Abstract: A system to store food products within a heated compartment is provided. The system includes an enclosure that receives stacked trays, and an elevator to lift trays to a position to receive a plurality of food products from a conveyor or another source. A fork may be provided that receives a cooked food product thereon and rotates to allow the cooked food product to fall into the positioned tray while being maintained in a horizontal manner. A shuttle moves a full tray into a heated compartment, which moves trays therewithin to organize them for future use within a restaurant operation.

Abstract: Bone implants, including methods of use and assembly. The bone implants, which are optionally composite implants, generally include a distal anchoring region and a growth region that is proximal to the distal anchoring region. The distal anchoring region can have one or more distal surface features that adapt the distal anchoring region for anchoring into iliac bone. The growth region can have one or more growth features that adapt the growth region to facilitate at least one of bony on-growth, in-growth, or through-growth. The implants may be positioned along a posterior sacral alar-iliac (“SAI”) trajectory. The implants may be coupled to one or more bone stabilizing constructs, such as rod elements thereof.

Abstract: A method of controlling a cooking apparatus includes identifying an initial thickness of a food product on a lower heating plate of the cooking apparatus and calculating a difference between an initial gap value corresponding to the initial thickness of the food product and a predefined final gap value. The method includes controlling at least one of a pressure of at least one of an upper heating plate and a lower heating plate on the food product, a rate of descent of the upper heating plate toward the lower heating plate, and a rate of ascent of the lower heating plate toward the upper heating plate based on the calculated difference between the initial gap value and the predefined final gap value.

Abstract: A system to store food products within a heated compartment is provided. The system includes an enclosure that receives stacked trays, and an elevator to lift trays to a position to receive a plurality of food products from a conveyor or another source. A fork may be provided that receives a cooked food product thereon and rotates to allow the cooked food product to fall into the positioned tray while being maintained in a horizontal manner. A shuttle moves a full tray into a heated compartment, which moves trays therewithin to organize them for future use within a restaurant operation.

Abstract: A method of detecting intravascular volume depletion in a patient during a hemodialysis session includes measuring venous drip pressure for the patient. With a computer-driven analyzer, the method further includes analyzing the venous drip pressure and automatically and continuously determining a venous access pressure in proximity to a location of needle insertion into a vascular access site of the patient, wherein changes in venous access pressure are representative of changes in intravascular blood pressure. Using the analyzer, the method further includes comparing the venous access pressure to a standard and, if the venous access pressure is outside of a defined range of the standard, determining with the analyzer that the patient is experiencing intravascular volume depletion during the hemodialysis session.

Abstract: A method for determining risk of an adverse event, such as thrombosis or a required intervention, associated with a vascular access includes receiving hemodialysis treatment data associated with the vascular access, deriving a plurality of selected risk factors from the hemodialysis treatment data, evaluating the plurality of selected risk factors over a time period, assigning raw scores to each selected risk factor based on its values over the time period, summing the raw scores for the plurality of selected risk factors to determine a cumulative raw score, and correlating the cumulative raw score with a level of risk of an adverse event associated with the vascular access.

Abstract: A method for determining risk of an adverse event, such as thrombosis or a required intervention, associated with a vascular access includes receiving hemodialysis treatment data associated with the vascular access, deriving a plurality of selected risk factors from the hemodialysis treatment data, evaluating the plurality of selected risk factors over a time period, assigning raw scores to each selected risk factor based on its values over the time period, summing the raw scores for the plurality of selected risk factors to determine a cumulative raw score, and correlating the cumulative raw score with a level of risk of an adverse event associated with the vascular access.

Abstract: The invention provides a health care delivery system comprising a plurality of health care delivery devices (e.g., via the Internet, etc.), which can disposed in treatment centers ranging from patient homes to commercial health care facilities such as hospitals, dialysis centers and so forth. Reporting functionality can, instead of or in addition to identifying (and reporting on) discrepancies in the raw and/or analyzed data from the delivery devices, infer (and report) on possible causes of those discrepancies and, in some aspects of the invention, remedy those causes, thereby, providing automated operations support for the treatment centers.

Abstract: A method for determining risk of an adverse event, such as thrombosis or a required intervention, associated with a vascular access includes receiving hemodialysis treatment data associated with the vascular access, deriving a plurality of selected risk factors from the hemodialysis treatment data, evaluating the plurality of selected risk factors over a time period, assigning raw scores to each selected risk factor based on its values over the time period, summing the raw scores for the plurality of selected risk factors to determine a cumulative raw score, and correlating the cumulative raw score with a level of risk of an adverse event associated with the vascular access.

Abstract: A method of detecting intravascular volume depletion in a patient during a hemodialysis session includes measuring venous drip pressure for the patient. With a computer-driven analyzer, the method further includes analyzing the venous drip pressure and automatically and continuously determining a venous access pressure in proximity to a location of needle insertion into a vascular access site of the patient, wherein changes in venous access pressure are representative of changes in intravascular blood pressure. Using the analyzer, the method further includes comparing the venous access pressure to a standard and, if the venous access pressure is outside of a defined range of the standard, determining with the analyzer that the patient is experiencing intravascular volume depletion during the hemodialysis session.

Abstract: The invention provides apparatus and methods for home or other remote delivery of health care that gather subjective and objective measures of patient health and treatment, analyzing them (e.g., correlating them with one another and/or with norms) and reporting them to aid in on-going patient diagnosis and treatment (both on acute and chronic bases), as well as to aid physicians, nurses and other caregivers in decision support, monitoring treatment compliance, facilitating regulatory compliance, billing, and so forth. Thus, for example, in some aspects a health care delivery device comprising a medical treatment apparatus, such as a home hemodialysis or home peritoneal dialysis unit, that is coupled to a processor. The processor generates patient queries in connection with treatments rendered by the dialysis equipment (or other treatment apparatus).

Abstract: The invention provides a health care delivery system comprising a plurality of health care delivery devices (e.g., via the Internet, etc.), which can disposed in treatment centers ranging from patient homes to commercial health care facilities such as hospitals, dialysis centers and so forth. Reporting functionality can, instead of or in addition to identifying (and reporting on) discrepancies in the raw and/or analyzed data from the delivery devices, infer (and report) on possible causes of those discrepancies and, in some aspects of the invention, remedy those causes, thereby, providing automated operations support for the treatment centers.

Abstract: The invention provides apparatus and methods for home or other remote delivery of health care that gather subjective and objective measures of patient health and treatment, analyzing them (e.g., correlating them with one another and/or with norms) and reporting them to aid in on-going patient diagnosis and treatment (both on acute and chronic bases), as well as to aid physicians, nurses and other caregivers in decision support, monitoring treatment compliance, facilitating regulatory compliance, billing, and so forth. Thus, for example, in some aspects a health care delivery device comprising a medical treatment apparatus, such as a home hemodialysis or home peritoneal dialysis unit, that is coupled to a processor. The processor generates patient queries in connection with treatments rendered by the dialysis equipment (or other treatment apparatus).

Abstract: A system for testing a communication path for digital subscriber line (DSL) signals includes a loop management device coupled in the communication path between a DSL access multiplexer (DSLAM) and a DSL modem located at a customer premises. The system also includes a remote test interface coupled in the communication path between the loop management device and the DSL modem. The loop management device and the remote test interface communicate using voice-band signals transmitted over the communication path and collaboratively test the communication path.

Abstract: A frame sync acquisition mechanism accurately locates a frame synchronization word within successive selectively bit-stuffed frames of data by not only looking for the frame sync word in the two expected alternative frame sync word locations based upon either the addition of stuff bits or the lack of such stuff bits, but also selectively examining a pair of additional potential locations, one of which precedes and the other of which succeeds the two expected alternative frame sync word locations. If an exact match with the frame sync word is located in either of the expected locations, that location is selected as the reference for the next succeeding frame. During the search of the next successive frame and for every succeeding frame, an attempt is made to initially match the frame sync word with in either of these expected locations. If unable to do so, the search is expanded to encompass the entire window of location uncertainty, so as to include the two additional locations.

Abstract: A programmable digital bit pattern detector detects the presence of a variable length, variable content M-bit serial bit pattern that is sequentially repeated in a digital bit stream during some prescribed time constraint, and indicates whether successive repetitions of the pattern satisfy a prescribed criterion, before declaring that the pattern has been successfully acquired. For this purpose, a variable length shift register is programmed with a copy of the pattern. During initial acquisition, in response to a match between a respective bit of the digital bit stream and the content of a selected stage of the shift register, the contents of the shift register are shifted by one bit stage; in response to a mismatch, clocking of the shift register is inhibited for that bit.