utilizing multiple kinds of features of the context of the target word, such as the presence of certain characteristic words within some distance of the target word, or the presence of certain characteristic patterns of words and part-of-speech tags around the target word. The system successfully combines multiple types of features via Bayesian analysis through means for resolving egregious interdependencies among features. The system first recognizes the interdependencies, and then resolves them by deleting all but the strongest feature involved in each interdependency, thereby allowing it to make its decisions based on the strongest non-conflicting set of features.

Abstract: An Emergency Vessel Location System (EVLS) which broadcasts a verbal MAYDAY message including the vessel or vehicle identification number (VIN) and the vessel position via a transceiver controlled by the EVLS is provided with a verbal scrolling technique to initially load a VIN number into the EVLS. The verbal scroll entails annunciating letters of the alphabet and then numbers one at a time. In one embodiment programming is performed by two switches, one a TEST switch on the microphone, although any two switches may be used singly and in combination to enter the VIN. One switch is used to advance the scroll, while the other is used to select an entry.

Abstract: A fluid mixing system is provided to permit rapid mixing of a prestored powdered substance such as powdered milk with a liquid in which, in one embodiment, baby bottles are stacked one atop the other in fluid communication, with an internally carried stemmed disk preventing powdered contents of the upper bottle from entering the liquid carried by the lower bottle until the stemmed disk is dislodged from the aperture between the bottles, the stemmed disk falling into the lower bottle such that the mixing can occur without opening or separating the two bottles. The invention thus allows the separate storage of two pre-measured fluent materials within the same container, and to facilitate the mixing and dispensing of those materials at a later time without opening the container. The benefits of this are that the user can prepare in advance mixtures of materials which, if stored in a combined state, will sour, harden, or otherwise become usable without mixing the two ingredients until the time of use.

Abstract: A system for assigning part-of-speech tags to English text includes an improved contextual tagger which utilizes a deterministic finite state transducer to improve tagging speed such that large documents can have its sentences accurately tagged as to parts of speech to permit fast grammar checking, spell checking, information retrieval, text indexing and optical character recognition. The subject system performs by first acquiring a set of rules by examining a training corpus of tagged text. Then, these rules are transformed into a deterministic finite-state transducer through the utilization of non-deterministic transducers, a composer and a determiniser. In order to tag an input sentence, the sentence is initially tagged by first assigning each word in the sentence with its most likely part of speech tag regardless of the surrounding words in the sentences.

Abstract: A computer program version update system reduces storage space usage and enables calling programs to invoke any version of a program using the same name by storing only modified modules of a program for different program versions. Multiple versions of a program can thus have the same name. Any version of the program may be constructed from the modules upon command with a user issuing such a command and including a version number corresponding to the requested version as a parameter to invoke a program construction procedure.

Abstract: A system is provided to increase the efficiency of a VLIW, Very Long Insttion Word, processor which matches its level of parallelism, LOP, to the LOP of the executable code before executing the code's fixed-length VLIW instructions, so that object-level code compatibility is kept for different processor implementations of the same VLIW architecture required for different applications. Matching is accomplished either by reducing the LOP of the processor via inactivating the processor's functional units, or by effectively reducing the LOP of the executable code via the processor executing the sequential portions of each VLIW instruction in the code, with the length of the portions equal to or less than the number of operations that the processor can handle as a VLIW instruction.

Abstract: In a distributed file environment, a system for safely updating a file wiut risk of losing work performed at one site due to work performed on the file at another site uses a journal or log at each site which is updated after a file is modified. This log is compared with the logs from other sites before a file is used at any one site, so that new versions can be propogated automatically and safely to out-of-date sites, with the user immediately alerted if conflicting versions of the file exist at different sites. The reconciliation can be applied to collections of files, automatically updating only those files for which it is safe to and necessary do so. Since reconciliation occurs at times selected by the user, inconsistent or partially completed versions of files need not be propogated to other sites.

Abstract: A system is provided for enhancing the reliability of rescue services by providing a 911 back-up system in which the termination of an emergency call is sensed followed by dialing the telephone number of a predetermined dispatch office, with the dispatch office providing a call back to the nearest PSAP to ascertain whether or not rescue is on the way. In one embodiment for cellular phone applications, termination of the emergency call is sensed by detecting the call-in-progress flag available on the phone's bus. In another embodiment, the originating phone transmits the telephone number of the originating phone to permit personnel at the dispatch office to call the originating phone back to ascertain the nature of the problem and if dispatched help has arrived.

Abstract: A system for the control from a distance of machines having displays incls hand gesture detection in which the hand gesture causes movement of an on-screen hand icon over an on-screen machine control icon, with the hand icon moving the machine control icon in accordance with sensed hand movements to effectuate machine control. In one embodiment, TV control led by hand signals includes detecting a single hand gesture and providing a hand icon on the screen along with the provision of icons representing TV controls such as volume, channel, color, density, etc., in which a television camera detects the hand in a noisy background through correlation techniques based on values of local image orientation. In order to trigger the system into operation, a trigger gesture such as the "how" sign is distinguished from the background through the utilization of orientation angle differences.

Abstract: A low latency network receive interface reduces the copying of message data by directly coupling the network to a cache and by providing an address-based message in which an incoming message block preincorporates an address so that messages can be directly stored in their final destination. In a preferred embodiment, the message data size is made equal to the cache block size so that cache blocks can be updated atomically. The small message size--which is equivalent in size to a cache block--also reduces transfer time, unlike Direct Memory Access (DMA) approaches in which a large amount of data must accumulate prior to transfer to main memory as a block. In one embodiment, the cache to which message data is directly coupled is divided into a message cache and a data cache, with the incoming message block coupled directly to the message cache.

Abstract: A system for unencumbered measurement of body posture or attitude utilizes on-encumbering force or proximity sensors to monitor an individual, where the individual need not be aware of the presence or action of the sensors. Outputs from these sensors are analyzed to infer body posture or attitude. In one embodiment, a set of sensors is attached to a chair, or other surroundings such as the floor, at locations where a person may be in contact with or in close proximity to one or more of the sensors or where movement of the chair could be detected. Each sensor has an output which provides a signal indicative of a response of the sensor to forces exerted by or motions of the individual. The outputs of the sensors are processed to estimate the body posture of the individual.