Abstract: A wound irrigation apparatus comprising a fillable fluid delivery member, a fluid channel, and a splash shield for use in wound irrigation is disclosed. The splash shield is a three-dimensional shield positionable about a wound to protect medical personnel from the back splash resulting from wound irrigation and is at least partially flexible and compliant for shaping the shield to fit the unique shape or dimension of a wound. The flexible peripheral edge of the splash shield also prevents damage to the wound if the shield should come in contact with the wound. The shield may also be structured to provide selective angular adjustment of fluid delivery to the wound. The shield of the present invention generally comprises a shield member and a hub positioned through the surface of the shield member to direct fluid to a wound. The shield member may be structured to provide selective angular positioning of the hub to selectively direct fluid to the wound site.

Abstract: In a communication system a method for selecting a set of preferences for use during transmission of information to a particular destination anticipates selecting a list of one or more destinations, each destination having a key and a set of preferences, each preference further having a value. A historical database is indexed via the key to retrieve a set of database entries, each entry having a set of preferences, each preference further having a value. The retrieved database entries are filtered in order to identify those entries exhibiting a predefined set of criteria. After filtering, the preference values within the identified database entries are applied during transmission and subsequent processing of the information.

Abstract: A system that allows a user to apply image processing functions to localized regions of a photographic or negative image supplied by a photographer. The image is displayed on a touch sensitive display and the user can, by touching the display, maneuver a window to pan, zoom-in and zoom-out on particular portions of the image to designate a region to be processed. The operator can precisely indicate where the artifact to be removed is located and will know precisely the area of the image that will be processed. Only the portion of image seen by the user in the window is processed when the user indicates a function should be applied to the image. That is, what the user sees is what is processed. The processed image can be printed or otherwise reproduced.

Abstract: A device for enabling sequential dilation of a percutaneous tissue opening to seccessively larger opening sizes. The device includes a first-elongated dilator element having a forward end, an intermediate dilator body and a tail section extending from shoulder structure at the junction of the intermediate body and tail section. At least one additional elongated tubular dilator is adapted for telescopic mounting over the first dilator element and includes a forward end, intermediate body, rearward end and blocking member. This dilator is tubular in construction and sized to fit snugly around the first dilator element in telescoping manner. The blocking member positioned at a rearward end of the dilator allows it to be seated in a forward-most position, in contact with the shoulder structure of the first dilator element. Additional dilators of successively larger diameters can be added to increase the extent of tissue dilation.

Abstract: Telephone number information representing a name and a telephone number is entered into the memory of an automatic dialer, either by actuating a telephone dial-type keypad or by reading that information from a magnetic recording medium. When utilizing the keypad to generate telephone number information, actuation of the keys in one mode generates digital signals representing alphabetic characters constituting a name, and actuation of those same keys in a second mode generates digital signals representing numerical characters constituting the telephone number associated with that name. The telephone number information is stored as a telephone directory in record blocks which may be revised or deleted, in whole or in part, to carry out a telephone number edit operation. The stored record blocks may be read out from the memory and written onto the magnetic recording medium of a recorder, such as dictating machine, from which the recorded telephone directory may be downloaded to another automatic dialer.