Abstract: A computerized system provides incentives for travel agents and similar persons to book particular travel-related reservations. The system achieves this by awarding cumulative credits to travel agents based upon bookings of travel-related reservations. The system receives a booking format which identifies a travel-related reservation. The system further receives a code which identifies a travel agent or other person who entered the travel-related reservation. Upon receiving the travel-related reservation, the system assigns cumulative credits to the travel agent identified by the code based upon the travel-related reservation. Travel agents can thus build up credits over time based upon their bookings of travel-related reservations and use those credits to receive a particular award or prize.

Abstract: An automated system and method for consolidating a plurality of individual company charges for a customer with different periodic company billing and payment due dates is provided. Under the system, companies and businesses such as utility companies report their periodic billing information to a central processing office or facility. This is completed by electronic or magnetic data transfer. The processing office undergoes minimization processing and holds the billing information data in time suspense until all of the billing information for the customer during a pre-selected time period is received. Then, the central processing facility generates a single customer statement which identifies all individual company charges as well as a statement due date. The statement is sent to the customer and payment for the identified charges is due by the statement due date. After receiving payment from the customer, the centralized billing center processes the payment and then remits payment to all of the companies.

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.

Abstract: A method for translating seismic time data via seismic depth data to seismic depth/lithology data, enabling reduced-risk location of hydrocarbons. Reducing dry hole risk is accomplished by introducing a new work domain which provides a several-fold increase in parameters per data point corresponding to geophysical space and associated with seismic sequence data. This work domain provides improved separation and definition and quality control of a panoply of relevant geofactors which in turn provide enhanced material information about a plurality of sedimentary rock properties. The enhanced material information is quality-controlled to be geologically possible, then further quality-controlled to be consistent with probability via quantification of burial history, depositional facies distribution and data resolution.

Abstract: A language syntax defines statement forms for statements that describe the inflectional morphology of the natural language. A set of language statements that follow a language syntax to describe the inflectional morphology of the natural language is accepted as input into to a computer. Rule statements define a set of morpho-syntactic features corresponding to grammatical distinctions within the parts of speech categories in the natural language and define a set of inflectional morphological paradigms. The inflectional morphological paradigms include form rule statements to describe the construction of word forms and associate with each construction pre-selected morpho-syntactic features.

Abstract: High-speed full document retrieval method and system capable of providing result of retrieval within practically acceptable short search time. Upon registration of documents in a document database, condensed texts are created by decomposing each of textual character strings of the documents to be registered into fragmental character strings in dependence on character species and by checking mutual inclusion relations existing among the fragmental character strings. A component character table is created in which characters occurring in each of the condensed texts are registered without duplication. The condensed texts and the component character table are registered in the data base together with the texts of the documents to be registered.

Abstract: Process for calculating decreasing doses of a drug a patient needs to take to be able to finally stop taking the drug algorithm. The process is based on an exponential drug taper. This is particularly useful for a drug which a patient is either physically or psychologically dependent, and for a drug where there are potentially serious side effects (for example, seizures) if the drug is rapidly discontinued. The program calculates the amount of drug and provides the clinician the opportunity to look at several different possible drug taper schedules, both numerically and graphically, and to aid the clinician in choosing the appropriate drug taper. The process can calculate a drug taper based upon actual clinical response of a patient. The process corrects for actual dosage sizes available, and calculates administration schedules for the patient and nurse.

Abstract: System for the input and output of data on a two wire system with a downhole well tool which has a system with sensor devices, a processor, a clock, a memory and a voltage/current communications device which are all powered by a d.c. battery. A phone jack and phone plug connection at the earth's surface enables an operator with a controller to input and output data to the well tool without disassembly and enables setting the clock in the well tool to a selected real time value. This enables synchronization of real time values of data recordings for different tools.

Abstract: In a method for collecting via a video camera three-dimensional surface information in dental applications, a tape strip is applied to a tooth surface to provide a distance reference or standard for use by a computer in analyzing the video data to determine actual distances. The tape strips are additionally provided with identification markings identifying the type of surfaces and the teeth to which the tape strips are attached. Slots are provided for facilitating observation and digitization of tooth surface data, the side walls of the slots also serving as shoulders for guiding a contour tracing instrument. Various devices are disclosed for facilitating the attachment of the tape strips to the tooth surfaces.

Abstract: A system architecture for providing human intelligible information by processing a flow of input data; e.g., converting speech (source information) into printable data (target information) based on target-dependent probabilistic models; and for enabling efficient switching from one target field of information into another. To that end, the system is provided with a language modeling device including a data base loadable with an application-dependent corpus of words and/or symbols through a workstation; and a language modeling processor programmed to refresh, in practice, a tree-organized model, efficiently, with no blocking situations, and at a reasonable cost.

Abstract: A system for automatically managing information about printed-circuit boards includes a data file for storing stock information about the printed-circuit boards stocked in a warehouse, mounting information showing mounting positions of the printed-circuit boards on shelves of equipments, and mounting history information showing results of mounting of the printed-circuit boards. A delivery processing part detects, by referring to the stock information stored in the data file, a fact that all printed-circuit boards necessary to assemble an ordered equipment, and generates a delivery instruction which instructs all the printed-circuit boards to be delivered from the warehouse to an mounting section. A mounting processing part outputs to the mounting section a mounting instruction which instructs the printed-circuit boards delivered from the warehouse to be placed in predetermined positions in the ordered equipment by referring to the mounting information stored in the data file.

Abstract: An interactive system for producing X-ray fluoroscopic images determines X-ray tube photon count and voltage for producing acceptable quality images while minimizing X-ray radiation dosage to a subject. An image is created and a signal to noise (S/N) ratio is estimated from the image by a unitary transform method. The S/N ratio is determined by solving several simultaneous equations and the photon count is estimated to produce an image with a desired S/N ratio. Subsequent X-ray fluoroscopy images are produced with the optimum photon count Q, thereby reducing X-ray dosage. The optimization is repeated periodically to readjust the system.

Abstract: A method and system for creating multi-lingual computer programs by dynamically loading messages is provided. In a preferred embodiment, a user specifies a preferred language in which the computer program will communicate. The computer program has one or more associated message sets, each set in a unique natural language. At least some of the message sets are preferably stored in a message file on the computer system. After the computer program is invoked, a Localizer searches the message file for a message set in the preferred language. After selecting the message set, the Localizer makes a memory allocation request, loads the selected message set into the allocated memory, passes the address of the allocated memory to the computer program, and returns control to the computer program.

Abstract: A method and apparatus is disclosed for measuring motion signals of gyroscopes in downhole instruments used to determine the heading of a borehole. An illustrative embodiment of the invention includes a measuring-while-drilling system which may experience motion even while the drill string is suspended in rotary table slips when the heading of the drill string is being determined. Accelerometer and magnetometer data along three orthogonal axes of a measurement sub are used to obtain unit gravitational vectors g at a first time and at a second time and unit magnetic vectors h at the first time and the second time. The difference between the two unit gravitational vectors at the different times, .DELTA.g, and the difference between the two unit magnetic vectors at the different times, .DELTA.h, are used along with the unit vectors g and h and the difference in time .DELTA.t to determine the rotation vector of the probe .OMEGA..sup.p which has occurred during such time difference.

Abstract: A system for resolving structural ambiguities in syntactic analysis of natural language, which ambiguities are caused by prepositional phrase attachment, relative clause attachment, and other modifier-modifiee relationships in sentences. The system uses instances of dependency (modification relationship) structures extracted from a terminology dictionary as a knowledge base. Structural ambiguity is represented by indicating that a word in a sentence has several words as candidate modifiees. The system resolves such ambiguity by 1) first searching the knowledge base, which contains dependency information in the form of tree structures, for dependencies between the word and each of its possible modifiees, 2) then assigning an order of preference to these dependencies by means of a path search in the tree structures, and 3) finally selecting the most preferable dependency as the modifiee. The sentences can be analyzed by a parser and transformed into dependency structures by the system.

Abstract: In a single-byte character set English text mixed with a double-byte character set Japanese text, both an English spelling aid and a Japanese spelling aid can be provided and each respective spelling aid will be invoked depending upon whether the SBCS character set is indicated for English text or the DBCS character set is indicated for Japanese text. Still further, for a text which is mixed national languages of for example, English and German, the linguistic flag field can include additional information identifying the national language for a particular text string. Then if the linguistic flag field indicates that there is a misspelling for German, or a misspelling for English, then the corresponding text string can be highlighted on the display screen.

Abstract: A language processing system includes a mechanism for measuring the syntax trees of sentences of material to be translated and a mechanism for truncating syntax trees in response to the measuring mechanism. In a particular embodiment, a Score Function is provided for disambiguating or truncating ambiguities on the basis of composite scores, generated at different stages of the processing.

Abstract: A computationally efficient and accurate procedure for calculating electron beam dose within a volume of a patient incorporating knowledge about the variations in density of the patient as obtained from a CT machine or the like employs an iterative process of dividing the patient into a set of layers of elements where each layer is computed from the previous layer by algebraic approximations of the Fermi partial differential equation. Energy loss of the particles is accommodated through the addition of a simple functional relationship between depth and energy or by separately binning energy at each layer as determined by local energy loss.

Abstract: A slot table contains (1) all possible sentence patterns (VPs), arranged in rows, which a predicate in an input sentence can take, and (2) arguments of the VPs expressed as slot conditions in slots positioned in a finite number of positions. A grammatical case pattern table contains columns corresponding to respective grammatical cases of the basic patterns arranged in the order in which the cases appear in a basic pattern before shifting; all the grammatical case patterns are expressed as binary values representing existing/non-existing ones of the respective grammatical cases in respective rows corresponding to the grammatical case patterns. The binary values are added up to numbers of the position information in the basic pattern, and the grammatical cases, which correspond to columns that correspond to the last number among numbers of the binary values, are treated as grammatical cases for arguments of the VP.