Abstract: A method for visualizing vector fields uses texture mapping for the vectors to create an animated vector field. Vectors are textured with one dimensional texture maps composed of alternating visible and invisible segments. Successively applied texture maps differ from each other in order to create a moving line effect on the vectors being visualized. A fading effect is further provided by varying the intensity of the visible segments.

Abstract: Microwave heating is used to desorb successive batches of contaminated adsorbent. The apparatus includes first and second stations and an adsorbent carrier tray displaceable between the two stations. Adsorbent is loaded and unloaded from the tray in the first station and heated with microwave energy in the second station. The tray is loaded by passage under a feed hopper, thereby providing an even bed of adsorbent in the tray. Unloading is performed by rotating the tray to an inverted position so that the adsorbent falls into a bin below. The second station includes an oven chamber which is swept with a purge gas to remove gaseous sorbates desorbed from the adsorbent. The tray can include a gas-permeable adsorbent support structure to facilitate passing purge gas and gasification reactants through the adsorbent bed.

Abstract: An open magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) magnet having first and second spaced-apart superconductive coil assemblies each including a toroidal-shaped coil housing containing a superconductive main coil and a superconductive bucking coil. The bucking coil is spaced radially inward and radially apart from the main coil. The bucking coil carries an electric current equal in amperage, and opposite in direction, to the main coil. The bucking coils overcome the gross magnetic field distortions in the imaging volume of the main coils (created by the open space between the magnet's superconductive coil assemblies) to produce a magnetic field of high uniformity within the imaging volume.

Abstract: A superconducting magnet including a superconducting coil assembly having a magnet cartridge, a cryocooler coldhead having a cold stage in thermal contact with the magnet cartridge, and a thermal buffer assembly. The thermal buffer assembly includes an inlet tube and an outlet tube each having an end connected to a helium pressure container which is placed in thermal contact with the magnet cartridge. A first gas pressure regulator on the inlet tube supplies helium gas and a second gas pressure regulator on the outlet tube vents helium gas so as to maintain a generally constant pressure for the helium gas within the helium pressure container. The high specific heat per unit volume of the pressurized gaseous helium acts as a thermal buffer to extend the time the magnet can operate superconductively without the cryocooler before quenching, such as during an electric power outage.

Abstract: An ultrasonic measurement device and a method for a non-destructive evaluation of polymer composites having discontinuous fibers distributed therein. The device has one or a plurality of substantially matched pairs of transducers disposed on wedge shaped focuser and a relay, the focuser and relay each have their impedances substantially matched to that of the polymer composite being analyzed. The device is placed on a surface of the composite with the apexes of the focuser and relay in close contact with the surface.

Abstract: A subassembly for an ice maker includes a plastic ice cube tray having a housing located within and attached to the refrigerator freezer. The housing has spaced-apart ice cube cavities. An electrically heatable metallic film coating is attached to and generally covers the cavity surfaces. When the cavity surfaces have been heated to detach the formed ice cubes therefrom, in one embodiment, a mechanism is provided to rotate the tray upside down to release the ice cubes. In another embodiment, a fixedly-"upside-down" and semicircular-cylindrical-shaped ice cube tray is placed in a trough, which also has an electrically heatable metallic coating, and a mechanism is provided to rotate the trough to uncover the openings of the ice cube cavities in the tray to release the formed ice cubes when the cavity and trough surfaces have been electrically heated to detach the ice cubes therefrom.

Abstract: This invention relates to a gas burner which employs a two stage flame stabilizer. At low input rates, a fully aerated flame is stabilized at the surface of a porous material. At higher input rates, the flame blows off and is held by flame stabilization tabs. Such structures of this type, generally, operate over a very wide range of input rates and employ a highly aerated flame which reduces the flame temperature, slows NOx production, and increases the overall reaction rate by shortening the flame while reducing carbon monoxide (CO) caused by flame impingement.

Abstract: A superconductive magnet subassembly has a single unbroken length of superconductive conductor which has a mid portion wound so as to define at least one superconductive magnetic coil and which has two end portions superconductively joined together by a superconductive joint. A superconductive switch is at least partially defined by the two end portions and by a heater for controllably heating the two end portions.

Abstract: A fuel nozzle for gas turbine combustors reduces combustion instabilities by injecting purge air into the combustor angularly instead of axially. The fuel nozzle has a substantially cylindrical body with a number of internal passages. One of the passages provides premix gas fuel to a plurality of fuel injectors attached to the fuel nozzle. The remaining passages can be for diffusion gas, atomizing air and liquid fuel. One or more of the remaining passages is connected to a respective group of discharge orifices formed in the cylindrical side surface of the nozzle body. During low NO.sub.x operation, premix gas is introduced through the fuel injectors, and the remaining passages are all purged with air to prevent the ingress of flame gases from the combustion chamber. The resulting jets of air emitted from discharge orifices formed in the side surface will disrupt or break-up spanwise vortices shed from the bluff end of the fuel nozzle, thereby reducing combustion instabilities.

Abstract: A refrigerator evaporator is formed in a spread serpentine configuration having a plurality of straight tube segments and a plurality of bent tube segments where each one of the straight tube segments is joined at an acute angle to at least one other straight tube segment. The straight tube segments are arranged in a number of planar rows which are adjacent and parallel to one another. Approximately 25-50 percent of the cross-sectional area of the evaporator is not occupied by tubing or any attached fins. A cross flow blower disposed at one end of the evaporator draws air longitudinally over the evaporator.

Abstract: A method for matching the second output of a second sensor to the first output of a first sensor wherein a source transducer is driven by a reference analog or digital electrical signal to produce the physical quantity (e.g., acoustic pressure) the sensors (e.g., pressure sensors, such as microphones) can sense. A reference adaptive filter determines filtering coefficients to match the reference electrical signal to the first output of the first sensor and therefore models the source transducer and the first sensor (which typically is an independently-calibrated sensor). Thereafter, a second adaptive filter compensates the second output of the second sensor to match the output from a fixed filter having filtering coefficients identical to those determined by the reference adaptive filter, such output compensation of the second sensor not requiring the presence of the first sensor.

Abstract: A fluoroscopic imager for observing a living creature with reduced x-ray dosage uses a video monitor for displaying frames of image samples received during respective ones of frame scan intervals that regularly and successively occur at a display frame rate sufficiently high that brightness flicker is acceptably low to a human observer; an x-ray source that can be gated on for intervals not as long as a display frame; and a fluoroscopic camera, including a raster-scanning video camera and x-ray-to-light conversion apparatus with persistence not appreciably longer than a display frame and frame-filling apparatus. Especially during purely diagnostic procedures, the frame-filling apparatus generates a continuous succession of frames of image samples at the display frame rate by interpolating between successively grabbed frames of image samples.

Abstract: An expanded fiber composite structure and process for making an expanded fiber composite structure are provided. The expanded fiber composite structure is made up of a fiber mat held in partial compression by a monolithic plastic coating on the fibers, the structure having a plurality of interstitial voids which may optionally be filled with a polymeric interstitial material. The process includes impregnating a fiber mat with a plastic material, compressing the mat to impregnate the mat with the plastic, fully wetting each fiber and creating a substantially void-free fiber/plastic matrix, and reducing the compressive forces on the mat, allowing the fibers to rebound and expand the mat to a predetermined desired thickness, in the process creating the interstitial voids. The structure is then cooled such that the plastic material stiffens and itself retains the structure at the desired thickness.

Abstract: The present invention solves both the dangling pointer problem and the garbage collection problem in software systems. Safe object pointers are divided into strong and weak pointers. Strong pointers point to an object unless they are explicitly assigned a new value, set to null, or destroyed. Weak pointers point to an object as long as the object has not been destroyed. If an object is destroyed, the weak pointer effectively becomes null, thus allowing the breaking up of cycles of references in a computer memory.

Abstract: A superconducting magnet lead assembly for a cryocooler-cooled superconducting magnet having a design current of between generally 50 and 250 amperes. A DBCO (Dysprosium Barium Copper Oxide), YBCO (Yttrium Barium Copper Oxide), or BSCCO (Bismuth Strontium Calcium Copper Oxide) superconducting lead has its ends flexibly, dielectrically, and thermally connected, one end to the generally 30 to 50 Kelvin first stage and the other end to the generally 8 to 30 Kelvin second stage of the cryocooler coldhead. The superconducting lead has a generally constant cross-sectional area along its length. The design current, the lead's length, and the lead's cross-sectional area are chosen such that the design current times the lead's length divided by the lead's cross-sectional area is between generally 720 and 880 amperes per centimeter for a DBCO or YBCO lead and is between generally 180 and 220 amperes per centimeter for a BSCCO lead. The superconducting lead will not itself precipitate a magnet quench (i.e.

Abstract: Apparatus and method are provided for growing improved quality long and large single crystals in a liquid encapsulated Czochralski (LEC) process, in which a separate cooling circuit is provided for the upper portion of a vessel which cools that portion independently of any cooling means for the lower portion of the vessel, and in which the gas flow pattern can desirably be controlled such that the gas flow is predominantly downward adjacent the vessel wall, and predominantly upward near the center of the vessel, where the crystal is being pulled from the melt.

Abstract: This invention relates to a field mapping fixture for mapping the magnetic fields of a superconducting magnet. Such structures of this type, generally, are capable of measuring the magnetic fields of a relatively small imaging volume.

Abstract: A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) magnet having an annularly cylindrical-shaped vacuum enclosure with a longitudinal axis, first and second longitudinal ends, a first larger diameter bore extending from the first towards the second longitudinal end, and a second smaller diameter bore extending from the second longitudinal end to the first bore. First and second superconductive coils are placed in the vacuum enclosure with the first coil generally circumferentially surrounding the first bore and the second coil circumferentially surrounding the second bore, wherein the radial distance of the radially innermost portion of the second coil from the axis is smaller than the radius of the first bore. The second longitudinal end of the vacuum enclosure fits on a patient's shoulders with the patient's head passing through the second bore and extending into the first bore for MRI brain imaging.

Abstract: This invention relates to the use of a catalytic preburner for heating the pair from compressor discharge temperatures to above the light-off or extinction temperatures of a catalytic combustor. Such structures of this type, generally, eliminate the diffusion flame during steady-state operation and produce a preburner/catalytic combustor system capable of achieving less than 1 ppm NO.sub.x.

Abstract: A noise source for an aircraft engine active noise cancellation system in which the resonant frequency of a noise radiating element is tuned to permit noise cancellation over a wide range of frequencies. The resonant frequency is tuned by adjusting the size of a frame which encloses the noise radiating element. One or more expandable elements are disposed in the frame to produce expansion and contraction of the frame. The elements are actuated by a controller which receives input of a feedback signal proportional to displacement of the noise radiating element and a signal corresponding to the blade passage frequency of the engine's fan. In response, the controller determines a control signal which is sent to the elements and causes the frame to expand or contract.