Abstract: A method for optimizing the use of the non-volatile memory of a motor vehicle computer, used for monitoring a functional member of the vehicle by the computer which is programmed to carry out in the course of a given cycle, during the wake-up thereof, a start-up monitoring stage, and before being put into sleep mode, a shut-down monitoring stage, the computer including a standard counter suitable to be stored in a standard unit and an on-the-fly counter suitable to be stored in an on-the-fly unit, the method including the steps of: incrementing the on-the-fly counter in order to identify a potential malfunction of the monitored functional member; comparing the on-the-fly counter with the standard counter in the course of a next monitoring stage of the computer; and generating information representing a malfunction in the case of detecting a deviation between the counters.

Abstract: A method of managing faults for a vehicle engine control system, includes a plurality of monitoring or observation strategies monitoring a plurality of components and using diagnostics to detect the presence of faults in the plurality of components. For each monitoring or observation strategy, referred to as a diagnosis, if it diagnoses the presence of a fault in a component, the fault detected in the diagnosed component is stored and all the monitoring or observation strategies continue to detect the presence of faults in all of the components that they respectively monitor, but the presence of the fault in the diagnosed component is ignored so as to enable the detection of the presence of other faults, if any, in components other than the diagnosed component.

Abstract: A method for diagnosing a mechanism of untimely cut-offs of the power supply to a motor vehicle computer (1) which is programmed to execute a startup routine when woken up and a shutdown routine before being put into sleep mode, includes, at the time of each shutdown routine, generating and storing in storage elements a marker representing a completed execution of the shutdown routine, and at the time of each startup routine, checking for the presence of a marker, and if the marker is present, reinitializing the storage elements of the marker, and if the marker is absent, generating a data element representing a power supply fault.

Abstract: To reduce interference between physically close base and mobile stations belonging to uncoordinated systems of different operators, in a cellular time division telecommunications system, e.g. the TDD mode of UMTS, a method of operation comprises providing a sequence of time frames, each time frame including a plurality of time slots, each time slot having an allocated uplink or downlink channel, wherein the positions of said time slots of said channels are changed in consecutive time frames of said sequence according to a deterministic sequence, e.g. a cyclic rotation. In an initial set up operation, the base station may instruct a mobile station to transmit or receive in certain time slots, and that these time slots should be changed in succeeding frames according to a predefined algorithm transmitted to the mobile station.

Abstract: In a UTRAN operating time division duplexing, one time slot 22(11) in each frame is maintained in a no-transmit condition, all preceding time slots 22(1) to 22(10) being uplink time slots and all succeeding time slots 22(12) to 22(15) being down link time slots (or vice versa). Cell size is markedly increased.