Abstract: A supported catalyst is prepared by depositing oxides of nickel and cobalt, with or without noble metals, on a sintered low surface area porous inert support, surface of which is precoated with an oxide of Be, Mg, Ca or a mixture thereof so that a protective layer of the alkaline earth oxide is formed between the oxides of nickel and cobalt, with or without noble metal, and the support and hence direct chemical interactions between the oxides of the group VIII transition metals and the reactive components of support, which leads to the formation of catalytically inactive binary oxide phases are avoided.

Abstract: A multi-use flow control and pressure reducing valve includes an inlet chamber, an intermediate chamber, and an outlet chamber. An hydraulic gate member forms the outlet chamber and controls communication between the intermediate chamber and outlet chamber to control flow of fluid through the valve. The hydraulic gate also establishes a control or actuating chamber for receiving fluid therein to control the position of the hydraulic gate. The valve is separable in the axial direction into at least two parts for removal, cleaning, or repair with the two parts coupled and held together during use preferably by an easily operated coupling device.

Abstract: A system for monitoring eyes of an individual includes a human interface for obtaining images of the individual and for providing feedback to the individual and a processor for analyzing the images. The processor transforms an image sequence into a one dimensional signal by extracting relevant features from the images. Analysis of the signal generated then occurs to detect sleepiness. Transformation of the image sequence includes eye localization, eye tracking and eye motion signal generation. The system takes advantage of the relatively high horizontal-contrast density of the eye region to determine eye positions in a greyscale image of a human face.

Abstract: A method for automatically editing a plurality of CT image slices to provide a three dimensional view of a selected object located within a patient's body comprises providing at least one slab of CT image slices produced by CT scanning system and computing a top MIP image of the slab. An undesirable object is automatically removed from the top MIP image by first detecting all the pixels having illuminating intensity values which represent the undesirable object. Then all the pixels of the object to be removed are set to a substantially zero illuminating intensity value in order to remove the object from the top MIP image of the slab. After the undesirable object is removed from the top MIP image, the edits made thereto are applied to each CT image slice in the slab. The present invention also includes apparatus for performing a 3D reconstruction of CT angiographic images to visualize a selected object located within a patient's body.

Abstract: A surgical instrument for sizing the lumen of an organ is provided. The lumen sizer comprises a handle member with a projection at either end. Each projection has a substantially cylindrical sizing portion of different diameter, each diameter corresponding to the working range of a surgical instrument to be used on the organ or to the diameter of a prosthetic device to be attached to the organ. Tapered insertion regions having atraumatic tips extend from each of the substantially cylindrical sizing portions. The surgical instrument provides a fast and simple technique for measuring the lumen of an organ.

Abstract: The present invention apparatus and method uses a recursive filter to estimate the instantaneous intensity and temporal rate of change in intensity for object points in consecutive images of an image-sequence. The estimates of the intensity and its temporal rate of change are updated for each new image in the image sequence. The amount of smoothing introduced by the recursive filter is dependant upon the estimates computed for the intensity and temporal rate of change. As such, the recursive filter corrects the image sequence in accordance with each new set of estimates. Since motion in an image-sequence is implicit in the rate of change of intensity, the recursive filter is able to achieve motion compensated enhancements.