Abstract: A wireless contextual prompting device provides contextual (context-aware) prompting in the home for applications such as Activities of Daily Living (ADL) monitoring, medication adherence, journaling, social messaging and coaching. The device combines the advantages of a small, wireless, battery-operated sensor that may be easily mounted at critical places in a person's daily routine with a low-power, high-contrast display panel that may be palm sized. The context may be displayed on the display screen as images, icons and/or text such that it is easy to interpret warnings by the young, elderly, or the language-challenged.

Abstract: A wireless contextual prompting device provides contextual (context-aware) prompting in the home for applications such as Activities of Daily Living (ADL) monitoring, medication adherence, journaling, social messaging and coaching. The device combines the advantages of a small, wireless, battery-operated sensor that may be easily mounted at critical places in a person's daily routine with a low-power, high-contrast display panel that may be palm sized. The context may be displayed on the display screen as images, icons and/or text such that it is easy to interpret warnings by the young, elderly, or the language-challenged.

Abstract: A wireless contextual prompting device provides contextual (context-aware) prompting in the home for applications such as Activities of Daily Living (ADL) monitoring, medication adherence, journaling, social messaging and coaching. The device combines the advantages of a small, wireless, battery-operated sensor that may be easily mounted at critical places in a person's daily routine with a low-power, high-contrast display panel that may be palm sized. The context may be displayed on the display screen as images, icons and/or text such that it is easy to interpret warnings by the young, elderly, or the language-challenged.

Abstract: A wireless contextual prompting device provides contextual (context-aware) prompting in the home for applications such as Activities of Daily Living (ADL) monitoring, medication adherence, journaling, social messaging and coaching. The device combines the advantages of a small, wireless, battery-operated sensor that may be easily mounted at critical places in a person's daily routine with a low-power, high-contrast display panel that may be palm sized. The context may be displayed on the display screen as images, icons and/or text such that it is easy to interpret warnings by the young, elderly, or the language-challenged.

Abstract: A method and apparatus keeps track of ingestible objects (such as pills or food items) ingested by humans or animals. The objects are supplied with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags encoding data describing the objects. The humans or animals ingesting the objects are equipped with RFID sensors for detecting, decoding, and archiving the data encoded in the tags. A user may scan the body of the human or animal subject with a sensor to determine if a tagged object has been ingested. The tags may be covered with substances or contain elements that dissolve upon entering a digestive system. This allows detection of ingestion and also allows the RFID tag encoding to change in the course of digestion.

Abstract: Devices for interconnection into a digital computer system contain arbitration mechanisms for assigning control of a common communications path among the devices. Several modes of device arbitration are provided for, and the modes may be mixed among devices, and changed during operation of the system, in the system without interfering with communications. The arbitration mechanism requires only a single additional line in the communications pathway, and thus a single additional pin on the integrated circuit on which it is implemented, for the arbitration function. It thus facilitates implementation of the arbitration mechanism along with all other interconnect logic on a single integrated circuit.

Abstract: A process for directing an interrupt request from an interrupting device to a selected number of processing devices by a bus. The interrupting device asserts one or more data lines during an interrupt command, each asserted data line corresponding to a selected processing device to which the interrupt command is directed. During an identify transaction, the interrupting device monitors which data line is asserted by a processing device to determine whether the asserted data line corresponds to a processing device selected by a destination mask stored in the interrupting device. Subsequently, one or more data lines are asserted by the interrupting device corresponding to a particular interrupt routine. The interrupting device itself selects particular processing devices, eliminating the need for a central interrupt arbiter. The process allows the interrupting device to seek interrupt servicing from any number of other devices, and to accept service from the first device which is available.

Abstract: A bus device is provided for use in a data processing system which includes a plurality of bus devices interconnected by a synchronous bus. The bus includes multiplexed data/address/arbitration lines which carry data, address, and arbitration information during respective data, command/address, and arbitration cycles. The bus also includes a BUSY line and a NO ARB line for controlling access to the data/address/arbitration lines. Where constructed as a memory device, the bus device includes memory circuits having a plurality of storage locations, and an interconnecting circuit which monitors the BUSY and NO ARB lines to identify various types of cycles on the bus, and which controls transmission of signals from the memory device over the bus in accordance with information derived by the monitoring means from the BUSY and NO ARB lines.

Abstract: When a device on a computer communications bus receives a request to enter into a transaction and is not yet ready to perform the transaction, it sends a retry signal to the requesting device to indicate to it that it should terminate the transaction that it has initiated. If the responding device may later be ready to engage in the transaction if the transaction is initiated again some time in the future, the signal is a retry signal and differs from the signal that the requesting device would receive if the transaction were to be terminated for some other reason. As a result, the master device can be arranged to re-initiate only those transactions for which there is a likelihood that they can be carried out to completion when they are attempted again.

Abstract: Control of a communications path interconnecting separate devices in a digital computer system is provided by only two signals generated and received locally within each device on the path and asserted on a systems-wide basis on two separate lines of the path. The generation and utilization of the control signals is independent of the physical location of the devices on the path, and position-dependent delays in transmission of the signals from one device to another are avoided.

Abstract: One of a plurality of devices on a common communications path (68) has a local memory (54) that is accessible by other devices on the common communications path (68). Another device on the common communications path (68) may include a cache memory (190) that keeps copies of certain of the data contained by the local memory (54). If another device on the common communications path (68) accesses the local memory (54), the cache (190) is kept apprised of this fact by monitoring of the common communications path (68), and it sets an internal flag to indicate that the data involved may not be valid. However, the contents of memory 54 may also be accessed by means of a processor (50) without using the common communications path (68). Accordingly, provisions are made to send an invalidate signal over the common communications path (68) when a non-path access of the local memory (54) has been made to a location to which access was previously afforded over the common communications path ( 68).