Abstract: The invention captures harvestable mechanical energy, e.g., in the form of wind or moving water, and uses it for electrical generation or other work. In various embodiments a turbine is used to pressurize a fluid, and the pressurized fluid is then optionally stored and then used to drive an electric generator. Because the pressurized fluid can be stored in a pressurized state indefinitely, the invention provides a straightforward way to accumulate the mechanical energy until it is needed. Additionally, the invention allows portions of the system, e.g., a pressure vessel or generator, to be located away from the turbine, reducing the costs of deploying and maintaining the system.

Abstract: The invention generally relates to systems and methods for increasing effective spectrum. The invention provides wireless antennas that transmit or receive within a narrow spectrum at distances that overlap the reach of neighboring antennas and that also transmit or receive within a broader spectrum at restricted distances that do not interfere with the operation of neighboring antennas. This way, within a network of antennas, each antenna can use the full band of spectrum for wireless communications.

Abstract: The invention captures harvestable mechanical energy, e.g., in the form of wind or moving water, and uses it for electrical generation or other work. In various embodiments a turbine is used to pressurize a fluid, and the pressurized fluid is then optionally stored and then used to drive an electric generator. Because the pressurized fluid can be stored in a pressurized state indefinitely, the invention provides a straightforward way to accumulate the mechanical energy until it is needed. Additionally, the invention allows portions of the system, e.g., a pressure vessel or generator, to be located away from the turbine, reducing the costs of deploying and maintaining the system.

Abstract: The invention generally relates to rapid reading of data from multi-level cell (MLC) memory devices. Information is stored in a way that allows all of the bit-space to be used but that also allows single-read-per-cell retrieval. Data is triaged into high priority data and low priority data. The high priority data is then stored in an MLC memory device with one bit per cell. This data can them be read from the MLC cells by one comparison operation on each cell, accomplishing all of the required read operations in parallel in the time it takes to perform a single comparison. Low priority data is stored in the remaining bit-space of the cells, to take full advantage of all of the available bit-space of the cells.

Abstract: An improved system and method is provided for using sampling for scheduling advertisements in an online auction with budget and time constraints. A multi-armed bandit engine may be provided for sampling new advertisements by allocating advertisements for web page placements of equal quality and optimizing payments to maximize the welfare of the advertisers while remaining within advertiser's budget and time constraints. Advertisers may report their private information including arrival time, departure time, value per click, and budget. And the multi-armed bandit mechanism may approximate the maximal welfare that may be achieved under budget and time constraints by bounding the possible gain from any possible lie an advertiser might submit in reporting private information. Advertisers departing from the online auction may be charged using a payment method that may provide truthful guarantees on budget, arrivals, departures, and valuations for a budget-constrained online auction.

Abstract: An improved system and method is provided for using sampling for scheduling advertisements in an online auction with budget and time constraints. A multi-armed bandit engine may be provided for sampling new advertisements by allocating advertisements for web page placements of equal quality and optimizing payments to maximize the welfare of the advertisers while remaining within advertiser's budget and time constraints. Advertisers may report their private information including arrival time, departure time, value per click, and budget. And the multi-armed bandit mechanism may approximate the maximal welfare that may be achieved under budget and time constraints by bounding the possible gain from any possible lie an advertiser might submit in reporting private information. Advertisers departing from the online auction may be charged using a payment method that may provide truthful guarantees on budget, arrivals, departures, and valuations for a budget-constrained online auction.

Abstract: An improved system and method is provided for using sampling for scheduling advertisements in an online auction with budget and time constraints. A multi-armed bandit engine may be provided for sampling new advertisements by allocating advertisements for web page placements of equal quality and optimizing payments to maximize the welfare of the advertisers while remaining within advertiser's budget and time constraints. Advertisers may report their private information including arrival time, departure time, value per click, and budget. And the multi-armed bandit mechanism may approximate the maximal welfare that may be achieved under budget and time constraints by bounding the possible gain from any possible lie an advertiser might submit in reporting private information. Advertisers departing from the online auction may be charged using a payment method that may provide truthful guarantees on budget, arrivals, departures, and valuations for a budget-constrained online auction.

Abstract: An improved system and method is provided for using sampling for scheduling advertisements in an online auction with budget and time constraints. A multi-armed bandit engine may be provided for sampling new advertisements by allocating advertisements for web page placements of equal quality and optimizing payments to maximize the welfare of the advertisers while remaining within advertiser's budget and time constraints. Advertisers may report their private information including arrival time, departure time, value per click, and budget. And the multi-armed bandit mechanism may approximate the maximal welfare that may be achieved under budget and time constraints by bounding the possible gain from any possible lie an advertiser might submit in reporting private information. Advertisers departing from the online auction may be charged using a payment method that may provide truthful guarantees on budget, arrivals, departures, and valuations for a budget-constrained online auction.

Abstract: An improved system and method is provided for making trading markets using generalized trade reduction. To do so, a trade reduction engine may be provided to turn the implementation of an individually rational and incentive-compatible mechanism of a market maker engine for single-valued traders making trades in a particular trading domain into an implementation of a budget balanced, individually rational and incentive-compatible mechanism that may bound the loss in social welfare. In general, the generalized trade reduction methods find procurement sets of traders and remove them in iterations until conditions of competition among remaining traders may be fulfilled for trading to occur. Advantageously, the present invention may support many applications for making trading markets using generalized trade reduction for both procurement-class domains and class domains.

Abstract: An improved system and method is provided for using sampling for scheduling advertisements in an online auction. A multi-armed bandit engine may be provided for learning the valuation of advertisements through sampling in an online advertising auction. To do so, the multi-armed bandit may schedule advertisements for web page placements in an online advertising auction to optimize payments for maximizing the welfare of the advertisers. An initial list of advertisements may be created that is ordered by expected payment, and an optimal subset of advertisements may be determined from the initial list of advertisements for web page placements by iterative sampling. A web page placement may then be determined and allocated for each advertisement in the optimal subset in order to maximize revenue. And a charge may be calculated for each advertisement allocated the web page placement and sampled in the online advertising auction.