Abstract: Methods and apparatus for determining a contractile reserve of a heart of a patient are provided. The method includes controlling a heart pump to operate at a first speed, determining based on a motor current signal received from a motor when the heart pump is operating at the first speed, a first value for a cardiac contractility metric, controlling the heart pump to operate at a second speed, determining based, at least in part, on the motor current signal received from the motor when the heart pump is operating at the second speed, a second value for the cardiac contractility metric, determining a contractile reserve metric based, at least in part, on the first value and the second value of the cardiac contractility metric, and outputting an indication of the contractile reserve metric on a user interface associated with the heart pump.

Abstract: Disclosed herein are a system for automatically managing payments across multiple orders placed by multiple users associated with an ordering group, each user associated with a payment method. The system includes: a venue computing device coupled to a communications network, the venue computing device being associated with a venue; and a database server coupled to the communications network. The database server is adapted to: store a user profile for each of said multiple users, each user profile storing at least one payment method for the respective user; and manage a list of multiple users associated with a shout, the database server including a scheduler adapted to sort the multiple users into an ordered list, based on an order in which the users joined the shout, said scheduler identifying in turn a current host responsible for a next order.