Abstract: The present invention provides strategies for mitigating the deleterious effects of differential thermal expansion in composite panel structures. The principles of the present invention are particularly useful in the field of concentrating solar power. The principles of the present invention can be used in CSP applications to make composite mirror panel structures with improved characteristics for accommodating differential thermal expansion between components of the composite. Significantly, the composite mirrors structures can still be securely attached to other heliostat components such as a drive mechanism while still having the ability to accommodate differential thermal expansion between the skins of a composite mirror panel helps to limit energy losses due to slope errors.

Abstract: An apparatus for transporting racks of sealed sample tubes, mixing a sample material contained within the tubes, and aspirating samples from the tubes. The apparatus includes a car which runs along a rail. The car drives racks containing the sample tubes into a mixer channel disposed above and running parallel to the rail. The mixer channel is mounted to rotate about an axis parallel to the rail to mix samples and position the tubes to be aspirated. A push pin mounted adjacent to the mixer channel extends into the mixer channel and urges individual tubes against an aspirator assembly mounted on the opposite side of the mixer channel. An input queue is disposed proximate the input side of the rail and an output queue disposed proximate the output side of rail. The input queue supports the racks and feeds them into position to be driven by the car mechanism into the mixer channel.

Abstract: A computer system with an operating system and a data-processing system running on a host processor, and a receiver. The receiver sends interrupt signals to the operating system after the receiver has received data signals. The operating system establishes interrupt times and passes the interrupt signals to the data-processing system. The data-processing system accesses the data signals from the receiver and only partially processes the data signals during the interrupt times. The operating system also receives clock interrupt signals, which it passes on to the data-processing system. The data-processing system completes the processing of the data signals during the clock interrupt times that the operating system establishes in response to the clock interrupt signals.

Abstract: The transports available in a local computer system for communicating with a remote computer system are automatically determined at either install time or run time. At install time, a list of transports supported by the local computer system is used to determine which supported transports are actually installed in the local computer system and the media dependent modules (MDMs) that correspond to those installed transports. At run time, a list of the installed transports and corresponding MDMs is used to determine which installed transports (and corresponding MDMs) can actually be used for an impending communications session with the remote computer system.

Abstract: Signals (e.g., for audio/video conferencing) are divided into data packets for transmission from a local node to a remote node. The transmission of the data packets is delayed to transmit then at intervals to avoid overloading the remote node with data packets that it does not have the bandwidth to receive and/or process. The invention helps prevent the remote node from dropping data packets which may otherwise occur when transmitting audio and/or video signals during a session (e.g., an audio/video conferencing session).

Abstract: A computer-based conferencing system capable of selectively conferencing with a remote node over two or more different transports. A host processor controls the generation of local conferencing signals for transmission to the remote node over either a first transport or a second transport. The host processor also controls the processing of remote conferencing signals received from the remote node over either the first transport or the second transport. In a preferred embodiment, the first transport is an ISDN network and the second transport is a LAN network. In one embodiment, the computer system has a combined audio/ISDN board, a video board, and a LAN card. In an alternative embodiment, the computer system has a combined audio/video board, an ISDN board, and a LAN card.