Abstract: A grasping instrument provided with a guided-on, attachable, modified knot pusher and designed for positioning and fixing a knot in a suture at a remote surgical location. The knot is easily formed outside the patient's abdominal cavity by hand and fixed on the instrument tip. After intra-abdominal insertion, the knot pusher serves to forward the knot on the thread and to immediately tighten it without any troublesome instrument change being required. A spring-loaded mechanism enables the applied force to be predetermined for achieving a reliable knot strength.

Abstract: A surgical instrument system for the use in minimal invasive surgery is adaptable to all surgical tasks by interchangeable instrument heads with different surgical tools. The instrument holder includes a handgrip, a tube extending therefrom and a shaft. The shaft is slidably received in the tube and selectively engaged with the trigger handle of the handgrip. At a distal tie-in point different interchangeable instrument heads are connected tensile resistent to the shaft and their function is actuated with the trigger handle via the same shaft. With the aid of a grip member provided at its proximal end, the shaft is operated to set its tie-in points in function.

Abstract: The invention is related to an operating device for apparatus combinations of medical-technical system workplaces, especially for the minimal invasive surgery. The individual apparatus of the apparatus combination are connected to a computer (28) having a monitor (30) and driven by way of foot-actuated actuating members. In order to improve the usability and flexibility, an actuating member fashioned to be a foot roller (56) provides computer compatible signals, while at least one further actuating member is formed to be a foot switch (58,60) and can be assigned to one of the apparatus-specific functional elements software-controlled by the actuation of the foot roller (56). A switch assignment field (88,90) assigned to the foot switch (58,60) for the symbolic display of the functional element assigned to the foot switch (58,60) at that time is provided on the monitor (30).

Abstract: For automatic population of printed circuit boards, automatic populating machines frequently need to be able to detect different population variants. This invention describes a simple and reliable process for identifying printed circuit boards to clearly distinguish between population variants within a production run comprising several population processes. According to this invention, a printed circuit board features termination nests for at least one encoding component, and with an encoding aperture being provided in these termination nest areas that can be closed by the aforementioned encoding component. Thus two population variants can be encoded, that is, a first variant where the printed circuit board will be part-populated without such an encoding component in its first population run, and a second variant where the printed circuit board will be part-populated with this encoding component in its first population run.

Abstract: Accessory devices for laparoscopic operations can be combined with a plastic receptacle 2 in such a way that an opening formed outside the abdominal wall in a cover sheet 10 can be coupled in sealing relationship with an end of the plastic receptacle 2 that can be closed or opened. The plastic receptacle 2 is in this case still located inside the abdominal space, at least in part, the opening of the plastic receptacle 2 projecting beyond the abdominal wall 4.