Abstract: A bioerodible cement system, which, upon mixing of the system parts, forms a cured bioerodible cement, said system comprising a first part comprising a first bioerodible polymer capable of producing acidic products upon hydrolytic degradation; and a second part comprising a second bioerodible scaffolding polymer which upon crosslinking provides a biopolymeric scaffolding or internal reinforcement for said cured cement is disclosed. In a preferred embodiment, the second bioerodible polymer comprises polypropylene fumarate (PPF), which is cross-linked during curing, desirably by a vinyl monomer such as vinyl pyrrolidone (VP) to form the biopolymeric scaffolding which provides the cured cement with dimensional and geometric stability.

Abstract: A micromechanical switch or relay in accordance with the invention includes a substrate, a source electrode, a gate electrode, a drain electrode, and various style beams. In one embodiment the beam is relatively long and includes flexures on at least one end, and has a small activation voltage.

Abstract: Method and apparatus for extending lower-layer flow control end-to-end, transparent to network host systems, between network hosts attached to legacy networks without requiring any changes to the host networks or hosts themselves. In a first embodiment, a source host and a destination host, each residing on a respective LAN, communicate via an intermediate network supporting the lower-layer flow control. A higher-layer, end-to-end flow control protocol exists between the hosts. The lower-layer flow control protocol accounts for loss of bandwidth between each hop within the intermediate network. To extend the lower-layer flow control protocol to the hosts, an intelligent edge device of the intermediate network adjusts observed higher-layer flow control parameters based upon the state of the lower-layer flow control. No modifications to the legacy network or hosts is required, and the extension of flow control is transparent to the legacy networks.

Abstract: A method is provided for removing hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen polysulfide compounds out of liquid sulfur by stripping with a gas, such as air. The method is conducted in an apparatus equipped with at least two degassing compartments and a sulfur collection pit wherein the degassing compartments are separated from each other by a first partition wall, the last degassing compartment is separated from the sulfur collection pit by a second partion wall and each degassing compartment contains at least first and second subcompartments which are separated from each other by a third partion wall and are open to each other at the top and the bottom. At least one first subcompartment in each said degassing compartment is provided, at the bottom thereof, with a plurality of stripping gas inlet nozzles and at least one second subcompartment in each said degassing compartment is not provided with stripping gas inlet nozzles.

Abstract: The present invention relates to microfabricated spectrometers including methods of making and using same. Microspectrometers can be formed in a single chip in which detectors and light sources can be monolithically integrated. The microspectrometer can be integrated into a sensor system to measure the optical and physical properties of solids and fluids.

Abstract: In a high-temperature regenerator which has vertical liquid pipe groups in the proximity of which a combustion flame and combustion gas from a burner pass and a double can wall which communicates with upper and lower portions of liquid pipes forming the vertical liquid pipe groups and is arranged at a position of a furnace wall and which heats and concentrates a diluted absorption solution passing through the vertical liquid pipe groups and the double can wall, a solution inlet for sprinkling the diluted absorption solution in an open state is provided above liquid pipes arranged on a side opposite to the burner. Since the sprinkled diluted absorption solution collects the heat of an exhaust gas while it falls to increase its temperature, when it flows into the other liquid pipes, it boils immediately and its circulation flow is activated by boiling.

Abstract: Leading-edge blanking circuits blank the leading edge of a current sense signal generated by sensing circuitry sensing the current through a switching field-effect transistor. A current sensor is employed to sense the magnitude of gate current being provided to the gate of the switching transistor by a driver circuit. A comparator indicates whether the sensed magnitude of the gate current exceeds a predetermined threshold current. A blanking circuit component, such as a transistor connected to ground, is also used. In one blanking circuit, the blanking component forces the current sense signal to zero when the comparator indicates that the gate current of the switching transistor exceeds the threshold current, and otherwise allows the value of the current sense signal to be determined by the current-sensing circuitry. In another blanking circuit, a latch is interposed between the comparator and the blanking component. The latch generates a blanking control signal to control the blanking component.

Abstract: A process for forming polymer coatings on the surfaces of objects, e.g., medical stents, is disclosed. The coatings formed by the process of the invention comprise small spherical, spheroidal or irregular shape polymer particles, which may be adhered together. Coatings may have high porosity and high surface area.

Abstract: Method and apparatus for enabling resuspension wash and magnetic localization of sample components bound to particles with magnetic properties in reaction vessels during separation and wash for enhanced chemiluminescent signal generation in biomedical assays. The assays involve moving reaction vessels past magnets that partially localize the particles prior to passing a reduced strength magnet where washing occurs, with or without resuspension, after separating out the unbound particles and liquid. The band of particles is subsequently resuspended in acid for chemiluminescent purposes. A variety of magnet configurations are employed to realize the reduced strength magnet. Reduced strength magnets adjacent the full width magnets prevent the band of magnetic particles from becoming split. The localized particles enable more efficient resuspension by reagent.

Abstract: An ocular prosthetic device is provided which includes a simulated pupil that does not interfere with the intended appearance of the iris image, and further which adapts to a range of ambient lighting environments to simulate the appearance of a natural eye. An iris image is provided to reproduce the color and pattern of a natural eye. A visual display, or light source, is located behind the iris image. The visual display has a series of concentric rings to produce a size range similar to the size range between that of a dilated and contracted pupil. The iris image has a pattern of light transmissive openings to permit light from the rearwardly disposed visual display to pass through the openings. The concentric rings, when activated, are visible through the openings in the iris image, and present the appearance of a pupil of a size dependent on the number of activated rings.

Abstract: An Asynchronous Transfer Mode switch and method which facilitate point-to-multipoint transmission are disclosed. Each input port within the switch includes a switch allocation table ("SAT") which manages bandwidth allocation and delay. Each SAT includes a plurality of sequentially ordered cell time slots, a subqueue and a synchronized pointer which is directed to one of the slots such that at any given point in time each of the pointers is directed to the same slot location in the respective SAT with which the pointer is associated. To execute point-to-multipoint operation where output port conflicts are present the switch transmits copies of the cell to the output ports at different points in time. More particularly, the switch transmits copies of the cell to available output ports, and tracks such transmission for managing future transmission to unserviced output ports. To track transmission the switch includes a map and scoreboard.

Abstract: In a network switch with a distributed address cache, events that update a cache segment are serialized and distributed and acted upon by all the cache segments to maintain consistency among the segments. The segments are individually associated with Input/Output Application Specific Integrated Circuits ("I/O ASICs") interconnected via an event sharing bus used for transmission of cache update messages. Messages are ordered by arbitrating for the shared bus and enforcing that an I/O ASIC does not update its local cache segment until a cache update message is broadcast on the event bus. Each I/O ASIC asserts a busy signal while executing a cache update message to prevent an arbiter from granting the event bus to allow transmission of a subsequent update message; thereby synchronizing all update messages and minimizing storage on each I/O ASIC for update messages.

Abstract: The present invention is to provide a refrigerant compressor comprising a compressing element driven by a rotary shaft, for compressing and discharging a sucked HFC type refrigerant or refrigerant mainly comprising the HFC type refrigerant by the compressing element, where a rotary shaft applied with the plasma sulphonitriding treatment on the surface is used as the rotary shaft. Or a vane applied with the plasma sulphonitriding treatment on the surface of a vane made of a steel equivalent to a high speed tool steel vane or a steel equivalent to a stainless steel is used. Accordingly, a refrigerant compressor comprising a rotary shaft or a vane having a low friction coefficient in a sliding portion on the surface of the rotary shaft or the vane and a high wear resistance can be provided even in the case an ester type refrigerator oil or an ether type refrigerator oil is used as the refrigerator oil and an HFC type refrigerant is used.

Abstract: This invention pertains to the use of a combination of angiotensin inhibitors and nitric oxide stimulators to slow and reverse the process of fibrosis in the body. This combination of medicaments is particularly useful in the treatment of a variety of cardiovascular fibrotic pathologies, such as that associated with left ventricular hypertrophy secondary to hypertension, myocardial infarction, and myocarditis.

Abstract: A mosaic image is formed from a database of source images. More particularly, the source images are analyzed, selected and organized to produce the mosaic image. A target image is divided into tile regions, each of which is compared with individual source image portions to determine the best available matching source image by computing red, green and blue channel root-mean square error. The mosaic image is formed by positioning the respective best-matching source images at the respective tile regions.

Abstract: Motorized operating mechanisms for vehicle portal closure members, such as windows, sunroofs, sliding doors, hatches, or convertible tops are common in modern automobiles. Inadvertent operation of such closure members, however, has been known to cause injury and entrapment when such a member is directed to close at an inappropriate moment. A vehicle entrapment prevention system is provided which prevents undesired and possibly injurious operation of such a vehicle portal closure member. Undesired operation often occurs when younger occupants, such as small children, accidentally trigger the operating mechanism, which can cause the closure member to entrap an unsuspecting victim. Such an entrapment prevention system ensures safe operation by determining the presence of a responsible operator through the use of various sensors, and permits operation of a portal closure member only in the presence of such a responsible operator.

Abstract: A resilient conductive coupler electrically couples a conductive housing of a modular transceiver to ground contacts of a printed circuit board. A transceiver carrier is mounted to a printed circuit board and the resilient conductive coupler is selectively positioned and mounted to the printed circuit board so as to make a low impedance electrical connection with ground contact pads of the printed circuit board. The resilient conductive coupler is sized and positioned such that a portion of the coupler wipes the conductive housing of the transceiver as the transceiver is slidably inserted into the carrier. The coupler electrically couples the conductive housing of the modular transceiver to the ground contact of the printed circuit board when the modular transceiver is seated within the carrier so as to minimize undesired emissions from the modular transceiver when the transceiver is operable.