Abstract: In a material sample separation and collection system, a sample is obtained by airflow separation. The system and attendant methods collect a complete sample over a defined period of time by modulating one or more pressure balancing valves, thus allowing for a variable flow rate of materials through the system even while the fan or other source of airflow operates at constant speed. The sampling rate, which is based on how quickly or slowly materials enter and pass through the system and into a collection vessel, is automatically modulated in real time based on sensor data.

Abstract: A retaining mechanism for use in affixing a stratum to bone is disclosed. The retaining mechanism comprises a stratum, a retaining element and a spring element. The stratum comprising a first surface, a second surface, and a hole extending between the first surface and the second surface, wherein the second surface is configured to engage at least a portion of the bone. The retaining element comprises a first position that permits a fastener to be passed through the hole, and a second position that at least partially overlaps the hole. The spring element is configured to engage the stratum and configured to engage the retaining element such that the spring element helps maintain the retaining element in its second position so as to help prevent inadvertent backing out of the fastener after the fastener has been fully inserted into the hole.

Abstract: A retaining mechanism for use in affixing a stratum to bone is disclosed. The retaining mechanism comprises a stratum, a retaining element and a spring element. The stratum comprising a first surface, a second surface, and a hole extending between the first surface and the second surface, wherein the second surface is configured to engage at least a portion of the bone. The retaining element comprises a first position that permits a fastener to be passed through the hole, and a second position that at least partially overlaps the hole. The spring element is configured to engage the stratum and configured to engage the retaining element such that the spring element helps maintain the retaining element in its second position so as to help prevent inadvertent backing out of the fastener after the fastener has been fully inserted into the hole.

Abstract: A retaining mechanism for use in affixing a stratum to bone is disclosed. The retaining mechanism comprises a stratum, a retaining element and a spring element. The stratum comprising a first surface, a second surface, and a hole extending between the first surface and the second surface, wherein the second surface is configured to engage at least a portion of the bone. The retaining element comprises a first position that permits a fastener to be passed through the hole, and a second position that at least partially overlaps the hole. The spring element is configured to engage the stratum and configured to engage the retaining element such that the spring element helps maintain the retaining element in its second position so as to help prevent inadvertent backing out of the fastener after the fastener has been fully inserted into the hole.

Abstract: A retaining mechanism for use in affixing a stratum to bone is disclosed. The retaining mechanism comprises a stratum, a retaining element and a spring element. The stratum comprising a first surface, a second surface, and a hole extending between the first surface and the second surface, wherein the second surface is configured to engage at least a portion of the bone. The retaining element comprises a first position that permits a fastener to be passed through the hole, and a second position that at least partially overlaps the hole. The spring element is configured to engage the stratum and configured to engage the retaining element such that the spring element helps maintain the retaining element in its second position so as to help prevent inadvertent backing out of the fastener after the fastener has been fully inserted into the hole.

Abstract: A method of identifying definitions in documents includes receiving text units as an input. Which of the text units includes a cue phrase is then identified. For text units identified as including a cue phrase, localized parsing is performed around the cue phrase to determine whether the text unit including the cue phrase contains a definition.

Abstract: Method of integrating Flex and Yacc (or their respective equivalents) into a named entity recognition engine used as a component of a general text processing system is provided. The named entity recognition engine adds results into a central representation or lattice for use by various subsequent applications. The applications can configure which named entity classes or types are recognized via an application program interface. The text processing system configures input and output through the lattice for Flex and Yacc to maintain high performance. Optionally, the text processing system minimizes expensive lexicon look-up by maximizing named entity constituents matched by Flex-generated recognizers.

Abstract: Methods of identifying named entities in natural language text using machine or computer compiler tools are provided. A lexical analyzer generator such as Flex or Lex or an equivalent tool can be used to generate a recognizer for named entities, such as digits, date expressions, and email or web addresses. Alternatively, a parser generator, such as Yacc or Bison or an equivalent tool can be used to generate a recognizer for other named entities, such as person and company names. Further, a lexical analyzer generated by Flex, Lex, or its equivalent is used in combination with a parser generated by Yacc, Bison, or its equivalent to identify named entities. Multiple lexical analyzers and/or parsers identify one or more classes of named entities, such as email addresses or person names. In many embodiments, recognized named entities can be used to construct at least one index of web pages or documents including named entities that can be accessed by a natural language processing application.

Abstract: Methods of constructing a document index including named entity information generated by at least one tool associated with parsing computer programs are presented. The methods include using a lexical analyzer generator, e.g. Flex, and/or a parser generator, e.g. Yacc, to generate named entity recognizers. The named entity recognizers are used to identify named entities in documents, in particular, very large document sets such as web pages available on the Internet. The identified named entities are stored as named entity annotations in the document index. Also, methods of performing searches using the document index are presented. The searches are performed based on queries that can be received on an application programming interface (API). Relevant documents are obtained using the named entity annotations, which can be returned across the API. Also presented are associated computer readable media.

Abstract: A method of, and system for, generating a sentence from a semantic representation maps the semantic representation to an unordered set of syntactic nodes. Simplified generation grammar rules and statistical goodness measure values from a corresponding analysis grammar are then used to create a tree structure to order the syntactic nodes. The sentence is then generated from the tree structure. The generation grammar is a simplified (context free) version of a corresponding full (context sensitive) analysis grammar. In the generation grammar, conditions on each rule are ignored except those directly related to the semantic representation. The statistical goodness measure values, which are calculated through an analysis training phase in which a corpus of example sentences is processed using the full analysis grammar, are used to guide the generation choice to prefer substructures most commonly found in a particular syntactic/semantic context during analysis.