Abstract: An apparatus includes a cooling pin to slidably extend from a frame and to be inserted into an injection molded article. The cooling pin is hollow to allow for flow of cooling fluid through the cooling pin. The cooling pin has a hole to be in fluid communication with a source of vacuum to draw cooling fluid within the injection molded article into the cooling pin. The cooling pin has a first position with respect to the frame, the first position to allow flow of cooling fluid through the hole. The cooling pin has a second position with respect to the frame, the second position to shut off flow of cooling fluid into the cooling pin.

Abstract: A method generates at least one statistic for a temporary table during optimization of a database query before the temporary table is created. By doing so, optimization can proceed on a database query irrespective of the fact that the temporary table may not be materialized until the database query is ultimately executed.

Abstract: An improved method and apparatus is described for a query optimizer to evaluate multi-table join selectivities in a computer database. The query optimizer includes a statistics manager that finds the most appropriate set of assumptions and statistics to use when calculating the cost of an arbitrary join expression. As described herein, the statistics manager implements a unique bucket representation for the join expression. The bucket representation for the join expression can be evaluated and compared to the traditional domino expression so that the best possible estimate can be used. This new representation of the join expression allows the query optimizer to more accurately estimate the join selectivity for many queries compared to traditional representations.

Abstract: A metadata manager is used in a database management system to collect and maintain metadata associated with a database. Multiple optimizer instances are permitted to access the metadata maintained by the metadata manager, often eliminating the need for individual optimizer instances to retrieve and process metadata directly from the database. As such, the overhead associated with operations such as collecting, refining, retrieving and/or maintaining of metadata can be off-loaded from the optimizer instances, often accelerating individual cost estimation calculations by optimizer instances, facilitating reuse of metadata calculations and refinements, and improving metadata consistency between multiple related cost estimates.

Abstract: A database query optimizer processes an expression in a database query, and generates therefrom an operand list and a corresponding truth table that may be represented by a list of binary characters, where the operand list and corresponding truth table represent a disjunct normal form for the expression. Each expression is stored once it is processed into its operand list and corresponding list of binary characters. New queries are processed into component expressions, and each expression is checked to see if the expression was previously processed and stored as a processed expression. If so, the operand list and list of binary characters for the previously-stored expression may be used in processing the current expression. If there is no previously-stored expression that corresponds to the current expression, the previously-stored expressions are checked to see if any correspond to a complement of the current expression.

Abstract: A metadata manager is used in a database management system to collect and maintain metadata associated with a database. Multiple optimizer instances are permitted to access the metadata maintained by the metadata manager, often eliminating the need for individual optimizer instances to retrieve and process metadata directly from the database. As such, the overhead associated with operations such as collecting, refining, retrieving and/or maintaining of metadata can be off-loaded from the optimizer instances, often accelerating individual cost estimation calculations by optimizer instances, facilitating reuse of metadata calculations and refinements, and improving metadata consistency between multiple related cost estimates.

Abstract: A database query optimizer processes an expression in a database query, and generates therefrom an operand list and a corresponding truth table that may be represented by a list of binary characters, where the operand list and corresponding truth table represent a disjunct normal form for the expression. Each expression is stored once it is processed into its operand list and corresponding list of binary characters. New queries are processed into component expressions, and each expression is checked to see if the expression was previously processed and stored as a processed expression. If so, the operand list and list of binary characters for the previously-stored expression may be used in processing the current expression. If there is no previously-stored expression that corresponds to the current expression, the previously-stored expressions are checked to see if any correspond to a complement of the current expression.