Abstract: A saturation adjusting apparatus for processing a pixel, which has three color components each having a value falling within a range defined by upper and lower extreme values, of a RGB color model includes an extreme value controller and a component adjuster. The extreme value controller determines maximum and minimum extreme value thresholds for ensuring that the values of the color components of the pixel after undergoing linear color correction processing based on a correction indicator fall within the range defined by the upper and lower extreme values. The component adjuster includes a decision-making unit for choosing the correction indicator from a group of values which includes the maximum extreme value threshold, the minimum extreme value threshold, and a saturation setting. The component adjuster further includes a color corrector for performing linear color correction processing on the three color components of the pixel using the correction indicator.

Abstract: The invention relates to the therapeutic use of stabilized oligoribonucleotides as immune modulatory agents for immune therapy applications. Specifically, the invention provides RNA based oligoribonucleotides with improved nuclease and RNase stability and that have immune modulatory activity through TLR7 and/or TLR8.

Abstract: The inventors have examined the means for providing more efficacious gene expression blocking compounds. The inventors have discovered new structural features that surprisingly improve the efficacy of gene expression blocking molecules. These features include the presence of multiple 3? ends and a linker at the 5? ends. Surprisingly, these features improve the efficacy of the gene expression blocking compounds in a manner that decreases the compound's biologic instability. Even more surprisingly, this effect has been found to be applicable to both DNA and RNA oligonucleotide-based compounds and to have application in traditional antisense and RNAi technologies.

Abstract: A method of aiding a speech recognition program developer by grouping calls passing through an identified question-answer (QA) state or transition into clusters based on causes of problems associated with the calls is provided. The method includes determining a number of clusters into which a plurality of calls will be grouped. Then, the plurality of calls is at least partially randomly assigned to the different clusters. Model parameters are estimated using clustering information based upon the assignment of the plurality of calls to the different clusters. Individual probabilities are calculated for each of the plurality of calls using the estimated model parameters. The individual probabilities are indicative of a likelihood that the corresponding call belongs to a particular cluster. The plurality of calls is then re-assigned to the different clusters based upon the calculated probabilities. These steps are then repeated until the grouping of the plurality of calls achieves a desired stability.

Abstract: An ink for forming CIGS photovoltaic cell active layers is disclosed along with methods for making the ink, methods for making the active layers and a solar cell made with the active layer. The ink contains a mixture of nanoparticles of elements of groups IB, IIIA and (optionally) VIA. The particles are in a desired particle size range of between about 1 nm and about 500 nm in diameter, where a majority of the mass of the particles comprises particles ranging in size from no more than about 40% above or below an average particle size or, if the average particle size is less than about 5 nanometers, from no more than about 2 nanometers above or below the average particle size. The use of such ink avoids the need to expose the material to an H2Se gas during the construction of a photovoltaic cell and allows more uniform melting during film annealing, more uniform intermixing of nanoparticles, and allows higher quality absorber films to be formed.

Abstract: The invention relates to synthetic chemical compositions that are useful for modulation of Toll-Like Receptor (TLR)-mediated immune responses. In particular, the invention relates to agonists of Toll-Like Receptor 9 (TLR9) that generate unique cytokine and chemokine profiles.

Abstract: The invention relates to the therapeutic use of oligonucleotides as immunostimulatory agents in immunotherapy applications. More particularly, the invention provides an immunostimulatory oligonucleotides for use in methods for generating an immune response or for treating a patient in need of immunostimulation. The immunostimulatory oligonucleotides of the invention preferably comprise novel purines. The immunostimulatory oligonucleotides according to the invention further comprise at least two oligonucleotides linked at their 3? ends, internucleoside linkages or functionalized nucleobase or sugar to a non-nucleotidic linker, at least one of the oligonucleotides being an immunostimulatory oligonucleotide and having an accessible 5? end.

Abstract: The invention relates to synthetic chemical compositions that are useful for modulation of Toll-Like Receptor (TLR)-mediated immune responses. In particular, the invention relates to agonists of Toll-Like Receptor 9 (TLR9) that generate unique cytokine and chemokine profiles.

Abstract: Provided are a polymer containing a thiophene unit and a thienylenevinylene unit, and an organic field effect transistor and an organic solar cell containing the polymer. The film may be formed by coating a substrate with a polymer containing a thiophene unit and a thienylenevinylene unit using a solution process. Therefore, the production cost may be reduced and a large-scale device may be suitably manufactured since there is no need for an expensive vacuum system to form films. Also, the polymer according to one embodiment of the present invention containing a thiophene unit and a thienylenevinylene unit has very excellent flatness since the thiophene unit is continuously coupled with a vinyl group having excellent flatness. Therefore, the polymer may be useful in further improving the charge mobility since it has high crystallinity caused by the improved ordering property between molecules. Such crystallinity may be further improved by the heat treatment.

Abstract: An answering machine detection module is used to determine whether a call recipient is an actual person or an answering machine. The answering machine detection module includes a speech recognizer and a call analysis module. The speech recognizer receives an audible response of the call recipient to a call. The speech recognizer processes the audible response and provides an output indicative of recognized speech. The call analysis module processes the output of the speech recognizer to generate an output indicative of whether the call recipient is a person or an answering machine.

Abstract: A data writing method for flash memory and an error correction encoding/decoding method thereof are disclosed. In an embodiment of the data writing method, a 6-bit ECC scheme using a Reed-Solomon code derived from a Galois Field GF (29) is used to encode a data for generating a redundant which requires smaller storing space. In an embodiment of the error correction encoding/decoding method, an erase checking value corresponding to the status where all the bytes of data area and parameter storing area are “0xff” is provided to improve the security of stored data.

Abstract: Parameters for distributions of a hidden trajectory model including means and variances are estimated using an acoustic likelihood function for observation vectors as an objection function for optimization. The estimation includes only acoustic data and not any intermediate estimate on hidden dynamic variables. Gradient ascent methods can be developed for optimizing the acoustic likelihood function.

Abstract: An ink for forming CIGS photovoltaic cell active layers is disclosed along with methods for making the ink, methods for making the active layers and a solar cell made with the active layer. The ink contains a mixture of nanoparticles of elements of groups IB, IIIA and (optionally) VIA. The particles are in a desired particle size range of between about 1 nm and about 500 nm in diameter, where a majority of the mass of the particles comprises particles ranging in size from no more than about 40% above or below an average particle size or, if the average particle size is less than about 5 nanometers, from no more than about 2 nanometers above or below the average particle size. The use of such ink avoids the need to expose the material to an H2Se gas during the construction of a photovoltaic cell and allows more uniform melting during film annealing, more uniform intermixing of nanoparticles, and allows higher quality absorber films to be formed.

Abstract: The invention relates to the therapeutic use of oligonucleotides or oligonucleotide analogs as immunostimulatory agents in immunotherapy applications. The invention provides methods for enhancing the immune response caused by immunostimulatory oligonucleotide compounds.

Abstract: The invention relates to the therapeutic use of oligonucleotides as immunostimulatory agents in immunotherapy applications. More particularly, the invention provides immunomers for use in methods for generating an immune response or for treating a patient in need of immunostimulation. The immunomers of the invention comprise at least two oligonucleotides linked at their 3? ends, internucleoside linkages or functionalized nucleobase or sugar to a non-nucleotidic linker, at least one of the oligonucleotides being an immunostimulatory oligonucleotide and having an accessible 5? end.

Abstract: An automatic speech recognition system recognizes user changes to dictated text and infers whether such changes result from the user changing his/her mind, or whether such changes are a result of a recognition error. If a recognition error is detected, the system uses the type of user correction to modify itself to reduce the chance that such recognition error will occur again. Accordingly, the system and methods provide for significant speech recognition learning with little or no additional user interaction.

Abstract: The invention provides immunostimulatory oligonucleotides having at least one CpG dinucleotide and a secondary structure at the 5?- or 3?-end. These oligonucleotides have either reduced or improved immunostimulatory properties. The invention establishes that 5?-terminal secondary structures affect immunostimulatory activity significantly more than those at the 3?-end. The invention also provides methods for increasing or decreasing the immunostimulatory activity of a CpG-containing nucleic acid.

Abstract: Parameters for distributions of a hidden trajectory model including means and variances are estimated using an acoustic likelihood function for observation vectors as an objection function for optimization. The estimation includes only acoustic data and not any intermediate estimate on hidden dynamic variables. Gradient ascent methods can be developed for optimizing the acoustic likelihood function.

Abstract: Described is a technology by which a deep-structured (multiple layered) conditional random field model is trained and used for classification of sequential data. Sequential data is processed at each layer, from the lowest layer to a final (highest) layer, to output data in the form of conditional probabilities of classes given the sequential input data. Each higher layer inputs the conditional probability data and the sequential data jointly to output further probability data, and so forth, until the final layer which outputs the classification data. Also described is layer-by-layer training, supervised or unsupervised. Unsupervised training may process raw features to minimize average frame-level conditional entropy while maximizing state occupation entropy, or to minimize reconstruction error.

Abstract: Provided are an organic semiconductor compound using thiazole, and an organic thin film transistor having an organic semiconductor layer formed of the organic semiconductor compound using thiazole. The novel organic semiconductor compound including thiazole has liquid crystallinity and excellent thermal stability, and thus is provided to form an organic semiconductor layer in the organic thin film transistor. To this end, a silicon oxide layer is formed on a silicon substrate, and an organic semiconductor layer including thiazole is formed on the silicon oxide layer. In addition, source and drain electrodes are formed on both edge portions of the organic semiconductor layer. The organic thin film transistor using the organic semiconductor layer has an improved on/off ratio and excellent thermal stability. Also, a solution process can be applied in its manufacture.