Abstract: An input processor recognizes and accepts a wide variety of protocols and formats. Queue management stores the uniform cells in a dual balanced bank memory system, which provides for utilizing an available bank of memory when the other bank of memory is in use, and otherwise balancing the use of the banks of memory, thereby maintaining equal free lists. Queue management apparatus and logic also ascertains and appends routing data to the stored data and transmits the data according to its priority.

Abstract: A speed control system for a device includes a microprocessor based module for established a window or speed range having an upper and a lower speed limit. Operator control of the speed of the device is permitted within the window. In a first mode, a windowed comparator is engaged immediately that the device speed attains the lower limit of the established speed range. In a second mode, the device speed must be substantially constant at a speed within the established speed range for a predetermined time before the windowed comparator is engaged.

Abstract: A universal cutting assembly is provided for cutting a panel from an envelope blank or the like. The die holder can have either a magnetic or non-magnetic outer surface and a plurality of surface orifices therein radially communicating with corresponding feed tubes for individually and selectively supplying vacuum or air to the surface and into the vicinity of the envelope blank. A novel die plate locating system is also provided for use with the universal cutting assembly.

Abstract: The present invention is directed to a hybrid packet/cell switching, linking, and control system and methodology for sharing a common internal cell format that supports multiple protocol operations to support both high speed Ethernet and ATM. The architecture is a shared memory common internal cell architecture (ATM is the preferred embodiment), providing capabilities that support multicast data traffic (which is specific in a LAN environment) and accommodates a large shared buffer and linked list queue set groupings to control reading and retrieving the cell and packet encapsulated cell data types to permit intercoupling all combinations of cross/hybrid switching. The new hybrid switch provides both a full non-blocking packet (e.g., Ethernet) switch having a plurality of ports (e.g., 32 @ 100 Mbps (full or half duplex) ports) and a full non-blocking cell (e.g., ATM) switch having a plurality of ports (e.g., 32 @ 155 Mbps ports).

Abstract: A musical workstation system produces a display presentation in one of a musical composition responsive to musical composition data and responsive to one or both of input variables and a selected operating mode. The system is comprised of (1) means to provide the musical composition data (such as local storage (ROM, RAM, CD-ROM, hard disk etc.), or via a communications interface to an external device (such as another music workstation, a master controller, a computer), a memory, a selection subsystem, a controller, and a display subsystem. The memory selectively stores the received original musical compositions. The selection subsystem determines a selected operating mode and display format. The controller, responsive to the selection subsystem, provides means for selectively controlling the storing of the musical composition data in memory and selectively processing (e.g.

Abstract: A magnetic cutting assembly and waste removal system is provided for cutting a panel from an envelope blank or the like. The die holder has a magnetic outer surface and a plurality of surface orifices therein radially communicating with corresponding feed tubes for supplying vacuum or air to the surface and into the vicinity of the envelope blank. In order to maximize the number of orifices while minimizing the number of magnetic members, the magnetic members are disposed in a plurality of rows wherein each row contains alternating magnets and orifices and a row of orifices are disposed between each adjacent row of magnets, and the orifices are connected to corresponding feed tubes in a matrix.

Abstract: A switch core system for communicating with a plurality of separate sources of cell data, each of the separate sources having a slave arbitration subsystem, the system including a bus subsystem, an arbitration subsystem, a processor subsystem, and a shared memory subsystem for storing cell data from specific ones of the sources and outputting stored cell data to specified ones of the sources via multiple cell buses responsive to the arbitration subsystem.

Abstract: An ergonomic musician's pick or pick holder for use with string instruments, such as a guitar, mandolin, bass guitar, or ukelele, has a curved finger grip portion on one side adapted to form a finger cradle for either the thumb or index finger of a user and has a flat generally planar area on another side against which the other fingers of a user may be pressed to allow the user to securely and comfortably grasp the pick for playing. The grip portion positively locates the fingers in a generally predetermined angular relationship to the string engaging pick tip. Different individual picks of the invention may have different angular relationships. The pick functions in the same way to bring the same advantages of the invention to any conventional and some non-standard or custom picks. Holder provides the added advantage that various picks may be used and the angular relationship may be more easily varied through various arrangements for attaching the pick to the holder.

Abstract: The invention describes a method for transmitting and forwarding packets over a packet switching network wherein the delay between two switches increases, decreases, or changes arbitrarily over time. Packets are being forwarded over each link inside the network in predefined periodic time intervals. The switches of the network maintain a common time reference, which is obtained either from an external source (such as GPS--Global Positioning System) or is generated and distributed internally. The time intervals are arranged with simple periodicity and complex periodicity (like seconds and minutes of a clock). When the delay increases at some point of time, a packet may be late for its predefined forwarding time interval. In such case, the packet is delayed until the next time interval of its virtual pipe. When the link delay decreases, packets are buffered until the first time interval of its virtual pipe.

Abstract: A multi-use die system is provided having a die holder with reference marks disposed circumferentially and radially along the longitudinal axis of the holder, and a multi-use die plate for magnetic affixation to the die holder which impresses a pattern onto a material blank. The die plate has straight and angular reference marks disposed thereon which are adapted to align with the radial and longitudinal reference marks on the die holder so as to properly align the die on the die holder at a predetermined position. In a straight rotary die system, the die is aligned such that the straight reference mark on the die is aligned with the respective corresponding radial and circumferential references on the die holder. In the angular rotary die system, the die is aligned such that the angular mark is aligned with the corresponding radial and circumferential references on the die holder.

Abstract: The spectral range of a stochastic time series of information, including unvoiced speech is reduced to allow transmission over a substantially narrowed frequency band. Sets of autoregressive (AR) parameters are identified for successive time windows of the original time series and of subsequent stages of subsampled reduced-spectrum models of each window of the original time series are used. The AR parameters are transmitted together with subsampled windows of the original data. These AR parameters are used to reconstruct a least square stochastic estimate of the transmitted subsampled time series in a backwards manner from the most subsampled spectrum back to the original spectrum using a sequence of predictive feedback algorithms. Past prediction outputs are feedback for prediction whenever samples are missing. This process yields a high quality reconstructed signal that preserves not only speech parameters and intelligibility, but also near-natural speaker identifiability.

Abstract: A magnetic cutting assembly and waste removal system is provided for cutting a panel from an envelope blank or the like. The die holder has a magnetic outer surface and a plurality of surface orifice therein radially communicating with corresponding feed tubes for supplying vacuum or air to the surface and into the vicinity of the envelope blank. In order to maximize the number of orifices while minimizing the number of magnetic members, the magnetic members be disposed in a plurality of rows wherein each row contains alternating magnets and orifices and a row of orifices are disposed between each adjacent row of magnets.

Abstract: A digital switching system is provided for coupling with one or more external specific physical interface data signal sources regardless of signal protocol, and includes input subsystems for receiving and processing the data signal sources into data cells, a data multiplexer for multiplexing the processed data, an addressable memory for storing the multiplexed data, a queue controller for creating and managing memory queues which store the multiplexed data, a data demultiplexer for demultiplexing the stored multiplexed data in response to the queue controller, and output processors for outputting the demultiplexed data.

Abstract: A queue length measurement device that is comprised of a number of queues that are capable of holding data cells. A differential counter is coupled to each queue. The counter is incremented when a cell is written into the queue and decremented when a cell is read from the queue. An interval measurement device is coupled to the differential counter. The interval measurement device generates a pulse to reset the counter at fixed intervals equivalent to n cells time (where n is the maximum number of cells the queue counter can measure). A multiplexer is coupled to the multiple differential counters. A transfer control circuit coupled to the interval measurement device selects the appropriate queue length to be output from the multiplexer to the other switch elements. A system and methodology are also provided to provide for queue flow statistics and closed loop control of cell flow into the queue. A queue measurement apparatus is provided for measuring a data queue size.

Abstract: A network system analyzes input words for the search and retrieval of pertinent information. The novel system then selects a module of a self organizing map (SOM) which contains the same dimension of classification as a selected input word and where neurons are interconnected horizontally (between modules) and vertically (at input and inside a module) by arrays of link weights. The system then determines what nodes or processing units within the SOM will be activated and subsequently compared to the selected input word. Feedback is utilized via a punishment/reward scheme to adjust the link weights so that the system learns the best paths and/or methods to create acceptable decisions or outputs.

Abstract: The asynchronous timing generator is comprised of a clock signal generator that generates a master clock signal. The master clock signal is used by a master clock counter to generate a bit clock. The master clock counter divides the master clock signal's frequency down to a lower frequency. Control signal information is extracted from the data stream's slot-framing to control the use of a predefined count value to a variable counter. The variable counter uses this lower frequency clock signal to generate the sub-bit count clock signal and slot bit numbers. These signals are generated in response to the control signals, coupled to the timer, indicating the different fields of the slot used to resynchronize data recovery in the received stream. In a preferred embodiment, the asynchronous timing generator is used in a communications transceiver device to permit resynchronization of received communications data.

Abstract: An amusement park entertainment system that integrates an image of a patron into an audiovisual presentation. The patron enters a room where the lighting, sound, and scenery can be controlled. A standardized input sequence is obtained by computer automated/assisted process where user images (video cmaera input, voice parameters, etc.) prompting the user to provide certain views and voiced statements. Alternatively, photo scan or diskette/CD readers can accept user input image data. A one, two, or three dimensional image data representation of the user images is then generated, including the speech parameters of the patron. The image can later be manipulated to change the appearance of the image. This appearance change includes attire and adding tools relevant to the entertainment area used by the patron. The image can then be smoothly integrated into a preexisting audiovisual presentation, thus making the patron a synthetic actor in the production.

Abstract: The input signal is filtered by bandpass filters having different passbands. These filtered signals are input to power detectors that average the power present in each band. A comparator compares each power level signal to a predetermined power threshold to determine if information is present in any of the bands. If information is present in the upper bands, the information is transformed by a discrete wavelet transform and is thresholded and then shifted to the lower bands. The process by which the shifting operation was accomplished is stored in a code book band. An inverse wavelet transform generates the compressed signal by transforming the signals from the wavelet domain to the time domain. If the signal was compressed, the code book signal is transmitted with the compressed signal to a receiving unit for decompression. If the signal was not compressed, the code book signal and the original input signal is transmitted to the receiving unit.

Abstract: The damper is comprised of a set of core rotor magnets arranged in an opposing north/south configuration. A conducting material cylindrically encircles the rotor magnets. A set of stator magnets laterally encircle the conducting material and are arranged in the same manner as the rotor magnets. A system of gears are coupled to the damper shaft and control the rotation of the rotor magnets such that they can be positioned relative to the stator magnets to set up the desired damping torque. As the rotor and stator magnets of opposite polarity approach each other, the eddy-current in the rotating conducting material increases causing the conducting material to generate a field in response to the eddy-current. The damping torque is caused by the magnetic force generated when the induced field in the material and the stator/rotor field attempt to line up.

Abstract: A method and system for blind adaptive filtering an input signal having noise and information signal parameters that are separated by an identifier. An open loop filter stage generates an intermediate filtered signal from the noise parameters and the input signal parameters. A cost function generator generates a first cost function signal and an inverse first cost function signal from the open loop filter parameters. A residual signal is generated from the difference between the input signal and the intermediate filtered signal. Another cost function generator, coupled to the input signal and the residual signal generator, generates a second cost function signal and an inverse second cost function that maximize a stationarity feature of the residual signal. A combiner generates a combined cost function from the inverse first and second cost functions. A quasi-closed loop filter generates the filtered output signal from the intermediate filtered signal.