Abstract: A pump assembly and estimation and control system therefor, the pump adapted for continuous flow pumping of blood. In a particular form, the pump is a centrifugal pump wherein the impeller is entirely sealed within the pump housing and is exclusively hydrodynamically suspended therein against movement in three translational and two rotational degrees of freedom as the impeller rotates within the fluid urged by electromagnetic means external to the pump cavity. Hydrodynamic suspension is assisted by the impeller having deformities therein such as blades with surfaces tapered from the leading edges to the trailing edges of bottom and top surfaces thereof.

Abstract: A hose shroud (10) comprising a plurality of expanded sections (12) and clamping sections (22), arranged to engage a bundle of hoses or lines, wherein in use, the hose shroud (10) is arranged such that an outer wall (18) of the hose shroud (10) is placed under an inner wall (20) of the hose shroud (10) defining a reservoir (28) therein, the inner wall (20) and outer wall (18) are held in close contact by a plurality of raised protuberances (16) on the outer wall surface (18), the spaced apart inner (20) and outer wall (18) surfaces of the hose shroud (10) are arranged such as to form a lumen (14) to allow fluid communication of fluids leaked within the reservoir (28) and the exterior of the hose shroud (10).

Abstract: A high efficiency shell and tube heat exchanger coupled to a hydraulic thermal engine includes an insulated cylindrical shell having first and second ends for conveying a coolant and a plurality of tubes passing through at least one of the ends for conveying a working fluid. A plurality of spaced-apart generally-transverse baffles are disposed in the shell. Each baffle is truncated along one edge defining a slot for passage of coolant along the shell inner wall and past the baffle. Successive of the baffles are rotated with respect to the longitudinal axis of the shell to cause the coolant flowing therethrough to follow a non-axial path. Multiple coolant inlets and outlets may be provided. The heat exchanger is optimized for a use wherein the second working fluid is liquid CO2 in a supercritical fluid state. The heat exchanger tubes have an inside diameter of 0.26 inches or less.

Abstract: A pump assembly 1, 33, 200 adapted for continuous flow pumping of blood. In a particular from the pump 1, 200 is a centrifugal pump wherein the impeller 100, 204 is entirely sealed within the pump housing 2, 201 and is exclusively hydrodynamically suspended therein as the impeller rotates within the fluid 105 urged by electromagnetic means external to the pump cavity 106, 203. Hydrodynamic suspension is assisted by the impeller 100, 204 having deformities therein such as blades 8 with surfaces tapered from the leading edges 102, 223 to the trailing edges 103, 224 of bottom and top edges 221, 222 thereof.

Abstract: A method of imaging printing plates uses a single imaging device having at least one laser delivering, in an imagewise manner, pulsed electromagnetic energy of pulse duration not greater than 1×10?6 seconds. Such an imaging method permits the imaging of a plurality of types of printing plates irrespective of any sensitised imaging chemistry contained in their coatings.

Abstract: A memory controller for a slave memory that controls an order of data access requests is disclosed. There is a read and write channel having streams of requests with corresponding barrier transactions within the request streams indicating where reordering should not occur. The controller has barrier response generating circuitry located on the read and said write channels and being responsive to receipt of one of said barrier transactions: to issue a response to the received barrier transaction such that subsequent requests in said stream of requests are not blocked by the barrier transaction and can be received and to terminate the received barrier transaction and not transmit the received barrier transaction further; and to mark requests subsequent to the received barrier transaction in the stream of requests with a barrier context value identifying the received barrier transaction.

Abstract: A printing form precursor comprises a printing surface which comprises an anodic layer which is hydrophobic and capable of being made hydrophilic by fast laser pulses but capable of becoming hydrophobic again, preferably for re-use, if desired. These changes are influenced by thickness of the anodic layer, and by alloying elements in the anodic layer. Benefit is gained also from using a darkly coloured anodic layer and by permitting the change from hydrophilic to hydrophobic to take place in a carbonaceous or siliceous atmosphere. By such means the invention achieves the goal of providing a printing form precursor which does not need a chemical developer, and which can be used multiple times, to print different images.

Abstract: A system that includes an imaging device for effectively positioning a probe for testing a semiconductor.

Abstract: Analysis and graphical rendering of subscriber data is provided. A data analysis component is provided that obtains a set of subscriber data, correlates various subsets of the subscriber data to determine a plurality of data relationships, and graphical renders the subscriber data as a heat map, a fractal map, a tree map, a three dimensional plot, a three dimensional map, a graph, a chart, etc. based on a scale associated with the data relationships. In addition, the data analysis component can obtain a set of line number portability data that can be correlated with the various subsets of the subscriber data to determine the data relationships.

Abstract: An epoxy resin composition having a curing component and an epoxy component is disclosed. The curing component includes an amount of about 8% to about 70% by weight of the composition of a primary curing agent and about 0.001% to about 5% by weight of the composition of a secondary curing agent. The epoxy composition also includes about 30% to about 92% by weight of the composition of the epoxy component. A number of equivalents of reactive curative groups in the curing component is from about 0.50 to 0.98 times the number of epoxide equivalents present in the epoxy component. An epoxy product formed from the epoxy resin composition is also disclosed.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for generating a mail certificate is described. A client determines whether the client possesses a certificate. If a certificate is needed, the client sends a request to a certificate responder for a new certificate in response to the determination. The certificate responder generates and sends the new certificate back to the client.

Abstract: Applications in a broadcast environment distribute events in real-time to a large number of receivers within specified geographic locations while efficiently sharing bandwidth resources with other applications using the same broadcast network. Applications need not be aware of the other applications sharing the resources, nor of the methods, protocols, and other mechanisms used to actually broadcast the data over the broadcast medium. Server-side applications that serve data, send notifications, or distribute events to specific locations within the network use a broadcast location manager. Client applications that receive such data, notifications, or events use a client location filter to obtain events that are relevant based on the location of the device. The broadcast location manager and client location filter work together to reliably and efficiently transmit data, notifications, and events to specific locations over the broadcast network for all applications involved.

Abstract: Sliders or end caps which are secured to the bottom ends of the legs of walkers assist an individual in using the walker on various surfaces, such as rugs, without the danger of the legs of the walker becoming snagged on the carpet and the walker becoming unstable. The sliders or end caps have a concave bottom portion which is designed to always present a “trailing edge” to the outer perimeter of the slider or end cap. This “trailing edge” will be present even as the concave bottom portion wears away from use. Thus, the “trailing edge” will prevent the slider and walker from becoming snagged by a carpet or other surface on which the walker is used.

Abstract: A server-client system or architecture that allows datacast applications to reliably transport data objects from a network server over a unidirectional packet network (“datacast network”) to one or more clients, each of which may be listening to the packet stream at different times. The invention allows the clients to listen intermittently to the datacast, yet still receive all of the data objects published by the server in a timely manner, and in a way that is more optimal in terms of client resource use. This ensures that listening clients can receive a complete set of the data objects broadcast while being able to conserve client processing and power resources by not requiring continuous listening by the client to the datacast.

Abstract: Agricultural vehicles are guided to prevent overlap of areas operated on by the vehicles. Guidance data is shared between agricultural vehicles by coverage data of area covered by a first agricultural vehicle being wirelessly transmitted to a central server. Download guidance data is generated at the central server using the coverage data received at the central server. The download guidance data is wirelessly transmitted from the server to a second guidance device of a second agricultural vehicle. The second agricultural vehicle uses the download guidance data to not overlap with area covered by the first agricultural vehicle while operating.

Abstract: A communication infrastructure for a data processing apparatus, and a method of operation of such a communication infrastructure are provided. The communication infrastructure provides first and second switching circuits interconnected via a bidirectional link. Both of the switching circuits employ a multi-channel communication protocol, such that for each transaction a communication path is established from an initiating master interface to a target slave interface, with that communication path comprising m channels. The m channels comprise one or more forward channels from the initiating master interface to the target slave interface and one or more reverse channels from the target slave interface to the initiating master interface, and handshaking signals are associated with each of the m channels.

Abstract: A pump assembly and estimation and control system therefor, the pump adapted for continuous flow pumping of blood. In a particular form, the pump is a centrifugal pump wherein the impeller is entirely sealed within the pump housing and is exclusively hydrodynamically suspended therein against movement in three translational and two rotational degrees of freedom as the impeller rotates within the fluid urged by electromagnetic means external to the pump cavity. Hydrodynamic suspension is assisted by the impeller having deformities therein such as blades with surfaces tapered from the leading edges to the trailing edges of bottom and top surfaces thereof.

Abstract: Data may be transmitted in a broadcast mode to multiple devices operating in a network. Efficient utilization of bandwidth while providing a desired level of quality of service is enabled for the applications executing on the devices that utilize the broadcasted data. A set of bandwidth constraints may be utilized in combination with a set of heuristics and rules for the allocation and re-allocation of bandwidth among multiple applications in a manner that minimizes the impact on the quality of service metrics of importance to the affected applications when contention exists for the network resources. Quality of service provided to each application may be degraded smoothly, with certain priorities and guarantees being maintained. Event segmentation and reassembly functions for applications may be provided, as well as reliability mechanisms to increase the ability to provide data to client devices that have not been actively receiving for significant periods of time.

Abstract: The present invention provides embodiments of methods for performing inter-technology handoffs in a loosely coupled network architecture. One embodiment of the method includes configuring a downlink data path from a target access network to a mobile device concurrently with transmitting a data path registration request from the target access network to an anchor point during handoff of the mobile device from a source access network to the target access network.

Abstract: Datacasting systems may include one or more compound carousels each managing one or more elementary carousels, and managed by a bandwidth manager. Subsets of compounds carousels may be identified, for example, according to priority levels. Bandwidth allocations may be determined for the compound carousels. For example, the bandwidth manager may utilize multiple bandwidth allocation cycles to determine the bandwidth allocations. The multiple bandwidth allocation cycles may form a sequence. Each bandwidth allocation cycle may at least partially allocate an available datacasting bandwidth resource to at least one of the identified subsets of the compound carousels. The allocations may be based at least in part on desired bandwidths determined by the compound carousels and/or one or more bandwidth guidelines of datacast sessions associated with the compound carousels.