Abstract: A medical trainer simulator includes a plurality of simulated vessels filled with a conductive fluid representing, for example, veins or arteries. While performing a procedure using the medical trainer, a person inserts a medical instrument, e.g., a needle or scalpel, into a selected vessel, causing the medical instrument to contact the conductive fluid. A circuit board detects when a circuit is thus created by detecting an electrical current flowing through the medical instrument and the conductive fluid it has contacted. A software program executing on a computer excludes any phantom circuit occurring when the medical instrument contacts conductive fluid from a previous procedure that is not within one of the vessels. A phantom circuit is detected if the resistance of the resulting circuit exceeds a predetermined threshold. The computer visually and/or audibly indicates whether the correct vessel was pierced or excized by the medical instrument.

Abstract: A medical trainer simulator includes a plurality of simulated vessels filled with a conductive fluid representing, for example, veins or arteries. While performing a procedure using the medical trainer, a person inserts a medical instrument, e.g., a needle or scalpel, into a selected vessel, causing the medical instrument to contact the conductive fluid. A circuit board detects when a circuit is thus created by detecting an electrical current flowing through the medical instrument and the conductive fluid it has contacted. A software program executing on a computer excludes any phantom circuit occurring when the medical instrument contacts conductive fluid from a previous procedure that is not within one of the vessels. A phantom circuit is detected if the resistance of the resulting circuit exceeds a predetermined threshold. The computer visually and/or audibly indicates whether the correct vessel was pierced or excised by the medical instrument.

Abstract: A worldwide television tuning system is configurable to the television standards and channel frequencies of multiple different countries based on a country's ITU long-distance country code. The tuning system maintains a country code table listing a plurality of countries according to their ITU codes. The tuning system also maintains multiple channel-to-frequency mapping tables that correlate channel numbers to corresponding frequencies for associated countries in the country table. The country table indexes the channel-to-frequency mapping tables. During configuration, a user or application selects a particular country by passing in the ITU code. The tuning system uses the ITU code to locate an entry for that country in the country code table. The table entry contains an index to an associated channel-to-frequency mapping table for the selected country. The tuning system loads and saves the channel-to-frequency mapping table for subsequent use.

Abstract: A modularized broadcast receiver driver architecture includes one or more control nodes, under control of a network module, that perform a series of one or more functions to receive a broadcast signal and extract content information from the signal. None of the multiple control nodes requires knowledge of the network type via which the signal is being received. Rather, a network module is aware of the network type and configures the control nodes to carry out their respective functions.

Abstract: A modularized broadcast receiver driver architecture includes one or more control nodes, under control of a network module, that perform a series of one or more functions to receive a broadcast signal and extract content information from the signal. None of the multiple control nodes requires knowledge of the network type via which the signal is being received. Rather, a network module is aware of the network type and configures the control nodes to carry out their respective functions.