Abstract: A mastic composition formed of a substantially homogeneous imporous mixture of a predetermined volume of low-density expanded closed-cell synthetic resin beads and a slurry prepared from calcined gypsum and water wherein the interstitial volume of the expanded beads is not substantially less than the volume of slurry. The substantially homogeneous mixture is self-adhering as a thick layer on an inverted smooth surface and yet separable therefrom as an integral layer, the mastic composition setting to a hard, strong, dimensionally stable, heat- and sound-retardant material. Methods of mixing mastic compositions, and composite structural panels utilizing mastic compositions as well as the methods and apparatus for forming such panels are also disclosed.

Abstract: A vendor of the type comprising a cabinet having a bottom, top, sides, back and a front door, in which the bottom and top each comprises a main panel formed to provide a space between the front of the cabinet and the main panel and a filler panel removably attached to the main panel and filling the space between the front of the main panel and the front of the cabinet. The fillers are removable to open said spaces to enable the cabinet to be maneuvered, with the front door opened, through a doorway which is narrower than the overall width or depth of the cabinet but wider than the depth of the cabinet from the back of the cabinet to said spaces.

Abstract: A device for use in determining the depth of water accumulating on the surface of a pathway, such as an airport runway or the like. A block of electrically insulative material is embedded in a pathway with the top surface of the block being substantially flush with the pathway surface and exposed to atmospheric precipitation. A sensor comprising first and second capacitors, each of which has first and second coplanar spaced apart electrodes, is positioned within the block with the electrodes of the first capacitor positioned adjacent to and inclined with respect to the top surface of the block and with the electrodes of the second capacitor being positioned a substantially greater distance from the top surface of the block whereby an accumulation of water on the surface of the block affects the dielectric, capacitance and conductance of the first capacitor without substantially affecting the dielectric, capacitance and conductance of the second.

Abstract: A method or system of positioning and supporting a large industrial machine or other object on its foundation comprising placing hydraulic jacking units between the machine and the foundation, pressurizing the jacking units with a hardenable liquid to move the object relative to the foundation to a selected position, maintaining the liquid in the jacking units under pressure so as to support the machine in its selected position, and effecting the hardening of the liquid to fix the jacking units in their selected positions. Apparatus for carrying out the method of this invention is also disclosed.

Abstract: Apparatus for fabricating wood trusses having upper chords, lower chords, and web members, and more particularly for fabricating flat floor trusses. The apparatus has an elongate frame carrying a first series of supports for supporting the upper chord members and a second series of supports for supporting the lower chord members. A press is movable laterally along each chord from support to support to drive nailing plates into the wood members from above and below. Each support has a base, a vertical plate extending up from the base, and arms cantilevered from the vertical plate. Each support is movable longitudinally along the frame so as to be selectively positioned along the frame to support the wood members at this intersection. These supports are selectively securable to the frame in their selected positions with the vertical plates of the first and second series of supports in back-to-back relation with one another.

Abstract: A beverage vendor having a water system including a line for bringing water into the cabinet of the vendor, a valve in the line and a flood control comprising means for collecting water discharged from the system upon a failure thereof and means responsive to the collection of flood water in the collecting means before it overflows for closing the valve to cut off the supply of water.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for controlling emissions caused by pushing of coke from a coke oven. The apparatus includes an entrapment chamber extending alongside a plurality of ovens for containing the emission. Exhaust means for the entrapment chamber comprises a flow path restriction for accelerating gases leaving the entrapment chamber so that particulates are entrained in the gases and inhibited from settling in the entrapment chamber. Gas velocity is reduced in an expansion chamber downstream from and extending below the level of the flow restriction. The expansion chamber provides a settling region laterally offset from said flow restriction in which particulates fall out of the gases along a settling path whose gravity component is in a direction downstream from the entrapment chamber.

Abstract: An electric cartridge heater having a metallic tubular metal sheath with an elongate heating element of generally circular cross section therein, the heating element being substantially coaxial with the sheath with an annular space between the sheath and the heating element. Particulate electrical insulating material, such as magnesium oxide (MgO), fills the annular space providing a conductive heat transfer path between the heating element and the sheath and electrically insulating the heating element from the sheath. The sheath, with the heating element in place and with the particulate insulating material surrounding the heating element in the sheath, is compressed by a diameter reduction process (e.g., swaging) thereby to compress the particulate insulative material and the heating element.

Abstract: An air cargo shipping container comprising a rectangular base of molded synthetic resin material which is chemically inert to most substances, the base having a plurality of legs formed in its bottom for supporting the base above the ground. These legs are spaced for entry of the lifting tines of a forklift or the like and each leg is hollow and open at its upper end thus defining a plurality of reservoirs on the inside of the base for confining spilled cargo. The base has an integral lip around its periphery which extends up above the level of the base. The container further has three panels hingedly secured to the lip for swinging between a generally vertical, erect position and a generally horizontal, folded position in which the panels overlie the base, and a fourth or front panel. The vertical edges of adjacent panels are releasably secured together and the front panel is readily removable from the base and from the adjacent side panels so as to enable loading and unloading of the container.

Abstract: Apparatus for feeding a product to a weighing scale and stopping the feed when the amount of product fed reaches a final weight. A scale having a balance portion to receive product to be weighed is movable from an initial position toward a balance position as product is delivered thereto. The balance portion of the scale starts to move upon delivery thereto of a predetermined initial weight of product. First and second product feeds are activated at the start of a weighing operation for delivering a quantity of product from a source thereof to the balance portion of the scale. The first feed delivers product at a first rate of speed and the second feed delivers product at a second and slower rate of speed. A sensor detects movement of the balance portion of the scale in either of two directions and provides first and second electrical outputs representative of the magnitude and direction of the movement thereof, each output always having one of two discrete states.

Abstract: Methods of and apparatus for making plastic containers with integral rims, utilizing a transfer ring means having an aperture and an annular groove, in which the aperture is closed to define a space for reception of thermoplastic material, which is compressed to form it into a diaphragm with the material filling said groove forming the rim of the diaphragm, the transfer means carrying the diaphragm is positioned on a mold having a cavity corresponding to the shape of the container, the diaphragm is formed into a container in the mold cavity, and the container is removed from the transfer means with the rim of the diaphragm as molded in said groove intact with the container and forming the rim of the container.

Abstract: A glass bottle having a body and a neck with a peripheral shoulder at the upper end of the body, and a paper jacket covering the bottle extending from above the shoulder at least to the heel of the bottle (where the wall of the body of the bottle merges with the bottom of the bottle) and covering the shoulder and body down to the heel to protect the bottle from weakening abrasion and scratches, and to contain fragments of the bottle in the event the bottle breaks. The jacket is constituted of waterproof paper, and may be secured in place on the bottle without any adhesive by shrinking. It may also be applied by means of an adhesive which is water-insoluble so that the bottle may be washed. In either case, the jacket may be preformed to such shape that it may be dropped on a bottle.

Abstract: An alarm switch adapted to be mounted on the wall above a door on the side of the wall toward which the door swings open, having an electrically conductive arm adapted to be set in a position for actuation by the door, when the door swings, to swing inwardly and then upwardly into engagement with a terminal of the switch to complete an alarm circuit. The arm has a finger at its free end adapted to be set in a downwardly extending position for engagement by the door and a raised position clear of the door for deactivating the switch.

Abstract: A radioimmunoassay method for the in vitro determination of the renin activity of an unknown plasma sample. In this method an unknown generation sample is provided by mixing the unknown plasma sample with a generation buffer solution and an inhibitor for enzymes which convert angiotensin I to other substances. The unknown generation sample is incubated to generate angiotensin I therein by action of renin upon angiotensinogen, thereby producing a generated unknown sample. A generated unknown radioimmunoassay reaction mixture is provided by mixing the generated unknown plasma sample with a predetermined amount of radioactively labeled angiotensin I, a predetermined amount of an antibody for angiotensin I, and an amount of an assay buffer solution sufficient to provide in the unknown reaction mixture renin and angiotensinogen concentrations at which there is no substantial angiotensin I generation at the temperatures to which the generated unknown radioimmunoassay reaction mixture is subsequently exposed.

Abstract: The frictional energy losses in the flow of an aqueous liquid along a surface such as the inside wall of a pipe are reduced by incorporating a polyethylene oxide alcohol surfactant into the liquid, moving the liquid on a flow path along the surface and maintaining the temperature of the liquid near to or greater than its cloud point. The frictional energy loss per unit length of the flow path is thereby reduced below the corresponding loss of energy which occurs when moving pure water at the same volumetric rate on the same path. Optionally, an electrolyte or salt is included in the aqueous mixture to depress the cloud point thereof. Preferably, the surfactant employed contains between about 12 and 18 carbon atoms in its lipophilic moiety and between about 3 and about 9 ethylene oxide units in its hydrophilic moiety.

Abstract: A method of and apparatus for wrapping palletized loads, utilizing an open-mouth bag of a stretchable plastic film as the wrapper, involving opening the bag and stretching it, bringing the bottom of the bag into engagement with the top of the palletized load, and moving the bag downward to evert it over the load with accompanying shrinking of the bag on the load.

Abstract: Metal hydroxides such as Fe(OH).sub.2, Fe(OH).sub.3 and Sn(OH).sub.2 are prepared in the form of spherical particles of uniform and controlled size suitable for tagging with a radioactive element such as technetium-99m. Aqueous suspensions of such tagged particles are useful in scintigraphy as lung scanning agents.

Abstract: Molding thermoformable textile fabric (knit, woven or otherwise), and particularly stretch fabric, into a permanent three-dimensional shape by vacuum-molding in a cavity in a vacuum mold, wherein flow of air through the fabric is blocked to enable it to be vacuum-formed by means of a layer of substantially air-impervious thermoformable sheet plastic material applied over the fabric. The plastic is heated to thermoforming temperature, the plastic and fabric are vacuum-formed in the mold, the molded plastic layer with the molded fabric thereon being removed from the mold and the molded plastic layer being utilized as a form for holding the molded fabric in its molded shape for a sufficient period of time to stabilize the fabric in its molded shape. The molded plastic layer is cooled within the mold via a flow of cooling air.

Abstract: The method of and apparatus for packaging units in flexible sheet material which is heat-sealable at least on one side, in which a web of the material is formed into a tube with an inside-face-to-inside-face longitudinal seam by bringing the side margins of the web into inside-face-to-inside-face engagement and pressing them together at a sealing station, and heating the inside faces of said margins as they converge toward one another and meet at the sealing station by directing a stream of hot gas against them. Transverse seals are formed across the tube at package length intervals with a unit to be packaged in the tube between successive transverse seals. The gas may be a preservative gas for preservation of the unit in each package. Additionally, preservative gas may be introduced into the tube downstream from said sealing station.

Abstract: Apparatus for and methods of extruding tubular plastic netting from extrusion orifices in concentric, counterrotatable inner and outer dies in which the plastic filaments extruded therefrom have substantially the same downward relative velocity so as to form netting intersections with substantially no relative shear movement between intersecting filaments.