Abstract: The present invention provides an auto-cancelling buffer and method that ensures that time sensitive control messages such as congestion alarms and recovery messages are efficiently moved between control processes. In a general embodiment, one or more time sensitive control messages are stored in a special buffer. A current control message indicating a first state is compared with a previously buffered control message. If the buffered control message is in a second different state, e.g., opposite the first state, the buffered control message is removed from the buffer, and both messages are discarded. In effect, opposing control messages are cancelled rather than both stored in the buffer. This avoids unnecessary cycling of an end process which acts on control messages forwarded from the buffer.

Abstract: A multimedia messaging system for use in providing voice mail, fax mail, e-mail, notification services, etc. over telephony lines is disclosed in which the system is adaptable for clustering to a single telephony-equipped switch. Multiple back-end systems can be added to the single telephony equipped switch such that the back-end machines operate the same as they would in stand-alone mode, thus making the cluster transparent to the back-end machines.

Abstract: A memory system and management method for optimized dynamic memory allocation are disclosed. A memory manager requests a large area of memory from an operating system, and from the viewpoint of the operating system, that memory is fixed. That fixed memory area is then divided up into an integral number of classes, e.g. by the memory manager. Each memory class includes same-size blocks of memory linked together by pointers. The memory block sizes are different for each class, and the sizes of the different class memory blocks are selected to conform to the CPU and memory access bus hardware (e.g. align with a bus bit width) as well as to accommodate the various sizes of data expected to be processed for a particular application. The memory manager maintains a separate, linked list of unused blocks for each class. Each memory block is zeroed initially and after release by a process previously assigned to it. When a block of memory is assigned to a particular process, a flag is set to indicate that it is in use.

Abstract: Message congestion and prioritization are effectively managed using a flexible approach that is easily implemented and configurable for different communications applications. A plurality of buffers are provided at a communications point with different buffers corresponding to different message priorities. The buffers may be, for example, first-in-first-out (FIFO) buffers. Messages to be transmitted from the communications point are processed to determine the priority of each message. Each message is stored in one of the plurality of buffers corresponding to its determined priority. Messages are transmitted starting from the highest priority buffer, continuing to the next priority buffer, and so forth. Each buffer includes a configurable size, congestion level, full level, and recovery level which are used to effectively manage transmission of messages in congested situations and to ensure that priority messages receive priority transmission.

Abstract: A data communications protocol facilitates communications between a message entry device and a messaging center. The protocol permits an operator to enter a message and transmit it quickly, efficiently, and with confirmation. In an example application to short text messaging, two-way data communications between a message entry device and a message handling center, a small set of simple transactional commands is used for communicating messages to and from cellular telephones. Both the message entry device and the message handling center may independently initiate and send messages to the other. An input message is encoded by encapsulating the message between first and second delimiters, e.g., "{" and "}", and associating a message tag with the encapsulated message. Both the message tag and the encapsulated message are in human-readable ASCII format.

Abstract: An automated speech recognition system converts a speech signal into a compact, coded representation that correlates to a speech phoneme set. A number of different neural network pattern matching schemes may be used to perform the necessary speech coding. An integrated user interface guides a user unfamiliar with the details of speech recognition or neural networks to quickly develop and test a neural network for phoneme recognition. To train the neural network, digitized voice data containing known phonemes that the user wants the neural network to ultimately recognize are processed by the integrated user interface. The digitized speech is segmented into phonemes with each segment being labelled with a corresponding phoneme code. Based on a user selected transformation method and transformation parameters, each segment is transformed into a series of multiple dimension vectors representative of the speech characteristics of that segment.

Abstract: An automated speech recognition system converts a speech signal into a compact, coded representation that correlates to a speech phoneme set. A number of different neural network pattern matching schemes may be used to perform the necessary speech coding. An integrated user interface guides a user unfamiliar with the details of speech recognition or neural networks to quickly develop and test a neural network for phoneme recognition. To train the neural network, digitized voice data containing known phonemes that the user wants the neural network to ultimately recognize are processed by the integrated user interface. The digitized speech is segmented into phonemes with each segment being labelled with a corresponding phoneme code. Based on a user selected transformation method and transformation parameters, each segment is transformed into a series of multiple dimension vectors representative of the speech characteristics of that segment.

Abstract: An automated speech recognition system converts a speech signal into a compact, coded representation that correlates to a speech phoneme set. A number of different neural network pattern matching schemes may be used to perform the necessary speech coding. An integrated user interface guides a user unfamiliar with the details of speech recognition or neural networks to quickly develop and test a neural network for phoneme recognition. To train the neural network, digitized voice data containing known phonemes that the user wants the neural network to ultimately recognize are processed by the integrated user interface. The digitized speech is segmented into phonemes with each segment being labelled with a corresponding phoneme code. Based on a user selected transformation method and transformation parameters, each segment is transformed into a series of multiple dimension vectors representative of the speech characteristics of that segment.

Abstract: An automated speech recognition system converts a speech signal into a compact, coded representation that correlates to a speech phoneme set. A number of different neural network pattern matching schemes may be used to perform the necessary speech coding. An integrated user interface guides a user unfamiliar with the details of speech recognition or neural networks to quickly develop and test a neural network for phoneme recognition. To train the neural network, digitized voice data containing known phonemes that the user wants the neural network to ultimately recognize are processed by the integrated user interface. The digitized speech is segmented into phonemes with each segment being labelled with a corresponding phoneme code. Based on a user selected transformation method and transformation parameters, each segment is transformed into a series of multiple dimension vectors representative of the speech characteristics of that segment.

Abstract: A flexible, object-oriented call processor is employed in a wide range of messaging environments (e.g. voice messaging, facsimile mail, notification and electronic mail) to provide any number and type of messaging service. Call processing procedures can be changed or adapted to provide a new or different messaging service without rewriting large amounts of software or redesigning the messaging system. Various call processing primitives are established to perform various call processing services in a messaging application, with each to primitive performing a single operation. Sets of parameters are also defined for different types of call processing services and different subscribers. A service state table corresponding to a sequence of logical states is set up to provide the requested call processing service. Once a requested call processing service is identified in response to a subscriber call, the call processor executes the service logic in the corresponding service state table.

Abstract: A multi-media interface universally and flexibly supports present (and contemplated) messaging applications including voice mail, facsimile mail, electronic mail, interactive voice response, automated attendant surface services, audio text services, electronic messaging services, radio paging services, speech recognition/speech synthesis, DTMF tone detection, voice recognition, video messaging, video mail, interface of voice and data between the public switched telephone network (PSTN), the packet switched public data network (PSPDN), and mobile/portable telephone subscribers, e.g. cellular telephones and does so at a very high throughput.