Abstract: Audience specific documents targeted at a plurality of media types are generated by accessing data from a multi-layered data model comprising an audience hierarchy. When obtaining a data value for a particular audience, if that value does not exist for that audience then the audience hierarchy may be utilized to find the data value for an inherited audience. By adding regional, cultural or regulatory subdivisions within the audience hierarchy and inheriting large portions of existing audience specific data entries, a large number of audience specific documents may be generated with a minimal amount of data entry required. Audiences may be specified in a given order for traversal within the hierarchy and displayed in a data entry and editing application utilizing visual characteristics to inform a user if the value for a particular piece of data is inherited from another layer or utilized from the particular layer in use.

Abstract: Processes for producing an extract containing phytochemicals from pomegranates are disclosed. The processes generally comprise providing pomegranate solids, such as the pericarp, inner membrane and seeds; creating a mixture comprising the pomegranate solids in an aqueous solution; adding enzymes to the mixture in an amount sufficient to at least partially degrade the pomegranate solids; heating the mixture to a temperature that permits the maximum rate of catalysis of the enzyme; maintaining the temperature of the heated mixture for a time sufficient to allow at least partial degradation of the pomegranate solids; and removing residual insoluble solid materials from the mixture. Compositions containing the extract may be used as a food product, beverage, pharmaceutical preparations, nutritional supplements, vitamin supplements, food additives, and food supplements.

Abstract: Heart stimulator that provides for timing a premature stimulation pulse for anti-tachycardia pacing outside the vulnerable phase of a ventricle, to terminate stable ventricular tachycardia while minimizing the risk of accelerating stable ventricular tachycardia into unstable ventricular tachycardia or ventricular fibrillation. RT interval is determined instead of QT interval. Conventional QT interval is defined to end at T wave offset, which is difficult to measure because inherent imprecision in identifying the end of T wave from surface ECG. For safe ATP, such problems may be avoided. Because the VP usually refers to the portion of the T wave near the peak and early downslope (FIG. 3), in order to avoid the VP, only need to determine the peak of T wave, then set an blanking window or safety margin (e.g., 20 ms before to 20 ms after the peak of T wave) during which ATP pulses should not be delivered.

Abstract: A detector for atrial fibrillation and/or atrial flutter comprises an atrial input for receiving an atrial signal representing an intraatrial electrogram or a time course of an intraatrial impedance, a ventricular input for receiving a ventricular event signal comprising information on an occurrence of a cyclically reoccurring ventricular event in chronological association to an atrial signal received via atrial input, an averaging unit adapted to average a plurality of sections of said atrial signal, each section to be considered for averaging starts or ends at a predetermined offset before a ventricular event, and to put out an averaged atrial signal, a peak amplitude determination unit adapted to determine peak-to-peak amplitude of said averaged atrial signal, and threshold comparator adapted to compare peak-to-peak amplitude of averaged atrial signal to predetermined reference value and to generate an AF warning signal if peak-to-peak amplitude of averaged atrial signal is less than predetermined threshol

Abstract: Heart stimulator that stimulates at least a heart's right atrium and ventricle in an atrium asynchronous stimulation mode with an overdrive stimulation rate. Interposes one resynchronization cycle after a sensed atrial event to regain AV synchrony during otherwise asynchronous stimulation mode. Allows for pacing mode that can pace the atrium with an overdrive stimulation rate in dual-chamber asynchronous mode while maintaining the AV synchrony and is called DDI(R)+. In DDI(R)+, pacemaker performs an atrial asynchronous (V synchronous) pacing mode such as DDI or DDI(R). The overdrive stimulation rate (OSR) is either a fixed rate (programmed by the external device) that is thought to be above the underlying intrinsic atrial rate, or is dynamically adjusted according to the measured atrial cycle length to be slightly above intrinsic atrial rate. The overdrive stimulation rate may be based on an intrinsic atrial rate or on hemodynamic need. DDI(R)+ timing may be ventricle-based.

Abstract: A heart stimulator provides a reliable automatic capture threshold search feature. A stimulation pulse generator is connected to at least a ventricular stimulation electrode for delivering electric stimulation pulses to at least the ventricle of the heart. The stimulation pulses generated have a strength depending on a control signal. A sensing stage is connected to an electrode for picking up electric potentials inside at least said ventricle of a heart and a control unit connected to the sensing stage and to the stimulation pulse generator determines points of time for scheduling stimulation pulses, to trigger the stimulation pulse generator so as to deliver a stimulation pulse when scheduled and to put out control signals for controlling the strength of the stimulation pulse. The control unit is further adapted to perform a capture analysis which may take into account extraordinary events.

Abstract: Embodiments of the invention enable data that is synchronized between businesses to be displayed and interacted with by dynamically constructing graphical user interfaces to display the data. The graphical user interfaces are dynamically created via declarations that describe the data and how the data should be displayed along with the dependencies, validation and required characteristics of the data. The resulting dynamically created graphical user interfaces allow separate views of the data to be interacted with depending on the data pool that the data is intended for and a different data pool may be utilized by using a different declarative configuration at run time without recompiling and redistributing the application. The user interface files may be for example an XML file that may be parsed with any compliant schema based or DTD based XML parser.

Abstract: Motion picture scenes to be colorized are broken into separate elements, backgrounds/sets or motion/onscreen-action. Background and motion elements are combined separately into single frame representations of multiple frames which becomes a visual reference database that includes data for all frame offsets used later for the computer controlled application of masks within a sequence of frames. Each pixel address within the database corresponds to a mask/lookup table address within the digital frame and X, Y, Z location of subsequent frames. Masks are applied to subsequent frames of motion objects based on various differentiating image processing methods, including automated mask fitting of all masks or single masks in an entire frame, bezier and polygon tracing of selected regions with edge detected shaping and operator directed detection of subsequent regions. The gray scale actively determines the mask and corresponding color lookup that is applied in a keying fashion within regions of interest.

Abstract: One or more embodiments of the invention enable a smart store and forward DBMS statement collating system. The system may be utilized with any database implementation by coupling computer readable program code to the interface layer of the database, generally the lowest layer of software that accesses the database. The system can be utilized with complex transactional code that insulates a user from programming complex collating logic. Hence a user that employs an embodiment of the system is unaware that database operations within a transaction are collated into silos with like table and field usage and flushed to the database as part of a database block operation. The order in which operations occur allows for high priority table inserts to occur before low priority table inserts to maintain referential integrity, while low priority table deletes occur before high priority table deletes for the same reason.

Abstract: Atrial fibrillation or flutter detector having impedance unit, with measurement input, connected to atrial electrode line having electrode for unipolar measurement of atrium impedance and implemented to generate atrial impedance signal obtained in unipolar manner so that impedance signal comprises multiple impedance values detected at different instants within particular atrial cycle for each atrial cycle, comprising atrial contraction and the following relaxation of the atrium, and having a signal input, via which ventricle signal is supplied to detector, which reflects instants of ventricular contractions in chronological assignment to impedance signal, the detector having an analysis unit, implemented to average multiple sequential impedance signal sections of unipolar atrial impedance signal, delimited by two sequential ventricular contractions with one another and determine maximum amplitude of averaged unipolar atrial impedance signal section, compare to comparison value, and if maximum amplitude of ave

Abstract: A medical electrode device has a purely mechanical contact connection between electrode and electrical line. For this purpose, a support sleeve is seated in the electrode body, on which the line section to be contacted is wound in a state without its insulation removed. The electrode is placed thereon while enclosing this line section, an internal thread having a cutting zone on the interior of the electrode breaking through the line insulation and being in electrical contact with the electrically conductive core of the electrical line.

Abstract: Embodiments of the invention enable the synchronization of clocks across packet switched networks, such as the Internet, sufficient to drive a jitter buffer and other quality-of-service related buffering. Packet time stamps referenced to a local clock create a phase offset signal. A shortest-delay offset generator uses a moving-window filter to select the samples of the phase offset signal having the shortest network propagation delay within the window. This shortest network propagation delay filter minimizes the effect of network jitter under the assumption that queuing delays account for most of the network jitter. The addition of this filtered phase offset signal to a free-running local clock creates a time reference that is synchronized to the remote clock at the source thus allowing for the transport of audio, video, and other time-sensitive real-time signals with minimal latency.

Abstract: Adaptive matching of similar data in a data repository to determine if two or more data items are related in accordance with configurable criteria. Matches are adapted by learning and presenting appropriate match criteria based on previous user input. The system can merge the data items into one master data item, group similar items and perform further processing based on the result. The configurable match criteria presented to a user are adapted by the system based on previous interactions of the system with users. Matching is performed by selecting data items to match, removing frequently used strings, normalizing data, tokenizing multi-word data items, assigning weights to each token, calculating a score using the assigned weights, generating groups of similar records, assigning thresholds for match levels. Adapting choices of match criteria for a user based on past interaction allows for rapid match creation and match maintenance that optimizes data integrity across an enterprise.

Abstract: A forward error correction (FEC) encoding system and method optimized for protecting real-time audio-video streams for transmission over packet-switched networks with minimal latency. Embodiments of this invention provide bandwidth-efficient and low-latency FEC for both variable and constant bit-rate MPEG-encoded audio and video streams. To maximize bandwidth-efficiency and playable frame rate for recovered media streams, embodiments of the invention may sort packets by content type and aggregate them into FEC blocks weighted by sensitivity in the recovered stream to packet loss of a particular content type. Embodiments of this invention may use temporal constraints to limit FEC block size and thereby facilitate their use in the transport of VBR streams.

Abstract: A system and methods for building an efficient incremental data backup system capable of managing high frequency backups sessions, and capable of efficiently expiring backup revisions and locating the useless data elements is disclosed. A reduced set of data elements that have a non-zero probability of becoming redundant when a backup revision expires is prepared while each backup revision is being processed by the backup system. The backup system also maintains data structures, which reduce the number of searches that should be performed for each such data element before it can be realized that the data element is exclusively needed to support the expired backup revision, and therefore could be removed from the second tier storage.

Abstract: System and method for graphically displaying a coin toss using sensors to detect the physical movement of a coin or instrumented coin, communication of sensor-derived data to remote graphical display system, display of a virtual coin that represents movement and orientation of the tossed coin. May utilize a sensor system, communication system and display system. Sensor system and part of a wireless communication system may be embedded in a coin shaped housing or may be external to coin. Display system and part of wireless communication system may include a remote or repeater station. Graphical coin movement and orientation may mimic the actual coin being tossed or may be represented as any avatar or other graphical object that represents the coin including celebrity pictures, videos, faces, logos or any other object that may represent a “head” or “tail”. May generate a random number that allows viewers to win a prize.

Abstract: An Automatic Repeat request (ARQ) error correction method optimized for protecting real-time audio-video streams for transmission over packet-switched networks. Embodiments of this invention provide bandwidth-efficient and low-latency ARQ for both variable and constant bit-rate audio and video streams. Embodiments of this invention use timing constraints to limit ARQ latency and thereby facilitate the use of ARQ packet recovery for the transport of both constant bit rate and variable bit rate media streams.

Abstract: Improved communication with a database comprising multiple clients utilizing multiple large data objects concurrently. For example when a client system interacts with a server with respect to a data object that is over a threshold size, the system may utilizing a communication methodology that minimizes system resource usage such as CPU and network utilization. When a client request for an object is within a size threshold, embodiments segment the object into smaller size chunks. Hence the server is not required to assemble all data associated with a request at once, but instead starts transmitting smaller segments. Allowing for transmission of smaller data chunks prevents allocating large blocks of memory to one object and although the server handles more memory allocations, each allocation is smaller and can be processed much faster. Chunk size may depend on environmental factors: time of day, day of week, number of users, number of predicted users.

Abstract: Filtering assembly for a feedthrough, for implantable medical devices, having operating conductive pin(s) and a ground conductive pin. The filtering assembly has: first insulating substrate, first conductive layer accommodated at first side of first insulating substrate and second conductive layer accommodated at second side of first insulating substrate opposing first side, first conductive layer comprises a conductive ground ring accommodated that surrounds the circumference of one end of the operating conductive pins and capacitive element(s), wherein each of the capacitive element(s) provides on the first side a connection to the operating conductive pin(s) and on the second side a connection to the ground ring, wherein the ground ring is connected to the ground pin, the second conductive layer comprises a ground plane providing connection to the ground ring of the first conductive layer and a connection to the ground pin.

Abstract: A system and method for scheduling employee shifts. Two types of users generally utilize the system to post and view schedules, managers and workers. A manager may define shifts for work areas and post the shifts so workers may obtain their schedule and know when to work. Workers may retrieve the schedule from any network enabled device located anywhere. Worker unavailability times and requests for schedule changes may be made remotely by the worker at any network enabled computing device. Managers may accept or reject requests and utilize employee unavailability times to schedule workers to a shift and readily observe conflicts and schedule around these conflicts using a schedule screen that shows the workers, their unavailability times and scheduled times. Time and wage summaries may be updated directly on the screen when changes to the shifts are made to allow a manager to minimize wages for a shift or work area.