Abstract: A method and apparatus for controlled access to pressurized fluid lines and to exhausted lines. The apparatus includes a rod body having a bore; a packing fitting attached to a first end of the rod body and a ball valve attached to a second end of the rod body; a transverse arm between the first and second ends of the rod body, the transverse arm having a bore communicating the rod body bore; and a slideable rod in the bore of the rod body, in a first position of the rod a first end extends through the packing fitting to outside of the rod body and a second end is completely within the rod body, in a second position of the rod the first end extends through the packing fitting to outside of the rod body and the second end of the rod extends through and past the ball valve.

Abstract: A method for determining whether portions of text have been copied during electronic copying, photocopying, or scanning of a document. The method comprises generating a target code from a target passage of the text, determining whether a sample passage of text includes the target code, and, upon successful determination, initiating an action if the sample passage of text includes the target code. A method of generating a code representative of a passage of text uses a spacing between respective occurrences of one or more key symbol strings within the text. By comparing the known code of a target text passage with the code generated from a sample text passage, it is easy to determine whether the target text has been used within the sample. The method may be integrated within a copying device.

Abstract: A method of identifying images as matching comprises comparing two image templates using a master mask to select corresponding codes from the templates. The master mask excludes blocks from the matching process and/or weights blocks according to their known or expected reliability.

Abstract: An improved method for the treatment of wood in preparation for manufacture of wooden items comprising the steps of first heat treating the wood and then fashioning the wood into a finished item, whereby the resulting wooden item is darker, harder, more weather and rot resistant, and more stable than items fashioned from untreated wood.

Abstract: A cementitious compostion for high density, low porosity sheet-form building materials having solid surfaces is comprised of cement, pozzolans, and a high percentage of fine and/or coarse glass aggregate.

Abstract: An improved method for the treatment of wood in preparation for manufacture of wooden items comprising the steps of first heat treating the wood and then fashioning the wood into a finished item, whereby the resulting wooden item is darker, harder, more weather and rot resistant, and more stable than items fashioned from untreated wood.

Abstract: An improved method for the treatment of wood in preparation for manufacture of wooden items comprising the steps of first heat treating the wood and then fashioning the wood into a finished item, whereby the resulting wooden item is darker, harder, more weather and rot resistant, and more stable than items fashioned from untreated wood.

Abstract: A cementitious compostion for high density, low porosity sheet-form building materials having solid surfaces is comprised of cement, pozzolans, and a high percentage of fine and/or coarse glass aggregate.

Abstract: An apparatus and method for conducting a musically choreographed fireworks display is provided. The apparatus comprises a multi-shot fireworks cake having a primary fuse, at least one ignition sensor configured to detect ignition of the primary fuse, and an audio device circuit, electrically coupled to the at least one ignition sensor and configured to output an audio signal upon detection of the ignition of the primary fuse. The apparatus may also include a memory which stores a plurality of audio files and a plurality of ignition sensors located throughout the multi-shot fireworks cake, each ignition sensor configured to detect ignition of at least one individual fuse. The audio device is may also be configured to convert a different sequentially ordered audio file of the plurality of audio files upon detection of ignition of each ignition sensor.

Abstract: A present invention for integrated proposal development and management which provides for improved workflow and efficiency in the development of, and improved accuracy and consistency in, offering or proposal documents for new business. Typical such methods and systems in execution require significant manual labor, multiple non-integrated processes and software programs, and are subject to considerable human error. The present invention provides for a capability of an integrated system which enables the proposal development process to be more efficient, by network integrating the proposal management and document development aspects together or alternately, by integrating the proposal management and document development aspects on a single software platform or computer network, and automating using software programs many of the required tasks and workflows that have previously been performed manually.

Abstract: A method of producing a sheet-form material having an exposed solid surface comprises pre-mixing cement with at least one pozzolan to provide a cement/pozzolan mixture with a high pozzolan to cement ratio, adding to the cement/pozzolan mixture an aqueous solution comprised of water and a high range water reducer to produce a cement/pozzolan dough-like substance, adding and mixing a sufficient quantity of glass aggregate to said cement/pozzolan dough-like substance to produce a moldable composition, wherein, after adding and mixing in the glass aggregate, the pozzolan is present in the composition at about 5% to about 20% by weight, the cement is present in the composition at about 3% to about 20% by weight, and the aggregate glass is by weight a relatively high percentage of the composition. The moldable composition is placed into a mold and vibrated, and is allowed to cure.

Abstract: A method of improving the speed with which a sample data record can be matched against records in a database comprises defining a list of possible key values (430), testing those key values against the sample and, for each record in the database, counting the number of key values that match both the record and the sample at reference positions selected by a mask. A list of possible matches is then selected on the basis of that count, for more detailed matching or analysis. Such a method provides very fast matching at the expense of some additional effort when registering a new record within the database.

Abstract: A method, apparatus, and computer-readable medium for basis selection is described. A plurality of sub-bands of digital data is generated and a basis function for the digital data in one of the plurality of sub-bands is determined at a rate that provides a substantially peak signal-to-noise ratio for the digital data. The basis function is added to a codebook and the digital data is compressed using the codebook.

Abstract: Embodiments described herein may include example embodiments of a method, article and apparatus for compressing data utilizing combinatorial coding which may be used for communicating between two or more components connected to an interconnection medium (e.g., a bus) within a single computer or digital data processing system, and/or for communication between computing platforms via a network or other interconnection medium.

Abstract: An improved method for the manufacture of wooden gunstocks comprising the steps of first heat treating the wood and then fashioning the wood into a gunstock, whereby the resulting gunstock is more weather and rot resistant, more stable, and lighter than gunstocks fashioned from untreated wood.

Abstract: A cementitious composition for high density, low porosity sheet-form building materials having solid surfaces is comprised of cement, pozzolans, and a high percentage of fine and/or coarse glass aggregate.

Abstract: An improved method for the treatment of wood in preparation for manufacture of wooden items comprising the steps of first heat treating the wood and then fashioning the wood into a finished item, whereby the resulting wooden item is darker, harder, more weather and rot resistant, and more stable than items fashioned from untreated wood.

Abstract: A cementitious composition for high density, low porosity sheet-form building materials having solid surfaces is comprised of cement, pozzolans, and a high percentage of fine and/or coarse glass aggregate.

Abstract: A method of approximating the inner or outer boundary of an iris comprises generating an approximate boundary representation (20) comprising a least squares approximation by a Fourier Series of a function of the angle (?) about a fixed point (A) of the distance of measured points (10) on the boundary from the fixed point (A). More broadly, the method may be used to approximate the shape of any two-dimensional curve or figure.

Abstract: A method of image compression includes significance switching of DCT coefficients in block-based embedded DCT procedures. Bitwise digitized DCT coefficients are passed through successive significance sweeps of the whole image from the most significant down to the least significant coefficient bit planes. With each new sweep, newly significant coefficients may appear within a block, and block-masking is used to transmit the addresses of those newly significant coefficients. An off-mask may also be used. The invention further relates to a hardware or software-based image encoder.