Abstract: An implantable medical device (IMD) is configured with a pressure sensor. The IMD includes a housing and a diaphragm that is exposed to the environment outside of the housing. The diaphragm is configured to transmit a pressure from the environment outside of the housing to a piezoelectric membrane. In response, the piezoelectric membrane generates a voltage and/or a current, which is representative of a pressure change applied to the housing diaphragm. In some cases, only changes in pressure over time are used, not absolute or gauge pressures.

Abstract: An implant device for a heart having a first chamber and a second chamber and a native valve between the chambers, the device having an elongate body having opposing ends, the body being configured to be implanted within the heart and extend through the native valve with a first end in the first chamber and a second end in the second chamber; a first resiliently compressible part of the body being adapted to be compressively engaged by the heart within the first chamber; and a second resiliently compressible part of the body being adapted to be compressively engaged by the heart within the second chamber; so that the first and second parts hold the elongate body in a desired position within the heart by said compressive engagement. The device can be employed as a prosthetic device replace or supplement a native valve such as the mitral valve.

Abstract: A method is described for converting standard integer and floating point formatted numbers to an improved integer and floating point numbers which are binary orderable. Standard integers are represented in two's complement format, to make standard integers binary orderable, the sign bit is flipped. To make floating point numbers binary orderable the implicit leading bit of the mantissa needs to be made explicit. Next the mantissa is converted to two's complement format, and the sign bit is flipped. Finally, for negative numbers the exponent is inverted, or XORed with all 1s.

Abstract: A method for implementing a hardware database management system in hardware is described. A parser takes standardized database statements and converts those statements into a set of executable instructions and associated data objects. The executable instructions and data objects are then sent to the execution tree engine where an execution tree is created, the execution tree forming the order of execution for the executable instructions. The graph engine receives those executable instructions from the execution tree engine that require access to the database in memory and manipulates the information in the database as required by the executable instructions for implementing the standardized database statement.