The present invention is an expert matching method and apparatus for managing communications between an expert having particular qualifications and an end user seeking a solution to an expert request. In a preferred embodiment, the apparatus of the present invention includes a controller having a database for storing expert qualifications. In one embodiment, the controller receives an expert request. A search program identifies experts qualified to respond to the expert request. The expert request is then transmitted to the expert, which results in an expert answer transmitted to and received by the central controller. After authentication of the expert answer, using a wide range of security levels from passwords to cryptography, the answer is forwarded to the end user. The method and apparatus of the present invention have applications on the Internet as well as conventional voice telephony systems.

Method and apparatus for a cryptographically-assisted commercial network system designed to facilitate and support expert-based commerce

A location reporting paging communication system comprising space satellites, ground stations and a remote receiving unit adapted to resolve a global position from signals transmitted from a communication transmitter. The subscriber in possession of the remote receiving unit updates the paging network with global positioning information. A caller paging a subscriber in possession of the remote receiving unit may request the global location of the remote receiving unit. The paging network could divulge or block such information from a caller depending on the requirements of the subscriber.

Location reporting satellite paging system with optional blocking of location reporting

A plurality of computer nodes communicate using seemingly random Internet Protocol source and destination addresses. Data packets matching criteria defined by a moving window of valid addresses are accepted for further processing, while those that do not meet the criteria are quickly rejected. Improvements to the basic design include (1) a load balancer that distributes packets across different transmission paths according to transmission path quality; (2) a DNS proxy server that transparently creates a virtual private network in response to a domain name inquiry; (3) a large-to-small link bandwidth management feature that prevents denial-of-service attacks at system chokepoints; (4) a traffic limiter that regulates incoming packets by limiting the rate at which a transmitter can be synchronized with a receiver; and (5) a signaling synchronizer that allows a large number of nodes to communicate with a central node by partitioning the communication function between two separate entities.

Agile network protocol for secure communications with assured system availability

A system and method for delivering increases speed, security, and intelligence to wireline and wireless systems. The present invention includes a new generation Fast Circuit Switch (packet/circuit) Communication processors and platform which enables a new Internet Exchange Networking Processor Architecture at the edge and core of every communication system, for next generation Web Operating System or Environment (WOE) to operate on with emphasis of a non-local processor or networking processor with remote web computing capabilities. A Unified Network Communication & Processor System or UniNet is a New generation network architecture of packet/circuit communication processors or Internet networking processor, that increases speeds over any communication channels and topologies, synchronizing, enabling, improving, controlling and securing all of the data transmission of web applications over existing wireline and wireless infrastructure while providing seamless integration to the legacy telecom & data corn backbone. The present invention is capable of operating on any topology with distributed intelligence and data switching/routing, which is located at the edge. This method not only alleviates the ever increasing data processing bottleneck which is currently done by the data communication and telecom switch and routers, but it also enables new and next generation Internet Processor architecture. The UniNet is also a flexible solution for the novel concept that the capability of a network interface should depend on the level of service assigned to a service access point, not the capacity of the total network, such as transaction services with a short burst of messages with short access delay. The present invention increases channel capacity by using a parallel or multi-channel structure in such wireless and wireline at the edge or the core of. This new architecture of the present invention uses parallel bitstreams in a flexible way and distributed switching/routing technique, is not only to avoid the potential bottlenet of centralized switches, but also to increase speed with intelligence that is seamlessly integrating into the Fiber Optic Backbone such as WDM and SONET of the MAN/WAN network with a Real-time guarantees, different types of traffic (such as Stringent synchronous, isochronous, and asynchronous data messages) with different demands, and privacy & security of multi access and integrated services environment.

Channel equalization system and method

Trellis-coded modulation schemes using four-, eight-, or 16 -dimensional constellations have a number of potential advantages over the usual two-dimensional schemes: a smaller constituent two-dimensional constellation, easier tolerance to phase ambiguities, and a better trade-off between complexity and coding gain. A number of such schemes are presented and evaluated. Starting with a variety of multidimensional lattices, we show how to select multidimensional constellations, how to partition them into subsets, how to construct trellis codes using those subsets, and how to map hits to constellation points. Simplifications of the Viterbi decoding algorithm are presented. We conclude that there are multidimensional trellis-coded modulation schemes that perform better for the same complexity than do two-dimensional schemes.

Trellis-coded modulation with multidimensional constellations

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), congestion occurs, for example, when nodes are densely distributed, and/or the application produces high flow rate near the sink due to the convergent nature of upstream traffic. Congestion may cause packet loss, which in turn lowers throughput and wastes energy. Therefore congestion in WSNs needs to be controlled for high energy-efficiency, to prolong system lifetime, improve fairness, and improve quality of service (QoS) in terms of throughput (or link utilization) and packet loss ratio along with the packet delay. This paper proposes a node priority-based congestion control protocol (PCCP) for wireless sensor networks. In PCCP, node priority index is introduced to reflect the importance of each node. PCCP uses packet inter-arrival time along with packet service time to measure a parameter defined as congestion degree and furthermore imposes hop-by-hop control based on the measured congestion degree as well as the node priority index. PCCP controls congestion faster and more energy-efficiency than other known techniques.

Priority-based congestion control in wireless sensor networks

The current invention provides that data sent from a source computer to a recipient's computer can be selected in real time according to at least one characteristic of the recipient which can be kept in a profile. Information such as the recipient's position, preferred websites, browsing history, content a visited website, information from a third party, or the recipient's response to a question posed also could be included in the profile, and various ways to obtain this information are disclosed. A pricing method values an advertisement sent over the Internet according to the time the recipient viewed the advertisement, or whether the advertisement resulted in an inquiry or sale. The advertisements can be selected in real-time and displayed with the requested web page.

System and method for identifying and offering advertising over the internet according to a generated recipient profile

A knowledge processing system includes a memory for storing knowledge in a plurality of knowledge modules in a knowledge bank, in which the knowledge includes data associated with pre-existing solutions to previous problems; and a processing unit, operating knowledge-based software, and including a knowledge processing unit for generating a plurality of artificial intelligence based modules, and for executing the plurality of artificial intelligence base modules to process input data, including problem related data, for generating a plurality of solution-related modules from the data representing the pre-existing solutions, with the solution-related modules corresponding to solutions to the current problem; a numerical processing unit for generating a confidence level associated with a respective solution to the current problem; and a database processing unit for controlling the storing of the solution-related modules in the memory The knowledge processing unit responds to the confidence levels of the solutions to iteratively revise the solutions to generate an optimal solution to the current problem

Knowledge processing system employing confidence levels

Digital signals, such as digitized television signals, are subjected to a source coding step followed by a channel mapping step. The source coding step causes the television signal to be represented by two or more data streams while, in the channel mapping step, the mapping is such that the data elements of the various data streams have differing probabilities of being erroneously detected at the receiver. In preferred embodiments, a first one of the aforementioned data streams carries components of the overall television signal which are regarded as the most important--for example the audio, the framing information, and the vital portions of the video information, such as motion compensation information--and that data stream is mapped such that its data elements have the lowest probability of error. A second one of the data streams carries components of the overall television signal which are regarded as less important than those of the first data stream and that data stream is mapped such that its data elements have a probability of error that is not as low as those of the first data stream. In general, it is possible to represent the overall television signal with any number of data streams, each carrying components of varying importance and each having a respective probability of error. This approach allows a graceful degradation in reception quality at, for example, the television set location because as the bit error rate at the receiver begins to increase with increasing distance from the broadcast transmitter, the bits that represent proportionately less of the video information will be the first to be affected.

Coding for digital transmission

A network-based intelligent information-sourcing system has capabilities akin to an automated universal teacher, researcher, or expert, in that the system is able to interpret, both independently and in context, and provide comprehensive answers to received queries on substantially any subject. This capability is achieved by enhancing existing telecommunications networks and intelligent networks to incorporate a knowledge-processing capability. This network uses the communication capability of the network to collect queries from, e.g., students in an interactive mode, then passes the question to a "knowledge ring" which comprises numerous knowledge bases arranged hierarchically, and then sends the response back from an "artificially intelligent instructor". Once the query is understood, the system restates the question back to the student in the way the particular knowledge base is integrated, Upon confirmation, the system delivers the response back to the student.

Victor B. Lawrence

Papers

Priority-based congestion control in wireless sensor networks

System and method for identifying and offering advertising over the internet according to a generated recipient profile

Knowledge processing system employing confidence levels

Coding for digital transmission

Network-based intelligent information-sourcing arrangement