A one number, multi-application, intelligent call processing system provides service benefits to a caller, a servicing location and/or a vanity number advertiser during a call, parallel to the call and/or post call in an integrated common architecture. To provide these benefits, the system utilizes Voice Response Unit (VRU) technology in conjunction with the national telecommunications network connected via Computer Telephone Integration (CTI) to a virtual telephone number database containing a nation-wide master list of telephone numbers with thousands of attribute data items associated by Spatial Key linkage to each telephone number. The process of the invention is initiated by a caller dialing a selected telephone number to request information and/or services. Based on the number dialed, a caller or network provided 10 digit telephone number and VRU prompted for and received caller input, the system retrieves the application requested data from the virtual telephone number database. The application uses the retrieved information to direct the VRU to speak selected retrieved information to the caller that is desired by the caller or needs to be verified by the caller, to automatically connect the caller with a servicing location whose service area can be geographically defined as any size or shape and encompasses the caller provided telephone number's location, and/or to store portions of the received and retrieved information for later use.

1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to telecommunications call processing. More specifically, it relates to processing of a vanity telephone number dialed by a caller with a conventional telephone, so as to access a national virtual telephone number database to provide benefits, such as improved connection efficiency, selected services or products, to the caller, the servicing location(s) associated with the vanity number dialed and/or the vanity number advertiser.
2. Description of the Related Technology
Traditionally, entities with multiple employees, departments and/or locations, such as businesses and government agencies, have provided their customers with multiple telephone number points of contact, with usually at least one telephone number for each employee, department and location. This has placed a major burden on customers and prospective customers to find, remember, dial and be connected to the correct intra-entity telephone number for the services desired. It also has created cost and administrative burdens on these entities to publish and advertise multiple telephone numbers.
In the new world of electronic commerce, many such entities have started advertising "one number", vanity telephone numbers as their primary customer contact point. These vanity numbers are usually national 10 digit numbers starting with area codes such as "800," "888," or "900", local 7 digit numbers starting with an exchange such as "555" and "950" or special purpose three digit numbers like "311", "411" or "911". These numbers are usually easy to remember, such as 1-800-FLORIST. Unlike regular telephone calls with only two participants, vanity telephone number calls can have three participants, recipients, or beneficiaries:
1. The Vanity Number Advertiser PA1 2. The Caller or Consumer PA1 3. The Servicing Location(s) PA1 the network: the system level hardware and software that provides the platform for intra- and inter-system and participant communications; PA1 the information retrieval, processing and storage: the databases and processing algorithms that provide the network application with the information required to fulfill the request; and PA1 the applications: the processes that process and fulfill the request(s) of the caller, the servicing location and/or the vanity advertiser by utilizing the network and the retrieved, processed and stored information. PA1 The USPS address coding guide. PA1 The US Census Bureau's TIGER (Topographical Integrated Geographic Encoded Record) and 1990 census data files. PA1 Geographic and spatial files from Geographic Data Technology, Inc. (GDT) and ETAK.RTM., such as ZIP+4 to latitude and longitude, ZIP+4 to census block, ZIP Code and census boundary, and enhanced TIGER files. PA1 Household and individual databases from Polk, First Data Resources (FDR), Metromail and the big three credit bureaus: Equifax, Trans Union and TRW. PA1 Property databases from TransAmerica, TRW Ready Data and ACXIOM DATAQUICK. PA1 Updated census data files and geodemographic databases from Claritas, Equifax National Decision Systems, Urban Decision Systems (UDS), CACI and Strategic Mapping, Inc. (SMI). PA1 Business and government location databases from American Business Information.RTM. (ABI), DUNS, ProCD and Database American. PA1 Business financial databases from DUNS and TRW. PA1 Hundreds of private company, state and local government and regional files of various types. PA1 They do not contain a telephone number field. PA1 They contain a telephone number field but a high percentage of records have missing telephone numbers, have out of date telephone numbers or have a very limited amount of data associated with the telephone number. PA1 They do not share a common access key that the caller knows, is willing to provide and can easily communicate to a VRU. PA1 1. The stability and updateability of the key over time. PA1 2. The ability of the key to be a unique housing, business and/or postal delivery unit identifier. PA1 3. The geographic hierarchy and precision of the key. PA1 4. The number and quality of updated commercial and public translation tables to and from the key. PA1 5. The availability of tools for third parties to place the key on their files. PA1 6. The ability to precisely associate the key to service locations with service areas of any geographic defined size and shape. PA1 7. The ability of regulated telecommunications entities to code their files with the key and to pass the key outside the regulated portion of the network. PA1 1. Most recent census block code PA1 2. Latitude and Longitude PA1 3. Telephone Nunber PA1 4. USPS ZIP Code PA1 2 digit state code PA1 3 digit county code PA1 4 digit tract code PA1 2 digit tract suffix PA1 1 digit block group code PA1 2 digit block code PA1 1 character block part code PA1 3 digit Numbering Plan Area (NPA) or area code PA1 3 digit NXX, exchange or prefix PA1 4 digit line number or suffix PA1 3 digit ZIP Code is called a Sectional Center. PA1 5 digit ZIP Code is called a Post Office Service Area with a preferred USPS name called the last line name. This is the name shown on the last line of a mailing address. There are 3 special types of ZIP Codes. Two of these, "Fleet Post Office (FPO)/Armed Forces Post Office (APO)" and "PO Box only", do not have precise spatial definitions, but can be linked to unique household equivalent mailing addresses. PA1 7 digit ZIP Code identifies a geographic sector within a Post Office Service Area. PA1 9 digit ZIP Code is called a ZIP+4 and is usually the geographic area of one side of a street within a single one hundred address range block. It is a unique household level identifier for most USPS' PO Box and RR addresses which usually do not have precise spatial definitions. PA1 11 digit ZIP Code is called the Delivery Point Code or ZIP+6 and uniquely identifies a street number address, such as 123 N Main St. The street address is the most common USPS address and is a unique housing or business unit identifier for all single unit buildings with unique street addresses. PA1 Connecting a caller to a servicing location: The prior technology does not support service locations having service areas of any size and shape, nor situations where geographic precision is required. A solution is desired that provides these abilities in an integrated common architecture. PA1 USPS address retrieval: This is presently addressed by having the caller record their name and address, which is later listened to by a person and transcribed. The transcribed address is then processed through CASS certified software for use in an existing customer database of addresses indexed by telephone number. What is desired is a way to use a caller provided telephone number to directly retrieve the CASS certified USPS address associated with the caller provided telephone number and, in applications requiring 100% accuracy, providing the caller a means to verify the retrieved address. In addition, in a post call process, the retrieved, verified and stored address and additional linked data is desired to be used by the vanity advertiser to mail to the caller, for example, a requested store coupon, menu, catalog or informational packet. PA1 The VRU speaks the service location(s) name, address and/or micro directions (to the caller): Service location information is needed by the caller to mail, pickup and/or drop off something to a selected servicing location. The greatest need for micro-area directions to service location(s) is with service locations very small in size, such as Federal Express, UPS and USPS drop boxes, or ATMs located in large physical entities, such as shopping centers or multi-story buildings. A solution is desired that provides these abilities in an integrated common architecture. PA1 The VRU speaks driveable street directions from the caller's location to the selected service location (to the caller). In addition, in a call parallel application, after transferring the call to the servicing location, the application retrieves the service location's FAX number from a Service Location Table and faxes to the service location the caller's telephone number, address and a map and/or directions from the service location to the caller location to assist the servicing location with delivery to caller. The Savage reference describes a application that requires the caller to input two telephone numbers, and the only benefactor to the Savage device is the caller. What is desired is a system that does not require the input of any telephone numbers, or at worst, only one telephone number is provided by the caller. In addition, services would be provided to the caller, servicing location and/or the vanity advertiser. PA1 Eliminating servicing locations based on days and hours of operation and/or services offered: A solution is desired that provides these abilities in an integrated common architecture. PA1 Caller profiling based on Census or geodemographic data: A system is desired, based on a caller's geodemographic code and product consumption rates, to only present product options to the caller that the caller is most likely to buy, or to route the call to an appropriate sales specialist based on the caller's profile. PA1 Applications that require the caller's name and/or individual data such as product registration and insurance, loan or credit applications: What is desired is a way of linking a Spatial Key to a household database containing data, such as name of head of household, street address, number of children in the household and the names of other individuals living in or associated with the household. The system would speak these individual names and the caller would identify himself or herself. Then the system would link to individual data, such as date of birth, credit rating, and so forth, and provide it to the caller, servicing location, and/or vanity advertiser. PA1 Business Location Data Retrieval: What is desired is a way of linking the caller's Spatial Key to a business database containing data, such as name of Business, SIC, Number of employees and DUNS number, which would link directly into the DUNS database for credit information. PA1 Real Property Database Retrieval: What is desired is a way for a contractor, for example, before bidding on a job, to dial a vanity number that interfaces with an automated property database, enter the telephone number of the supposed residential property owner and verify the ownership, address, mortgage holder, and any outstanding liens on the property. PA1 Address Lookup and verification by an operator taking a telephone order: In current telephone order systems, an operator key enters a customer's address and verifies the spelling with the caller. What is desired is a way for the caller's telephone number to be passed to the computer system to automatically retrieve the CASS certified address associated with the caller's telephone number and display it on the operator's visual display. The operator would then ask the caller for the address to which they want the order shipped. If the addresses match, the operator would not have to key enter it and verify the spelling with the caller. If the addresses are different, there is a high potential that the caller is trying to make a fraudulent order and the operator would ask additional questions required to make this determination. PA1 Real Time Address to Spatial Key Coding and Spatial Key to Client Table with Off-Line Master Table update: What is desired is a way of continually updating a Master Table (Phone Number to Spatial Key table) that supports multiple clients and applications in the situation when a caller is trying to be connected to a servicing location and has provided a valid telephone number that is not in the Master Table. PA1 "911" application: In a real time Public Health and Safety application, the caller places an emergency call to the emergency telephone number "911." The "911" application costs the U.S. taxpayer several billion dollars each year, and is currently overloaded with non-emergency calls. What is needed is a more economical alternative system for non-emergency "911" calls that can alleviate the load from the current overworked system. PA1 19 digit ZIP Code is required to create a unique housing or business unit identifier for multiple unit buildings or equivalents, such as trailer parks or firms receiving large volumes of mail. PA1 1. The USPS provides monthly updates to all postal files. PA1 2. The ZIP Code has 6 hierarchical levels. PA1 3. There are very economically priced commercial tools, such as Group 1 and Mailer's Software, that address standardize and assign 11 digit ZIP Codes to files containing raw addresses. PA1 4. Adding the remaining 8 digit code is a fairly basic process for records that require a secondary address to create a unique housing or business unit identifier. PA1 5. There are frequently updated ZIP+4 to latitude and longitude and ZIP+4 to census block translation tables available from the USPS, GDT, Business Location Research (BLR), ETAC and others. PA1 6. There are no technical barriers to creating a DPC to latitude and longitude file if one was required. This would provide the most precise, theatrically possible latitude and longitude assignment of street addresses. PA1 7. There are no restrictions on passing an extended USPS 19 digit ZIP Code outside the regulated telecommunications network because it is not considered customer provided network information. PA1 8. There is a major public safety initiative to change as many RR Box number addresses to street addresses as possible, thus increasing the coverage of the Spatial Keys that can be linked to a precise latitude and longitude. PA1 1. Connecting a caller to a servicing location: This application connects the caller directly to a servicing location retrieved from a Spatial Key indexed Client Table based on the caller provided telephone number being physically located inside the retrieved servicing location's exclusive service area geographically defined as any size or shape. High geographic precision of the location is supported. In cases where the caller provided telephone number is located inside multiple non-exclusive service areas, this application provides the caller a VRU menu of retrieved servicing locations names and then directly connects the caller to the closest servicing location or the one selected by the caller. These abilities and features are provided in a integrated common architecture. PA1 2. USPS address retrieval: This application is based on utilizing the caller or caller provided telephone number to retrieve the caller's CASS certified USPS address. The caller's Spatial Key is linked to the Spatial Key coded and indexed USPS address coding guide and the address is retrieved. The VRU speaks the address back to the caller for confirmation in applications requiring 100% accuracy before linking to any other databases. In addition, in a post call process, the retrieved, verified and stored address and additional linked data can be used by the vanity advertiser to mail to the caller, for example, a requested store coupon, menu, catalog or informational packet. PA1 3. The VRU speaks the service location(s) name, address and/or micro directions (to the caller): Based on a caller provided telephone number, the caller's Spatial Key is used to retrieve location ID(s) of the service location(s) nearest the caller from a Client Table that is associated with the caller's DNIS. The retrieved ID(s) are indexed into the corresponding Service Location table to retrieve the above mentioned information. This can be used by the caller to mail, pickup and/or drop off something to the selected servicing location. Providing the caller with pre-stored micro area directions to the service location(s) is usually used with service locations very small in size, such as Federal Express, UPS and USPS drop boxes, or ATMs located in large physical entities, such as shopping centers or multi-story buildings. These abilities and features are provided in a integrated common architecture. PA1 4. The VRU speaks driveable street directions from the caller's location to the selected service location (to the caller): The caller's Spatial Key is linked to a latitude and longitude which is then fed into a GIS server accessing a latitude and longitude coded and indexed street network database. The database provides a set of directions that are spoken by the VRU. The caller does not need to enter either the source (under normal circumstances) or destination location telephone numbers. In a call parallel application: after transferring the call to the servicing location, the application retrieves the service location's FAX number from a Service Location Table and faxes to the service location the caller's telephone number, address and a map and/or directions from the service location to the caller location to assist the servicing location with delivery to caller. In this case, the GIS server returns the direction data in the form of a map and/or directions and passes this image to the FAX server. PA1 5. Eliminating servicing locations based on days and hours of operation and/or services offered: In the case of multiple servicing locations, the final servicing location list is determined by comparing the days and hours of operation of each service location retrieved from the Service Location table with the day and time of the call. Another method involves having the caller select a pickup or delivery option, (for pizza, for example) and eliminating servicing locations from the list that are not currently open or do not offer the desired service. These abilities and features are provided in a integrated common architecture. PA1 6. Caller profiling based on Census or geodemographic data: The caller provided telephone number is linked to a census block or block group database. The Census Block database contains demographic data, such as race, age, median household size and so forth, or a single numeric geodemographic code that is a composite of the census information which links into a geodemographic code by a product consumption table. Based on the caller's geodemographic code and its product consumption rates, the VRU only presents product options to the caller that the caller is most likely to buy. There are also geodemographic systems that use the ZIP+4 as the base geography instead of the census block. PA1 7. Applications that require the caller's name and/or individual data such as product registration and insurance, loan or credit applications: The caller provided telephone number is linked to a household database containing data, such as name of head of household, street address, number of children in the household and the names of other individuals living in or associated with the household. The VRU can speak these individual names and the caller can identify himself or herself. After the step of identification by name, individual IDs associated with the selected name and stored in the database, such as social security number, state drivers license number, credit card number(s) and bank account number(s), can then be used as a linkage to link to individual ID-indexed databases containing individual data, such as date of birth, credit rating, and so forth. This information can then be provided to the caller, servicing location or vanity advertiser. PA1 8. Business Location Data Retrieval: The caller provided telephone number is linked to a business database containing data, such as name of Business, SIC, Number of employees and DUNS number, which links directly into the DUNS database for credit information. The applications here are very similar to the applications for a household database. PA1 9. Real Property Database Retrieval: Most real property databases are maintained by local government agencies and the data stored in these databases is considered public information. This data is compiled from the public agencies by companies, such as ACXIOM DATAQUICK, and made available to paying clients. Before bidding on a job, for example, a contractor could dial a vanity number that interfaces with an automated property database, enter the telephone number of the supposed residential property owner and verify the ownership, address, mortgage holder and if there are any outstanding liens on the property. PA1 1. Address Lookup and verification by an operator taking a telephone order: The caller's ANI is passed to the computer system via Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) to which the operator's CRT is connected or the operator asks the caller for the telephone number and key enters it. The host computer passes the caller's telephone number over the computer network to the computer storing the Master Table of telephone numbers with corresponding Spatial Keys and the Spatial Key coded USPS National Address database and requests the address associated with the caller's telephone number. This CASS certified address is returned and displayed on the operator's CRT. The operator then asks the caller for the address to which they want the order shipped. If the addresses match, the operator does not have to key enter it and verify the spelling with the caller. This saves both time and money and reduces mistakes. If the addresses are different, there is a high potential that the caller is trying to make a fraudulent order and the operator would ask additional questions required to make this determination. PA1 2. Real Time Address to Spatial Key Coding and Spatial Key to Client Table with Off-Line Master Table update: A caller is trying to be connected to a servicing location and has provided a valid telephone number that is not in the Master Table. The call is transferred to an exceptions handling operator and the telephone number and DNIS are passed via ISDN to the operator's host computer and displayed on the operator's CRT. The operator asks for the caller's address and key enters it. The operator then presses a function key that calls a program that USPS standardizes the address and assigns a Spatial Key. The operator validates the standardized address with the caller. If it validates, the operator then presses another function key that passes the Spatial Key and the DNIS to a program that brings up a list of servicing location(s) with their telephone numbers on the CRT screen. The operator then asks the caller which one they prefer and transfers the call by highlighting the selected service location and pressing another function key. The captured telephone number and Spatial Key are stored on disk or other mass storage and are retrieved later by another process that updates the Master Table which supports multiple clients and applications. PA1 3. "911" application: In a real time Public Health and Safety applications, the caller places an emergency call to the emergency telephone number "911." The caller's telephone number is passed by Caller ID to the answering hardware which passes the information via ISDN to a Geographic Information System (GIS) computer with large CRT graphic terminals in front of dispatching operators. The system looks up the caller's Spatial Key in a Master Table and then looks up the caller's latitude and longitude in a Spatial Key to Latitude and Longitude table and the caller's address from the Spatial Key coded and indexed USPS address coding guide. The caller's location is then displayed in the map window on the answering dispatcher's CRT along with the street network and the current location of all emergency vehicles by type and status. The caller's address is displayed in the address window. Based on the type of emergency and the current location and status of the emergency vehicles, the dispatcher determines which vehicles(s) to dispatch and when they should be dispatched. PA1 1. Spatial Key database coding and maintenance. PA1 2. Providing caller communication with a CTI network. PA1 3. Capturing and validating the caller provided telephone number and the vanity number dialed. PA1 4. Linking the captured telephone number to a Spatial Key via a Master Telephone Number to Spatial Key table. PA1 5. Linking the Spatial Key to Spatial Key coded and/or indexed spatial, geographic, USPS address, household, individual, property, business location, government location record databases to retrieve data associated with the caller. PA1 6. Linking the Caller's Spatial Key to service location ID(s) or telephone number(s) stored in a pre-built and Spatial Key coded and indexed Client Table associated with the vanity number dialed (DNIS). PA1 7. Linking the servicing location ID(s) or telephone number(s) retrieved from the Client Table to other service location specific data stored in a Service Locations table associated with the vanity number dialed and indexed by ID or telephone number. PA1 8. Connecting the caller to an exceptions handling operator or system. PA1 9. Spatially relating, in the form of a map or directions, the caller provided telephone number location with the selected servicing location. PA1 10. Connecting or transferring the caller to a servicing location. PA1 11. Storing selected call information to be accessed later by the caller, the serving location, and/or the vanity advertiser. PA1 12. Providing call, call parallel and/or post call information to the caller relating to the servicing location and/or the spatial relationship between the servicing location and the location of the caller provided telephone number. PA1 13. Providing the caller with a post call communications. PA1 14. Providing call, call parallel and/or post call information to the vanity number advertiser and the servicing location(s) regarding the ANI, DNIS, caller provided telephone number and corresponding Spatial Key, and data retrieved or processed from databases using the Spatial Key as a linkage means. PA1 15. Providing the vanity number advertiser and servicing locations post call communications.
Based on the increased volume of calls to these vanity numbers and customer demands for 24 hour support during seven days a week, reduced telephone busy signals and shorter hold times, vanity number advertisers have begun answering these calls with a new technology called Voice Response Units (VRU), also known as Interactive Voice Response (IVR).
Currently, there are over 50 manufacturers of VRUs. The commercialization of the VRU and changes in advertising practices has also spawned large numbers of new VRU applications from product manufacturers. Products may be advertised by an infomercial showing an "800" number to call so that a consumer may obtain a list of nearby dealers and/or a product brochure. The 800 number is answered by a VRU which requests the caller to record their name and address. This partially automates the call process, but requires large amounts of disk storage to store the caller provided recorded voice information and creates a large amount of post call work for the advertiser. For example, the advertiser must listen to, understand, transcribe the caller's name and address, certify the address by use of a United States Postal Service (USPS) coding accuracy support system (CASS), manually compile a list of nearby dealers and mail the information packet to the caller's address. These inefficiencies have created a need to further automate VRU applications. This is accomplished through what is now called intelligent call processing technology.
In this context, automated intelligent call processing (ICP) is defined as the capture of network provided data, such as automatic number identification (ANI) and dialed number identification service (DNIS), and caller-provided data, such as data entered by Dual Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) through a Touchtone telephone key pad or the caller speaking through the telephone to a VRU. ICP also involves the VRU accessing external databases that can decipher, validate, process and fulfill the caller's request by playing pre-recorded messages, creating call specific messages and speaking them to the caller, storing call captured information that can be accessed by or forwarded to the caller, servicing location or vanity advertiser, and/or automatically routing and connecting the caller to the servicing location or department. Semi-automated intelligent call processing is characterized by automating components of the call through intelligent call processing, but having some portion of the request still requiring live operator support during the call.
There are three primary components to an intelligent call processing system:

One number intelligent call processing system


A digital computer includes a main and an auxiliary pipeline processor which are configured to concurrently execute contiguous groups of instructions taken from a single instruction sequence. The instructions in a sequence may be divided into groups by using either taken-branch instructions or certain instructions which may change the contents of the general purpose registers as group delimiters. Both methods of grouping the instructions use a branch history table to predict the sequence in which the instructions will be executed.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to stored program digital computers and, more particularly, to a computer capable of splitting a single sequence of instructions into two or more sub-sequences and of processing the sub-sequences in parallel.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Many kinds of parallelism have been exploited in pursuit of greater computational speed in a digital computer. A bit-serial computer is a processor without any parallelism. Such a processor will take eight steps to handle an eight-bit byte and, in general n steps to handle an n-bit word. Some of the earliest electronic computers were bit-serial machines. A first type of parallelism that was exploited was to process more than one bit per step. For example, the S/360 family of processors, manufactured by International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), provided a range of speeds partly by varying the number of bits handled per step. These processors handled eight bits per step at the low end and 64 bits per step at the high end. This kind of parallelism has recently been a key factor in the design of microprocessors.
In another kind of parallelism used to increase the speed of a processor, the next subsequent instruction to be executed is read from memory (fetched) while a current instruction is being executed. Since the fetching of an instruction must always precede its execution, there is always some speed to be gained by performing these operations in parallel. This kind of parallelism leads directly to a third kind of parallelism, in which the execution of an instruction is divided into several sub-steps, for example, Instruction Decode, Address Generation, Cache Access, and Algorithm Execution. Each of these sub-steps uses separate hardware in the processor so that it may be done in parallel with other parts of preceding and succeeding instructions.
For optimal performance, it is desirable for a pipeline processor to be simultaneously executing a sequence of several instructions, overlapping the instruction decode operations of one with the address generation of another and the algorithm execution operations of yet another. When a sequence of instructions includes a branch instruction which will be taken, the instructions in the sequence following the branch instruction will not be executed. In this instance, the processor must discard any partial results from the execution of these instructions and restart the pipeline at the target address of the taken branch instruction.
To avoid discarding partial results when a taken branch is encountered, some pipeline processors take advantage of an observed property called "persistence of behavior." Persistence of behavior is a term used to describe the tendency of a processor to repeat previously executed instructions and re-access previously accessed data. This repetitive behavior is pervasive and it has been observed in many situations. As an example of how this behavior may occur, consider a large processor running in a multiprocessor environment under the control of an operating system. In this environment, the processor would spend much of its time executing modules from the operating system. For example, very frequent use would be made of the Task Dispatcher and Lock Manager modules. These modules implement tasks in the operating system that would be impractical to individually program for each application. Clearly these modules and similar modules of the operating system are used over and over again.
There are at least two ways in which persistence of behavior is used to improve processor performance. One is the cache memory and the other is the branch history table (BHT). A cache memory stores instructions and data that have been recently accessed by the processor with the expectation that a considerable fraction of those instructions and data will be used again in the near future. When this is the case--and it is very often--the cache can supply the requested instructions and data very quickly.
The BHT stores information about branch instructions that the processor has encountered with the expectation that the processor will encounter many of the same branch instructions in the near future and that the outcome of executing the branch instruction will be the same. The stored branch information is used to reduce processor delays resulting from the need to restart a pipeline due to changes in program flow caused by a taken branch instruction. As long as the BHT entries remain valid, a pipeline processor using a BHT may proceed uninterrupted through many branch instructions.
A fourth type of parallelism is to decode two or more successive instructions during each cycle. This type of parallelism assumes that each of the sub-steps, referred to above in the discussion of pipeline processors, may be performed in one machine cycle. This is a common capability of high performance processors. This type of parallelism requires two or more sets of instruction decoding hardware and may require two or more sets of address generation hardware, cache accessing hardware and algorithm execution hardware.
It is noted that each kind of parallelism set forth above is separate and distinct in that it can be used in combination with each other kind. In fact, all four kinds of parallelism are used in many high performance processors; each kind contributing its own performance advantage.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,559,183 to Sussenguth and assigned to the assignee of the present invention, describes a pipeline processor which uses a BHT to choose instructions to be executed. The use of a BHT is based on the observation that most branches, considered individually, are consistently either taken or not taken and, if taken, have a consistent target address. The BHT is a table of taken branches. Each entry in the table includes the address of the taken branch followed by its target address. This table is a hardware construct and, so, it has a fixed size, typically from 1024 to 4096 entries. Entries are made only for taken branches as they are encountered. When the BHT is full, making a new entry requires displacing an existing entry. This may be accomplished, for example, by evaluating the entries on a least recently used (LRU) basis as in a cache memory.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,107,773 to Galbreath et al. describes a processor which employs a memory having two independent sections and processing hardware which operates in parallel using one section in conjunction with an arithmetic unit while using the other section in conjunction with data transfer to and from an external memory. The apparatus described in this patent is an example of the third type of parallelism described above.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,295,193 to Pomerene, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, relates to a processor design for simultaneously executing two or more instructions. The instructions to be executed are divided into groups having, at most, n instructions each, for example, during compilation. Each group may have only a predetermined number of data and instruction fetches and, if the group contains a branch, it must be the last instruction. Each instruction in a group uses separate instruction execution hardware. This is an example of the fourth type of parallelism described above.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,679,141 to Pomerene et al. concerns an optimized BHT for a pipeline processor. The BHT described in this reference includes an active area which contains entries for a small number of branches which the processor may encounter in the near future and a backup area which contains all other entries. Entries are brought into the active area in advance of-when they may be encountered by the processor. As entries are removed from the active area they are put into the backup area. The relatively small size of the active area allows it to be designed for speed and to be optimally located within the processor hardware.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,766,566 entitled "Performance Enhancement Scheme for a RISC type VLSI Processor" by C. M. Chuang relates to a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) design which uses two execution units to process two instructions in parallel. One execution unit may handle any instruction the other execution unit may include only a subset of the hardware in the first unit and may therefore be limited to processing only some types of instructions.


Compositions are provided for removing grease or for cleaning substrates. The compositions include a lower (C.sub.1 -C.sub.4) alkyl ester of a C.sub.11 -C.sub.13 fatty acid, a non-cationic surfactant, and optionally, a coupling agent. Methods for removing grease or for cleaning are also provided.

The Clean Air Act of 1990 imposed stringent restrictions on the amounts and types of materials that can be emitted into the atmosphere. One category of chemicals which was targeted for lower emissions is volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Although not specifically considered hazardous air pollutants, this group of materials is thought to contribute to the overall lowering of air quality.
Many high VOC content materials are excellent solvents and possess excellent cleaning properties. Such materials include low to intermediate flash point mineral spirits, lower alkyl aromatic hydrocarbons, terpene hydrocarbons, low molecular weight alcohol glycol ethers, ether acetates, and ketones. However, because of environmental regulation and related concerns, less hazardous alternatives have been sought.
For example, petroleum or vegetable oils have been mixed with high VOC solvents. However, the resultant products have proven unsuitable, due to the tendency of the petroleum or vegetable oil to impart high viscosity to the final product. High viscosity adversely affects the application and removal of the cleaning product. Furthermore, odor can be a problem, particularly with vegetable oils, because they can become rancid due to oxidation. Finally, these products are unsuitable for the removal of certain types of soil, such as some printing inks.
Prigge, U.S. Pat. No. 4,734,215, attempted to combine a major amount of a saturated hydrocarbon with a minor amount of at least one alkylated aromatic compound. The saturated hydrocarbon was an aliphatic and/or cyclo-aliphatic compound. Saturated hydrocarbons were incorporated because these were considered non-toxic.
Krawack, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,143,639 and 5,380,453, discloses an emulsion of a C.sub.1 -C.sub.5 alkyl ester of an aliphatic C.sub.8 -C.sub.22 monocarboxylic acid as an ink remover.
Folkard et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,194,173 removed inks and other oily contaminants from printing machines, printing plates, and offset blankets with a cleaning aid based on a C.sub.6 or higher alkyl ester of a fatty acid, and preferably a C.sub.8 -C.sub.22 fatty acid.
Woo et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,232,632, disclose a detergent composition utilizing a C.sub.6 -C.sub.9 alkyl aromatic, and particularly an alkyl benzene, as a hydrophobic solvent in combination with a mixture of non-ionic and zwitterionic detergent surfactants. The use of any other solvents is not disclosed.
Principato, U.S. Pat. No. 5,340,493, discloses cleaning compositions which include a tall oil fatty acid ester, organic solvents and optionally, a surfactant.
It has now been discovered that particular alkyl esters of fatty acids, when combined with non-cationic surfactants, and optionally a coupling agent, provide effective low VOC content, general purpose cleaning/degreasing compositions.


A control system for allowing a user to control the orientation of a medical device or a medical instrument in a variety of directions. An actuator selectively tensions one or more control cables having ends secured at or adjacent a distal tip of the medical device in order to bend the distal tip in a desired direction. In one embodiment, a physician can adjust the movement of the distal tip in a desired direction without affecting the orientation of the medical device in other directions.

The present invention relates to medical devices in general and, in particular, to devices for manipulating steerable medical devices or other minimally invasive tools within a patient's body.
Steerable medical devices and other minimally invasive surgical tools are being increasingly used to perform medical procedures inside a patient's body. Steerable devices generally include an elongated shaft and one or more control cables having distal ends secured at or adjacent the distal tip of the shaft. A control knob or lever selectively tightens the control cables in order to bend the device in a desired direction. The problem with most medical device controllers is that they require two hands in order to move the distal tip of a device in more than one plane. Alternatively, in those designs where a user can move the distal tip in four directions with one hand, two hands are still required in order to advance, retract, or rotate the device. Although some robotic systems have been proposed to allow a physician to direct a distal tip of a device in any direction using motors, these systems are generally expensive and complicated.


A communication device comprising: a first radio capable of communicating according to a first protocol and having a set of operational modes; and a second radio capable of communicating according to a second protocol, the communication device being configured to, in dependence on one or more communications by the second radio in accordance with the second protocol, selecting one mode of operation for the first radio from the set of operational modes, wherein said one or more communications comprises: sending a first message; and a response or non-response to the first message.

An increasing number of modern devices are capable of radio communication using multiple communication technologies. For example, many laptops, tablets, PDAs and smart phones are capable of communicating via Bluetooth and also via. IEEE 802.11 (WiFi). Such devices may be portable and may have to periodically scan network channels to detect an 802.11 access point (to which it can connect to) when the portable device moves from one area to another or moves outside of an 802.11 coverage area. As the portable device may have to constantly check if it is within an 802.11 coverage area using its radio transceiver, the power consumption of the portable device may substantially increase. Since the most portable devices are battery-powered, the reduction of the battery life can undercut the effectiveness of the true mobility of the portable device. If the user does not want the portable device to automatically scan the 802.11 coverage area, the user may have to manually select the 802.11 communication when he or she needs it. With this strategy, the use of the 802.11 capable devices is not automatic and not user-friendly.
There is therefore a need for a mechanism that allows a portable device to connect to a wireless network in a power efficient and user-friendly manner.


The invention relates to an apparatus and a method for reading an optical code. The apparatus having a casing with a reading window; the casing having an illuminator acting through the reading window on an optical code to be read, a detector responsive to light scattered from the illuminated optical code into the casing through the reading window, and an objective lens interposed between the reading window and the detector, in a position to pick up the light scattered from the illuminated optical code and project this light onto the detector. The detector having a plurality of light-sensitive elements effective to convert the light to electric signals representing the light image. The apparatus is characterized in that the illuminator has a first array of light sources active in a first illumination configuration, and at least a second array of light sources active in at least a second illumination configuration different from the first one.

This invention relates to an apparatus and a method for reading an optical code. More particularly, the invention relates to an apparatus and a method for reading an optical code within a preset distance range.
As is known, optical codes can be read by means of either stationary or portable reading apparatus. In either cases, the apparatus include a casing with a reading window through which a means of illuminating a code to be read, and a means of reading the image of the code being read by detecting light scattered therefrom and converting it to electric signals, are both arranged to act. The detection means for converting the light signal to an electric signal may be of different types; in general, a so-called CCD (Charge-Coupled Device) is used which comprises an array of a very large number of light-sensitive elements.
Reading apparatus of the above-described type have a drawback in that they can only provide a correct reading of the optical codes within a limited distance range; this restricts substantially their applicability.
A problem to be solved in code reading as effected by a human operator and in automatic object sorting and handling systems, is that of identifying and classifying with a single apparatus objects wherein the distance between the reading apparatus and the optical code can considerably vary. In this situation, the use of an apparatus as above described is disadvantageous, since the apparatus is not always capable of correctly focusing on the object codes to be identificated.
The underlying technical problem of this invention is that of enabling proper reading of optical codes placed at varying distances within a broad range of distances, using an apparatus of simple and low-cost construction.

Apparatus and method for reading an optical code


A solar cell panel and method of forming a solar cell panel. The method includes a: forming an electrically conductive bus bar on a top surface of a bottom cover plate; forming an electrically conductive contact frame proximate to a bottom surface of a top cover plate, the top cover plate transparent to visible light; and placing an array of rows and columns of solar cell chips between the bottom cover plate and the top cover plate, each solar cell chip of the array of solar cell chips comprising an anode adjacent to a top surface and a cathode adjacent to a bottom surface of the solar cell chip, the bus bar electrically contacting each cathode of each solar cell chip of the array of solar cell chips and the contact frame contacting each anode of each solar cell chip of the array of solar cell chips.

Solar cell panels require many steps to fabricate and it is relatively expensive for a manufacturer to supply more than a few voltage/current combination solar cell panels. Accordingly, the industry would welcome reductions in solar cell panel fabrication costs and increased solar cell panel fabrication flexibility. Therefore there exists a need in the art to mitigate the deficiencies and limitations described hereinabove.

Solar cell panels and method of fabricating same

International Business Machines Corporation


A hybrid support rail for receiving fixtures in a cabin of a vehicle includes a support rail base, first attachment elements, second attachment elements formed so as to be complementary to the first attachment elements, and a support rail upper part. The support rail base has a lower side and an upper side. The upper side has a receiving housing extending along a main extension direction of the support rail base for sliding in first attachment elements and, on a side facing away from the lower side, a support surface having at least one recess. The receiving housing is formed so as to prevent the first attachment elements from sliding out towards the support surface. The support rail upper part has a contact surface for placement on the support surface. The contact surface has recesses through which the second attachment elements are guided for insertion in the first attachment elements.

For structural components which are arranged in interiors of commercial aircraft and other means of transport, different requirements apply depending on the application. To attach fixtures in a cabin, support rails extending approximately in the longitudinal direction of the cabin are used, which rails are part of a floor support or can be attached thereto. Since, in a commercial aircraft, considerable loads can be assumed when dimensioning support elements of this type, said support elements are conventionally provided with correspondingly high strength.
Furthermore, structural components of this type are also exposed to soiling and changing levels of moisture as a result of frequent use, and therefore adequate corrosion resistance is required. To achieve high strength and outstanding corrosion resistance, in some modern commercial aircraft, for example seat rails or rails for receiving cabin monuments are already made of titanium in some portions. It is known for such rails to be made completely of titanium in regions that are susceptible to corrosion, but this is very expensive.
A combination of portions made of titanium and portions made of another material could be advantageous in terms of weight and cost. DE 10 2015 100 189 A1 discloses for example producing a first profile from aluminium and a second profile from titanium and interconnecting said profiles. For this purpose, a recess is provided in the first profile, in which the second profile is inserted in an interlocking manner and bonded.

Hybrid support rail for receiving fixtures in a cabin of a vehicle


A method of predicting a mood state of a user may include recording an audio sample via a microphone of a mobile computing device of the user based on the occurrence of an event, extracting a set of acoustic features from the audio sample, generating one or more emotion values by analyzing the set of acoustic features using a trained machine learning model, and determining the mood state of the user, based on the one or more emotion values. In some embodiments, the audio sample may be ambient audio recorded periodically, and/or call data of the user recorded during clinical calls or personal calls.

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a severe, chronic mental illness that typically begins in early adulthood and is characterized by periodic and pathological mood changes ranging from extreme lows (depression) to extreme highs (mania). There are several sub-types of BD defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, version 5 (DSM 5); each category is operationalized in terms of the nature and number of symptoms that are present and identified by a trained clinician. There are 3 primary categories: 1) BD type I wherein the individuals experience overt manias, broadly defined as elevated and misguided energy states that result in incapacitation (the individual is unable to responsibly discharge social, personal, or vocational duties). 2) BD type II wherein the individuals experience hypomanias, broadly defined as less severely elevated energy states (compared to mania) wherein there are qualitative and quantitative change in energy states that measurably impair the ability of the individual to discharge his/her duty. 3) BD Unspecified describes a clinical state and pattern wherein either the nature or number of symptoms, although identifiable and present, is insufficient to substantiate the DSM 5 category. Individuals in the unspecified category frequently experience disruptions in their lives and require medical management. The depressed states in BD are clinically identical from a phenomenological perspective to depressive states in individuals who experience only Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) as defined by the DSM 5. The difference between depressed states in MDD and BD is primarily found in the time course of the states; depressions in BD typically last for shorter periods of time (weeks to months) while depressions in MDD last longer (months to years). BDI and BDII combined are found in up to two percent of the world's population (including BD unspecified will push the frequency to 4%) with a core clinical expression pattern related to emotion, energy, and psychomotor activity. These core clinical signs and symptoms are monitored to gauge the health and progress of the individual in treatment. The dynamic nature of BD demands efficient clinical monitoring to detect mood changes in sufficient time to treat or mitigate their severity. Intense clinical monitoring is effective but unrealistic due to cost and the availability of skilled health care providers. Yet, individuals with mood disorders (BD and MDD) require regular clinical monitoring to promote long-term health. Current resource-intense and clinic-based methods are costly and inefficient. Clinical observations and evaluations of speech and social interaction patterns are essential to psychiatric evaluation, but consistent or reliable methods to measure, compare, and document changes beyond the opinion of the clinical observer (variable) and the memory of the patient (unreliable) are lacking. These clinical challenges have significantly hampered the development of objective biomarkers. For example, current mood recognition systems are focused on mapping between speech to mood directly, which is challenging due to the complexity of the speech signal. Strategies for mobile monitoring for mental health have mostly relied upon self-reported diagnosis of a disorder on a device or social media to identify features indicative of the disorder, be it anxiety, BD, depression or anorexia. However, these interactive self-reports are often incomplete or misleading. An alternative approach is to directly recognize mood from observed behavior. Descriptive statistics of phone calls, such as duration and frequency have been associated with mood episodes, and it is clinically known that activity levels increase in mania and decrease in depression. The relationship between emotion and mood has been gaining attention, and the utility of using measures of emotion to detect depressed speech. However, these attempts have been conducted in a controlled environment, limiting their use "in the wild." No methods for evaluating emotion 'in the wild' to predict mood states exist in the prior art.
Attempts have been made to formulate automated methods for identifying mood by analyzing speech audio signals. These attempts have sought to slot speech into pre-determined emotion/mood categories. For example, U.S. Patent Application Publication US 20160322065A1 to Shimoji discusses identifying human emotions/moods including anger, sadness, and happiness. However, such emotional categories are nebulous and rely on colloquial understandings of psychology (folk-psychology) that are lacking in quantitative and scientific grounding. The testing conducted with respect to the Shimoji application indicates that the methods and systems disclosed therein did not result in sufficient accuracy to be useful. In short, current challenges in speech emotion recognition and assistive technology include generalizability, robustness, and performance. As such, methods and systems for accurately identifying emotions and/or mood by analyzing speech audio signals using current and rigorous clinical definitions are needed.

Automatic speech-based longitudinal emotion and mood recognition for mental health treatment

THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN


An evaporator assembly unit, especially for a vehicle heater or a reformer arrangement of a fuel cell system, includes a wall arrangement (12) enclosing an evaporation chamber (20) with a circumferential wall (14) and with a bottom wall (16). An air introduction shoulder (18) extending in the direction of a wall longitudinal axis (L) is provided with a plurality of first air introduction openings (22). Evaporator medium (26), that is porous at least in some areas, is provided on the side of the wall arrangement (12) facing the evaporation chamber (20). An auxiliary air opening arrangement (34) with at least one second air introduction opening (36) is provided in the wall arrangement (12).

Such evaporator assembly units are used, for example, for evaporative burners in vehicle heaters. The liquid fuel, in general, the fuel that is also used in a vehicle, is fed here into the porous evaporator medium via a feed line arrangement, distributed in this porous evaporator medium by capillary action and optionally under the action of the force of gravity, and then evaporated on the side of the porous evaporator medium exposed towards the evaporation chamber. The air necessary for mixing with the fuel vapor is introduced into a central area of the evaporation chamber via the air introduction shoulder. This leads to a comparatively good mixing of the air introduced and the fuel vapor, so that a combustible mixture can be made available essentially over the entire volume area of the evaporation chamber. This [mixture] is then ignited and burned during the heating operation, and the heat generated during the combustion is then transferred to a heat carrier medium, for example, into air to be introduced into the interior space of a vehicle or into a liquid medium.
Furthermore, such an evaporator assembly unit may also be used to make available a mixture containing fuel or hydrocarbon vapor in a reformer arrangement, which mixture will then be converted into a gas containing hydrogen in a reforming process taking place at a catalytic material. Consequently, the evaporator assembly unit is used to convert a medium, which is fed in at first in the liquid form and contains hydrocarbon, and which may likewise be the fuel used in a vehicle, into a vapor phase in this case as well. It is, of course, also possible when using such an evaporator assembly unit in a reformer arrangement to mix and burn the hydrocarbon vapor generated, for example, during the start phase, with air, which is likewise introduced, in order to make it possible to make available the high temperatures necessary for the start of the reforming process, especially in the area of the catalytic material of the reformer arrangement.

Evaporator assembly unit, especially for a vehicle heater or a reformer arrangement of a fuel cell system


A process for separating oil from a lubricant composition containing solid particles. The contaminated lubricant composition is mixed with liquid or supercritical CO.sub.2 before the lubricant composition and CO.sub.2 mixture is filtered through a filter medium. The CO.sub.2 is then evaporated, leaving an oil residue. Mixing the lubricant composition with CO.sub.2 before filtration prevents the filter medium from being blinded by solid particles.

Metalworking lubricant compositions are widely used in the steel and aluminum industries for reducing the thickness of sheet metal in rolling mills. The lubricant compositions are typically mineral oil or synthetic oil combined with various additives. Alternatively, they may be emulsions wherein a small quantity of oil is mixed with a larger volume of water. The compositions lubricate interfaces between rolls and sheet metal, and they cool the metal as it passes between sets of opposed rolls. After prolonged use, the lubricant compositions become contaminated with finely divided metal particles, metal oxide particles and other extraneous matter such as dirt. These contaminants decrease process efficiency, increase viscosity, reduce the activity of oil as a lubricant, and eventually cause smudging and other surface defects in the product.
When the lubricant composition is contaminated, its usefulness is reduced because the solid particulate contaminants furnish an undesired abrasive and because the particles increase viscosity of the oil phase. Accordingly, it is desirable to remove the solid particles so that oil in the composition can be reused.
In both ferrous and non-ferrous metalworking operations, filtration systems are customarily established for reclaiming hydrocarbon oils from used lubricants. In these systems, the oil is separated from water, if required, and then the oil is filtered through a particulate filter medium. Diatomaceous earth particles having an average size in the range of about 1-30 microns are widely used. Diatomaceous earth filtration prolongs the life of the filter cycle by preventing the filter cake from being blinded quickly by small particulates in the oil.
In the prior art, used diatomaceous earth was typically discarded after being used to filter lubricant oils. However, the discarded diatomaceous earth poses a potential environmental hazard because of its residual oil content. Accordingly, there is a need for a process capable of reclaiming residual oil from used lubricant compositions, without discarding a large volume of oil together with the filter medium.
Lubricant compositions employed in aluminum rolling mills generally contain mineral or synthetic oil together with various oil additives. These additives are generally organic compounds such as carboxylic acids, alcohols, and esters. One important feature of the present invention is that the process described herein recovers oil additives together with mineral oil or synthetic oil.
A principal objective of our invention is to provide an economical process for removing solid particles from lubricant compositions.
A related objective of our invention is to provide a process for removing solid particles from lubricant compositions without adding any organic solvents such as benzene, toluene, methanol and tetrahydrofuran. These solvents pose serious health risks to persons inhaling or ingesting them, and they are potentially hazardous to the environment.
Additional objectives and advantages of our invention will become apparent to persons skilled in the art from the following detailed description.

Separating solid particles from used lubricant compositions


The present invention relates to a novel construction of a ball and, more particularly, to a novel construction of baseball, such as a hardball or a softball which has enhanced curve characteristics. The invention relates to a ball comprising: (a) a spherical core; (b) a first flexible cover member formed approximately in the shape of a figure 8, and having the peripheral edge folded under and a series of thread holes penetrating through the cover member adjacent the folded under edge; (c) a second flexible cover member formed approximately in the shape of a figure 8 and having the peripheral edge folded under and a series of thread holes penetrating through the cover member adjacent the folded-under edge; and (d) a first thread and a second thread which, when the first and second cover members are placed in an intersecting mating pattern over the spherical core, penetrate in alternating intersecting pattern the thread holes in the areas adjacent the intersecting folded-under edges of the first and second cover members, to thereby completely enfold and cover the spherical core and create a ball which has raised areas around the adjacent intersections of the first and second cover members.

The present invention relates to a novel construction of a ball and, more particularly, to a novel construction of baseball, such as a hardball or a softball which has enhanced curve characteristics.
Typical baseballs (hardballs) and softballs comprise a solid core and two outer FIG. 8-type covers enclosing the core. The outer covers normally comprise two intersecting 8-shaped members, made of leather, the intersections of which are hand stitched together by thread, to thereby envelop the core. A problem with conventional baseballs is that after the stitching operation, the thread stitching the two covers together is exposed. The threads become worn after usage, often to the point that the thread becomes broken. Once the threads become broken, the two covers start to separate from the core and the baseball becomes useless.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,772,544, granted Jun. 30, 1998, Yang, discloses a baseball or a softball which includes two or more cover members engaged on the outer portion of a core and having an abutting peripheral portion. A pad is engaged between the core and the abutting peripheral portion of the two cover members and is stitched and secured to the abutting peripheral portion of the cover members by a thread. When the thread is tightened, a number of bulges may be formed along the abutting peripheral portions of the cover members. The thread becomes embedded in and protected by the bulges. Thus they are protected from being worn out easily.
An objective of the present invention is to provide a baseball which can be easily gripped and curves sharply when thrown.
A second objective is to provide a baseball or a softball in which the thread for securing the two cover members together is embedded in the adjoining seams and is thus suitably protected from being abraded and easily worn out.
In accordance with one aspect of the invention, there is provided a ball comprising a core, at least two flexible cover members enveloping the core and including an abutting folded-under peripheral portion for each of the two cover members, and two threads stitched in interlocking fashion through the abutting folded-under peripheral portions of the two cover members for securing the abutting peripheral portions of the two cover members together. The stitched edges form bulges on the abutting peripheral portions of the two cover members. These bulges increase air drag when the ball is pitched with a spin and thereby enhance the curve characteristics of the ball.
The invention is directed to a ball comprising: (a) a spherical core; (b) a first flexible cover member formed approximately in the shape of a FIG. 8, and having the peripheral edge folded under and a series of thread holes penetrating through the cover member adjacent the folded-under edge; (c) a second flexible cover member formed approximately in the shape of a FIG. 8 and having the peripheral edge folded under and a series of thread holes penetrating through the cover member adjacent the folded-under edge; and (d) a first thread and a second thread which, when the first and second cover members are placed in an intersecting mating pattern over the spherical core, penetrate in alternating intersecting pattern the thread holes in the areas adjacent the intersecting folded-under edges of the first and second cover members, to thereby completely enfold and cover the spherical core and create a ball which has raised areas around the adjacent intersections of the first and second cover members.
The invention is also directed to a method of constructing a ball constructed of a spherical core, a first cover formed approximately in the shape of a FIG. 8, and a second cover formed approximately in the shape of a FIG. 8, which comprises forming cuts in the peripheries of the two covers adjacent the edges, the cuts partially penetrating the thickness of the two cover members, punching a series of thread holes through the folded peripheries of the first and second covers, folding the peripheries of the first and second covers under along the two cuts to provide first and second covers which have peripheries which are double the thickness of the main body area of the two covers, gluing the folded peripheries to the corners, gluing the areas of the two covers between the folded-under peripheries, placing the first and second covers with the folded-under peripheries over the spherical core to completely enclose the surface of the spherical core, and stitching the folded-under peripheries of the first and second covers together in intersecting manner with a pair of elongated threads, to thereby provide a ball with raised intersecting areas.
The baseball, according to my invention, by having intersecting fold-under seams, and stitching, creates a baseball which provides a better grip for the pitcher. The raised seams enable the pitcher""s fingers to readily grip the seams and thus impart improved pitching control over the baseball. Furthermore, since the intersecting fold-under seams of the baseball are folded under, thereby raising the profile of the seams, the baseball according to my invention creates more air-drag and thus the baseball, when rotated rapidly by the pitcher snapping his pitching hand and arm, curves more sharply than conventional baseballs when approaching home plate. The baseball according to my invention can be used to construct both hardballs and softballs, and any other ball design which has a cover that is stitched.

Curve enhancing stitched baseball and softball


A suction inlet for a central vacuum system of a building includes a housing mounted on the floor of the building and defining a slot along the floor. The slot can be opened and closed and simultaneously a vacuum duct connected to the housing is opened and closed by a plug member. When the plug and the slot are opened, a switch actuates the central vacuum system to draw air into the housing through the slot across the floor so that dust, dirt and debris on the floor can simply be swept into the slot and drawn away.

This invention relates to an air inlet for a central vacuum system within a building.
Central vacuum systems have become more popular in recent years due to the convenience of use and the high air flow which can be generated using the larger fan systems possible when the vacuum source is a fixed source at a central location within the building.
As far is known, the only inlet arrangements which are used for such central vacuums comprise a wall mounted opening to which can be attached a hose so that the user can move the inlet end of the hose around the building while the outlet end of the hose is attached to the wall mounting. Generally such wall mountings including a flap on the outside surface which can be closed against a suitable seal to prevent air entry through that inlet when the inlet is not in use. When the flap valve is open, this exposes a cylindrical channel into which an end of the hose can be inserted. The cylindrical channel includes a rubber O ring to seal around the end of the hose. The hose actuates a switch simply by shorting across two connectors so as to actuate the central vacuum source when the hose is in place.
It is necessary with all of these vacuum inlet connectors to provide a hose and therefore to transport the hose around the house or building even for relatively small clean-up jobs, for example picking up crumbs or other spills in the kitchen or dining room area. Often the kitchen and dining room area have floors which are not carpeted but covered by a smooth hard material such as tile, vinyl or wood. To clean up such minor spills, therefore, the householder often prefers to use a dust pan and brush rather than get out the hose and connect it to the vacuum inlet.
It is one object of the present invention to provide an improved vacuum inlet for a central vacuum system in a building which is more effective and advantageous for use with a smooth, non-carpeted floor area.
According to the invention, therefore, there is provided an inlet for a central vacuum system within a building, comprising a building floor, a central vacuum source, a vacuum inlet housing mounted in the floor, vacuum connection means on the housing connected to said central vacuum source for drawing air into the housing for transportation of dust and dirt, means on the housing defining an elongated slot with one side edge of the slow lying along the floor such that material swept along the floor can enter this slot to be entrained with air drawn into the housing through the slot, valve means for closing off air flow through the housing to said central source from said slot and switch means responsive to opening of said valve means for actuating said central source.
Embodiments of the invention will now be described in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:


An ice dispenser for a refrigerator is provided. The ice dispenser includes an ice storage container housing and an ice generator having a hollow mold which is filled with water. The ice storage container housing and the ice generator are combined into one modular unit.

The present invention relates to an automatic ice dispenser for mounting within a refrigeration device, in particular a domestic refrigeration device, and to a refrigeration device fitted with such an icemaker. Conventionally, such an ice dispenser comprises two functional groups, namely the actual ice generator, which comprises at least one cooled hollow mold and optionally means for metering water into the hollow mold and for ejecting the finished pieces of ice, and an ice storage container in which the finished pieces of ice are stored until use, optionally with means for ejecting the pieces of ice out of the container.
These two functional groups are each mounted separately in a refrigeration device. If they are not used, they should be easily removable by a user, and their reinstallation should also be possible conveniently and safely. One problem here is that the ice generator generally has significantly smaller dimensions than the ice storage container and tends to be mounted at a rather inaccessible point close to the back wall in a refrigeration device. This makes its installation and removal difficult. For a user who needs space in the refrigeration device temporarily, it is simplest to remove just the ice storage container and to leave the ice generator in place. This is unsatisfactory, because the ice generator cannot be used and is merely taking up space. In order to ensure that the ice generator does not produce any ice when the ice storage container is not there to receive it, a sensor has to be provided which automatically switches off the ice generator in the absence of the ice storage container.

Ice dispenser for a refrigeration device


A nonvolatile memory cell having a contact area between a phase-change material such as a chalcogenide and a heat source which is smaller than photolithographic limits is described. To form this cell, a conductive or semiconductor pillar is exposed at a dielectric surface and recessed by selective etch. A thin, conformal layer of a spacer material is deposited on the dielectric top surface, the pillar top surface, and the sidewalls of the recess, then removed from horizontal surfaces by anistropic etch, leaving a spacer on the sidewalls defining a reduced volume within the recess. The phase change material is deposited within the spacer, having a reduced contact area to the underlying conductive or semiconductor pillar.

The invention relates to a nonvolatile memory cell including a phase-change element, such as an element formed of a chalcogenide. Heat is required to convert a phase-change element between phases, and heat provided to the phase-change element can be focused by decreasing the contact area between the phase-change element and the heat source. It can be difficult to reduce this contact area below photolithographic limits, however.
There is a need, therefore, for a method to form a contact area that is smaller the minimum feature size that can be formed photolithographically.

Nonvolatile phase change memory cell having a reduced contact area


An I/O Processor (28) includes a two channel receiver (28b) and a two channel transmitter (28c) coupled to a high speed communications channel. For the receiver a status memory, specifically a FIFO (44a, 44b), stores structuring information that indicates the beginnings (SOP) and endings (EOP) of PACKETS, as well as, for each BURST of data words within a packet, an indication of the occurrence of the BURST and a length (L) of the BURST. Additionally, there is an indication for each BURST of the presence of any errors occurring during the BURST. A corresponding data FIFO (40a, 40b) contains only the received data words, without any structuring information. A device reads both of the FIFOS, subsequent to the reception of one or more PACKETS, so as to reconstruct the original format of the received data. For the transmitter a structure control FIFO (46a, 46b) stores the structuring information for an associated data FIFO (40c, 40d) , the transmitted data being structured in accordance with the structuring information. The receiver and the transmitter each include a high speed internal data path (42a, 42b) and a lower speed data path (54a, 54b) which are coupled together during slave read and write cycles, and which are decoupled during high speed DMA cycles.

System requirements needed to interact with and visualize large, time-dependent simulation data sets include a large, high-bandwidth disk array to store the entire data set being processed, a high speed data communications network to download a problem set, a large, high-speed memory to buffer all data required to process a single simulation time step, computational power that is adequate to manipulate, enhance, and visualize the data sets, and a real-time, high resolution visual display. Furthermore, it is important that these functions be provided within a highly programmable and flexible user environment.
To realize such large and complex systems a multiprocessor approach may be taken, wherein a plurality of data processors operate in parallel on the same aspect or on different aspects of the same task.
An important consideration in such a multiprocessor system is the interfacing of the system to external data sources, such as supercomputers and high capacity disk arrays.
It is thus one object of the invention to provide an intelligent I/O Processor for coupling to high speed data communications channels.
It is another object of the invention to provide an I/O Processor that facilitates high speed direct memory accesses (DMA) to or from a shared global system memory over high speed interconnects.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an I/O Processor that facilitates the management of communication data information and structuring information for use with a communication protocol that employs packets of information bursts, such as an ANSI standard High Performance Parallel Interface (HIPPI).


In an injection mold comprising a stationary and a movable mold half for opening and closing the injection mold, an electronic data storage with a counter for detecting and retrievably recording the number of injection molding procedures and the number of closing movements of the mold halves in the data storage is provided and the data storage is removably mounted on the injection mold and, furthermore, a sensor is provided for recording the mounting state of the data storage and also a time recording element for determining any time period for which the data storage was removed from the data storage.

The invention relates to an injection mold having at least two mold section of which at least one is movable relative to the other for the opening and closing of the injection mold, which includes a data storage and a counter for determining the number of injection molding procedures or the number of opening and closing of the mold sections and stores those numbers in the data storage in a retrievable manner.
Such an injection mold makes it possible for the user and also for the mold manufacturer to monitor the loading of the injection mold as far as the number of molding procedures performed is concerned. There is however a problem in this connection in that the data storage is firmly connected to the injection mold and is destroyed during cleaning of the injection mold, which occurs about twice each year, so that it then must be replaced. However, particularly the user of the injection mold is not very interested in replacing the data storage so that, in spite of becoming inoperative, the data storage is often not replaced so that the injection molding procedures can no longer be monitored.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to provide an injection mold with a data storage of the type referred to above, but which is not destroyed during cleaning of the mold so that it can continue to operate after the cleaning of the mold.

Injection mold with an electronic data storage including a counter


An image forming apparatus includes a waste toner container for containing toner recovered from a photosensitive drum and an intermediate transfer belt. The waste toner container has a stirring screw for conveying the toner in the waste toner container. The stirring screw is driven by a waste toner motor. A CPU determines whether the waste toner container is in need of replacement depending on a rotation speed or driving current of the waste toner motor. If the waste toner container is in need of replacement, the CPU displays such on a display unit to provide a notification to a user.

Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to an image forming apparatus using an electrophotographic system, such as a printer, a multifunction peripheral, a facsimile machine and the like.
Description of the Related Art
The image forming apparatus performs image forming processing by transferring a toner image formed on a photoreceptor to a recording medium such as a sheet. The toner remaining on the photoreceptor without being transferred after transferring the toner image (hereinafter referred to as "residual toner") is removed by a cleaner. The removed residual toner is contained in a waste toner container which is attachably/detachably provided in the image forming apparatus as waste toner. The image forming apparatus which forms a color image comprises a plurality of photoreceptors and is configured to contain all the waste toner in one waste toner container. Thereby, the waste toner container is required to have a corresponding capacity. The waste toner container is replaced when the waste toner is fully loaded.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-148884 discloses an image forming apparatus comprising a waste toner container with a plurality of receiving ports for receiving a waste toner. The waste toner recovered by cleaners respectively provided on a plurality of photoreceptors is separately recovered into the waste toner container from each receiving port. To detect that the waste toner is fully loaded, the waste toner container comprises a light transmission sensor. When the waste toner in the waste toner container is accumulated and light from the light transmission sensor is shielded, the output of the light transmission sensor changes. Thereby, the image forming apparatus detects that the waste toner is fully loaded in the waste toner container.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 5-188835 discloses a toner recovery device comprising two detection sensors to distinguish the waste toner amount in a waste toner container in two stages. When a first detection sensor detects waste toner, the toner recovery device notifies in advance that the waste toner will be fully loaded. When a second detection sensor detects the waste toner, the toner recovery device notifies that the waste toner is fully loaded. Then, the toner recovery device automatically stops the operation of an image forming apparatus. United States Patent Application Publication No. US2009/060536 discloses an image forming apparatus which detects a waste toner amount in a waste toner container, and notifies in advance that the waste toner container will be fully loaded. Then, based on a number of printed sheets through an image forming processing performed thereafter, the image forming apparatus assumes and notifies that the waste toner container is fully loaded.
Japanese Patent Application Publication Laid-open No. 2002-148884 only detects that the waste toner is fully loaded in the waste toner container and does not notify in advance that the waste toner container will be fully loaded. Also, the light transmission sensor sometimes wrongly detects that the waste toner is fully loaded in the waste toner container when the light transmission sensor is contaminated. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 5-188835 and United States Patent Application Publication No. US2009/060536 notify in advance before the waste toner container is fully loaded and assumes a filling ratio of the waste toner in the waste toner container.
A screw is provided in the waste toner container. By conveying and uniformly leveling the waste toner using the screw, the waste toner container is configured to fill the toner as much as possible in the waste toner container. With the conventional waste toner container, a state of the waste toner in the waste toner container cannot be checked. The state of the waste toner changes depending on a use state of the image forming apparatus, environmental temperature, environment humidity, and the like. There may be a case where, due to the change of the state of the waste toner, a load is rapidly applied to the screw, which results in deteriorating conveyance efficiency of the waste toner and the filling ratio of the waste toner in the waste toner container differs from what is assumed. Thereby, it is important to appropriately prompt a user to replace the waste toner container depending on the state of the waste toner container.
Thereby, an image forming apparatus which predicts the state of the waste toner contained in the waste toner container and prompts the user to replace the waste toner container at appropriate timing is desired. Also, an image forming apparatus which suppresses wrong detection of notification with regard to the replacement of the waste toner container is desired.

Image forming apparatus including determination of amount of waste toner


Aspects for monitoring audible tones indicative of operational status of each planar in a multiple planar chassis are described. Included in the aspects is the monitoring of a speaker channel of each planar of a plurality of planars in a common chassis for state changes of beep tones. An operational status of a specific planar emitting the beep tones is identified based on the state changes.

Audible alerts are a common mechanism for personal computers to relay their operating status to the end user. These alerts are typically known as "beep codes" and are commonly used when the system has failed to boot during power on self test (POST)/BIOS execution, and the system was unable to display a visible warning to the local monitor. For example, a system with no memory installed will fail with a NOMEM error, which is assigned to a 3-3-3 beep code (i.e., 3 rapid beeps, pause 3 rapid beeps, pause, 3 rapid beeps).
While these beep codes provide an indication of operating status, a problem exists on blade-type systems, such as BladeCenter from IBM Corporation, where multiple, independent planar or server systems reside in a common mechanical housing. If a planar in such a housing were to fail to boot during POST, for example, the standard audible tone alerting the user to the failure either would not be heard or could not be resolved to the one failing planar out of those installed.
Accordingly, a need exists for a mechanism to propagate the audible alert in a manner that allows monitoring and management of all of the planars within the housing. The present invention addresses such a need.

Method for monitoring audible tones in a multiple planar chassis


A resonator device may include a stacked first resonator and second resonator. The first resonator may be configured to resonate at a first operating frequency, and the second resonator may be configured to resonate at a second operating frequency different from the first operating frequency. The first resonator may include a first electrode and a first active layer arranged over the first electrode. The second resonator may include a second active layer arranged over the first active layer, and a second electrode arranged over the second active layer. The stacked first resonator and second resonator may be coupled to a reconfiguration switch for selectively operating at the first operating frequency or the second operating frequency. One of the first resonator and the second resonator is active upon selection by the reconfiguration switch, while the other resonator is inactive.

Acoustic resonators are generally non-programmable. For example, operating frequencies of the acoustic resonators are defined by material properties and electrode design, and are hardwired after fabrication. As such, the operating frequencies of the acoustic resonators is not tunable or cannot be changed once it is fabricated. In various applications, multiple resonator devices or filters are required in order to perform multiple functions requiring different operating frequencies. For example, among other things, this results in an arithmetic increase of area of acoustic filter chips to accommodate for more frequency bands, for example, in radio frequency (RF) front end modules, leading to larger modules. For example, multiple filter chips of a system-in-package (SiP) are packaged in the RF front end modules, resulting in a larger footprint. In some applications, resonance frequencies are modified by hybridization with passive elements to tune the coupling coefficients. In other applications, such as transducer or sensor applications, the devices are limited to single-frequency operation which limits their applications. In such cases, arrays of transducers with varieties of sizes are employed to deal with multi-frequency applications, leading to larger devices as described.
From the foregoing discussion, it is desirable to provide reconfigurable resonator devices.

Reconfigurable resonator devices, methods of forming reconfigurable resonator devices, and operations thereof


The hand tool embodying this invention allows push nuts to be quickly and easily removed from axle rods and other shafts. The tool has a specialized head welded to a long handle. The tool head includes an end socket head and an extractor. The socket head has an open throat within which the caps of push nuts are seated. The sides of the socket head are cut down to form two axial cusps on either side of the socket head. The extractor is welded to the socket head and terminates in a flat claw, which extends downward in front and angles slightly toward the open mouth of the socket head.

Push nuts are convenient fasteners for a variety of applications. Push nuts are often used to secure wheels to axle rods in the simple wheel assemblies on such products, as rollout carts, garden carts, children's riding toys and tricycles. While a convenient and inexpensive fastener, push nuts are also difficult to remove once pressed onto the end of an axle shaft. The teeth formed in the capped head of the push nut allow the nut to be pressed linearly onto the axle, but prevent the nut from sliding back off the axle. Consequently, push nuts must be pried, cut or ground off the cart axle shaft. Often the easiest method for removing push nuts is to grind them off the axle shaft.


A client, method and system for registering a DRM client is disclosed. The method (100) includes the steps of: initiating (110) a registration request via a DRM client with an encrypted registration message including an asymmetric key cryptographic identity, a customer identifier and an application specific information (AINFO) field including a digital signature and a device certificate chain; validating (120) information in the application specific information (AINFO) field by a DRM registration server; and receiving (130) a registration response, the registration response being encrypted and including access information, to obtain content. Advantageously, this method provides an enhanced and reliable means of authentication.

In many cases, authentication of a client identity takes place with symmetric credentials provided over an encrypted interface. For example, it is common for secure clients to set up a secure connection with a server and then prove user identity through a user name and password. In other cases, a client sends a registration message to a server where the registration message is encrypted with the server's public key and contains client identity and symmetric credentials, such as a password or a pin code. As used herein, the term "symmetric credentials" has its common meaning in the art and generally refers to information which is intended to prove the indentity of a particular client device or a subscriber. Symmetric credentials may include a MAC Address, serial number, IMEI, etc. and usually also includes some secret information such as a password, a pincode or an activation code provided by a network or system operator. These credentials are called "symmetric" because they are generally shared between a client and a system infrastructure component such as a server.
It would be desirable to upgrade and improve these type of systems to verify client identity. In such a case, for example, a database of all client symmetric credentials would not be necessary in the infrastructure and there could be a reduced threat to a database being compromised. When asymmetric credentials are used, the infrastructure would only need a database of public keys that do not require heightened protection.
Also, when public keys are put into a digital certificate, it will not be necessary to pre-provision a database of client keys in the infrastructure. Therefore, the use of asymmetric credentials can simplify system initialization and provisioning. However, existing systems that employ symmetric credentials to validate client identity can be difficult to re-design and upgrade, to support asymmetric authentication. Normally, an existing system would have to be completely re-architected which is not practical.
It would also be considered an improvement in the art, if existing legacy systems which authenticate clients based on symmetric credentials, could be upgraded to use asymmetric credentials or identities as well.
Known conventional prior art legacy systems use symmetric authentication that typically forward client's symmetric credentials to a separate credentials verification system. Instead of using symmetric credentials, it would be considered an improvement in the art to be able to use an asymmetric key cryptographic identity, with for example, a customer identifier, an AINFO field with a client's digital signature and device certificate chain, for authentication. Because the client identity is encrypted together with the rest of the registration message, it would be difficult to perform a cut-and-paste attack and attach these credentials or identity, to some other client's registration request. It would be considered an improvement to be able to upgrade existing legacy systems to be able to authenticate clients based on symmetric credentials and asymmetric key cryptographic identity, in a cost effective and reliable manner.
It would also be considered beneficial, if legacy systems could be easily upgraded to provide and support DRM client authentication based on new or popular device certificates, such as X.509 device certificates.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve the understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. It will further be appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. It will also be understood that the terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions with respect to their corresponding respective areas of inquiry and study except where specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.

Method and system for registering a DRM client