Abstract: A heating drum for ironing machines includes a metallic hollow cylindrical body having two enlarged ends to form two water reservoirs and two coaxial tubular necks at the two enlarged ends, the metallic hollow cylindrical body having a plurality of inverted V-shaped grooves each having two ends communicating with the water reservoirs an a tip pointing to a direction along which the metallic hollow cylindrical body rotates.

Abstract: A rolling drum type washing structure of a washing apparatus includes a transmission device including a first roller, a first knife roller and a first conveyor belt connecting the first roller and the first knife roller, a rinsing device including a net drum and two second rollers arranged under the net drum, the two second rollers being drivingly connected with the net drum, three water reservoirs with an open top arranged within the net drum and each pivotally mounted on an axle longitudinally extending across the net drum, and eleven spraying pipes disposed above the net drum and each provided with a plurality of perforations, and a squeezing device including a second knife roller, two third roller, a second conveyor belt, two upper squeezing rollers and two lower squeezing rollers, whereby the cloths are washed one by one thus thoroughly cleaning the cloth.

Abstract: This invention is directed to relational extenders for a computer-based relational database. Each relational extender includes at least one column, in a first, business, table containing a user defined application database, dedicated to object handles for defining the complex data type of an object; a second, attribute, table containing at least one column defining a unique characteristic associated with the one object and one column dedicated to containing the object handle; and a third, metadata, table containing at least one column defining a common characteristic associated with all objects defined within the business table and one column dedicated to containing the object handle and at least one column dedicated to containing a reference to object data associated with the object.

Abstract: A cigar cutter includes a housing having an opening formed in the middle portion for engaging with a cigar. A cutter blade is slidably engaged in the housing and movable across the opening for cutting the cigar. A safe guard includes a pair of parallel panels for engaging onto the middle portion of the housing for shielding the cutter blade and for preventing the cutter blade from hurting a user. The housing includes one or more guiding grooves, and the safe guard includes one or more projections for engaging with the guiding groove and for guiding the relative movement between the safe guard and the housing. The guiding grooves each includes two ends having an orifice for engaging with the projection of the safe guard and for maintaining the safe guard in the open position and the enclosed position.

Abstract: This invention describes a pipeline sorter, in which record-pairs are compared and conditionally swapped while being advanced along the pipeline synchronously. The pipeline sorter has the topology of a U-shaped tube, with regularly spaced crosspaths linking the two arms. Records are loaded one at a time, into the input arm synchronously, and emerge out of the output arm, also one at a time and synchronously. Within the sorter, at periodic time intervals a number of record-pairs at correlated positions of the U-tube are compared. Dependent on the comparison outcome, either the original records themselves, moving along vertical paths, or their permutation, moving along crosspaths, will arrive at the next down-stream positions. In this manner, as soon as the last record has been loaded, the correctly sorted output will begin to emerge, with the overall sorting time completely overlapped by the loading and unloading of records.

Abstract: An apparatus for sorting of equal length records with the sorting time maximally overlapped by the time taken for loading and unloading of records. The minimal structure consists of a decision mechanism linked to and associated with a network of ladder structures. The activity within the network is so synchronized that the sorting activity in most ladders occurs while some ladder within the network is still undergoing the loading of input data; and during the unloading phase, the individually sorted data from each ladder are merged concurrently to produce a sequence of sorted records. The overlap between sorting and loading varies from 0 for records requiring no loading/unloading, to 100% for multi-ladder networks with loading/unloading.A single ladder structure supporting a type of transposition sort is first described both in a full exchange scheme and a fast version. Then, the mechanism for loading/unloading equal length records to the single ladder is set forth.

Abstract: Information processing is conveniently achieved by a structure which uses a novel binary switch. The switch can steer two data streams so that they will either cross one another or bypass one another, depending upon external control. A linear array of shift register loops are linked together by these flow-steering binary switches to form a storage structure which is termed a ladder. The ladder provides a variety of data structures. For example, it can alternate between LIFO (last in-first out) and FIFO (first in-first out). It can also dynamically rearrange data items according to recency of usage, in order to improve average access time to any data item. The binary switch and the ladder structure are conveniently provided using magnetic bubble domain technology, although other technologies can also be used.

Abstract: An apparatus for performing efficient transposition exchange sorts among equal length records is described. The apparatus takes advantage of the flow steering property of linkable circulating storage loops to minimize the average access time by positioning information closer to the output port in a storage structure. The apparatus is formed from a linear array of equal size shift register loops each holding one record. The loops are switchably interconnected such that when two boundary switches are set in a first mode, the contents of each loop normally circulate wholly therewithin. Upon a common boundary switch being set in a second mode, the contents within a first loop flow into a second loop and vis-a-vis. By setting a common boundary switch to the second mode, the contents of a pair of adjacent loops are exchanged in the duration of one loop cycle time.

Abstract: A text editing system is described which is comprised of single technology elements. That is, the system is comprised of dynamic shift registers which are entirely implemented with either magnetic bubble domain devices or charge coupled devices. These shift registers can be randomly accessed using write and read decoders to provide great flexibility in entry, retrieval, and restoring of data. An editing shift register is used for text editing functions, such as insertion of data, deletion of data, etc. This editing shift register performs the data manipulation functions by using techniques such as freezing of data bits and bypassing of data bits in order to change the order of the data and to close gaps which may occur in the data. The shift registers used for storage and the editing shift register are characterized in that all data manipulation functions and all accessing functions do not require a change in the sequence of the drive field used to move the data bits.