Abstract: The present invention relates to a dilator. The dilator includes a shaft, a lumen and a hub. The shaft has at least two stiffness sections with the stiffness sections becoming less rigid as they approach a distal end of the shaft. The varying stiffness sections allow the dilator to track along the guidewire through torturous vasculature so as the dilator is advanced and the stiffness is changed, the stiffer sheath can advance smoothly through a blood vessel. The dilator may also taper at the distal tip to stretch the initial skin puncture hole larger to accommodate the dilator shaft and ease the sheath tip insertion through to the vasculature. Or the shaft may taper from where it extends beyond the sheath distal tip to the distal end so that it can reach further distal in the vasculature. The dilator may also include an atraumatic tip for easier advancement of the dilator. The dilator distal end may also include one or more radiopaque markers and a shaped distal end.

Abstract: An information handling system having multiple browser applications includes a browser management utility for selecting one of the browsers as a default browser. The browser management utility provides a central access point for accessing the multiple browsers. The browser management utility enables a user to port settings from one browser application to another browser application. The browser management utility also includes a configurable option which provides the guidance novice users while enabling more experienced users more control over the selection of browser and which information is ported from one browser to another. Additionally, such a system provides a user with a single location to store and manage common browser application settings such as bookmarks, passwords, and cookies.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a dilator. The dilator includes a shaft, a lumen and a hub. The shaft has at least two stiffness sections with the stiffness sections becoming less rigid as they approach a distal end of the shaft. The varying stiffness sections allow the dilator to track along the guidewire through torturous vasculature so as the dilator is advanced and the stiffness is changed, the stiffer sheath can advance smoothly through a blood vessel. The dilator may also taper at the distal tip to stretch the initial skin puncture hole larger to accommodate the dilator shaft and ease the sheath tip insertion through to the vasculature. Or the shaft may taper from where it extends beyond the sheath distal tip to the distal end so that it can reach further distal in the vasculature. The dilator may also include an atraumatic tip for easier advancement of the dilator. The dilator distal end may also include one or more radiopaque markers and a shaped distal end.

Abstract: An information handling system having multiple browser applications includes a browser management utility for selecting one of the browsers as a default browser. The browser management utility provides a central access point for accessing the multiple browsers. The browser management utility enables a user to port settings from one browser application to another browser application. The browser management utility also includes a configurable option which provides the guidance novice users while enabling more experienced users more control over the selection of browser and which information is ported from one browser to another. Additionally, such a system provides a user with a single location to store and manage common browser application settings such as bookmarks, passwords, and cookies.

Abstract: A display system includes a programmable display panel having a viewing side and a back side, and a backlight unit disposed on the back side of the display panel. The backlight unit includes a fluted plate having a front layer facing the display panel, a back layer and connecting members connecting the front and back layers. Flutes are formed between the front and back layers and the connecting members. One or more light sources are disposed within at least one of the flutes of the fluted plate.

Abstract: A display system includes a display panel and a backlight disposed behind the display panel. The backlight has a light guide and at least one light source that directs light into an edge of the light guide. The light guide comprises a front layer facing the display panel, a back layer facing away from the display panel, and a plurality of connecting members connecting the front and back layers. The spaces formed between the connecting members and the upper and the first and second layers are referred to as flutes. Light from the light source may propagate along the flutes.

Abstract: A display system has a light source, a display panel and an arrangement of light management layers disposed between the light source and the display panel. The light source illuminates the display panel through the arrangement of light management layers. The arrangement of light management layers includes a fluted plate that has a front layer facing the display panel, a back layer facing the light source, and a plurality of connecting members connecting the front and back layers. In some embodiments the fluted plate includes a first light management layer, a cross member substantially parallel to, and spaced apart from, the first light management layer, and an arrangement of first connecting members connecting the cross member and the first light management layer.

Abstract: A method for treatment of organic-based material comprising contacting the organic-based material with solid waste material from the treatment of cooking oils. The treatment may comprise a clean-up of said organic-based materials, particularly clean up of an oil spill on a body of water. The solid waste material may be applied directly to the oil or it may be placed in bags prior to placing it on an oil spill. The solid waste material from the treatment of cooking oils is the solid waste product used in the treatment of cooking oils and cooking fats for the purpose of removing undesirable compounds that affect flavor, color and odor therefrom. The solid waste material from the treatment of cooking oils typically comprise particulate material, such as acid-activated clays, that are loaded with adsorbed compounds and contain residual oils from the treatment process.

Abstract: A method for treatment of organic-based material comprising contacting the organic-based material with solid waste material from the treatment of cooking oils. The treatment may comprise a clean-up of said organic-based materials, particularly clean up of an oil spill on a body of water. The solid waste material may be applied directly to the oil or it may be placed in bags prior to placing it on an oil spill. The solid waste material from the treatment of cooking oils is the solid waste product used in the treatment of cooking oils and cooking fats for the purpose of removing undesirable compounds that affect flavour, colour and odour therefrom. The solid waste material from the treatment of cooking oils typically comprise particulate material, such as acid-activated clays, that are loaded with adsorbed compounds and contain residual oils from the treatment process.

Abstract: Changes in locking configurations are managed. A locking configuration includes one or more locking facilities and the one or more locking facilities include one or more locks. When a change in a locking configuration, either planned or unplanned, is detected, one or more of the locks are redistributed. For example, one or more of the locks affected by the change are moved from one or more of the locking facilities to one or more other locking facilities. This redistribution is independent of the location of the data associated with the one or more locks being moved. Thus, data and locks may be moved independently of one another and without affecting one another. Further, the redistribution can take place while the system is available or mostly available, thereby minimizing downtime.

Abstract: The invention provides an improved procedure for the precise quantitation of organic oxidants in a solution with hydrogen peroxide in which the peroxide is removed by the addition of catalase to scavenge the same. Surprisingly, the catalase does not affect the organic oxidant, and the procedure can accurately quantitate even minute amounts of the organic oxidant. The inventive method is especially effective in quantitating peracid generated enzymatically, although it can be used for chemically generated organic oxidants.

Abstract: Lipase is immobilized on surfaces to facilitate oil removal from the surfaces and to alter wettability of the surfaces. The lipase is isolatable from a Pseudomonas organism such as Pseudomonas putida ATCC 53552 or from an organism expressing a coding region found in or cloned from the Pseudomonas. A particularly preferred lipase has a molecular weight of about 30 to 35 kd and is resolvable as a single band by SDS gel electrophoresis. Lipase sorbed on fabric forms a fabric-lipase complex for oil stain removal. The lipase may be sorbed on fabric before or after an oil stain, and the lipase is active to hydrolyze an oil stain on dry fabric or fabric in laundering solutions. The sorbed lipase has enhanced stability to denaturation by surfactants and to heat deactivation, is resistant to removal from fabric during laundering, retains substantial activity after drying fabric at an elevated temperature, and retains activity during fabric storage or wear.

Abstract: The inactivation in a laundry solution of a hydrolase enzyme by surfactant is prevented by the presence in the laundry solution of an amount of a non-charged enzyme activating means selected from oily hydrocarbons, hydrolyzable fatty acid ester substrates for the enzyme, e.g., triglycerides, essentially lipophilic organic compounds which are not substrates for the enzyme and which bear a polar substituent, and non-ionic surfactants which lower the oil to enzyme critical minimum molar ratio required to activate the enzyme.

Abstract: An enzymatic perhydrolysis system, useful for bleaching, has a novel enzyme, a substrate, and a source of hydrogen peroxide, and provides in situ formation of peracid in aqueous solution. The substrate is selected for enzyme catalyzed reaction, and preferably is an acylglycerol with two or three fatty acid chains. The enzyme is hydrolytically and perhydrolytically active even in the presence of anionic surfactants, has lipase activity, and is modified from an enzyme isolatable from Pseudomonas putida ATCC 53552.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a method of inhibiting the formation of and/or breaking of preformed mercury butter in chlor-alkali cells. The method comprises introducing at any one of the numerous stages of the electrolytic process an aqueous solution of a surfactant material which enables the interfacial tension of the sodium-amalgam interface to be increased to or maintained above a value of 180 dynes/cm. The surfactants may be extracts of decaying vegetation, solutions of carboxylic acids or chlorohydrocarbons. Extracts containing lignite or humic acids are most effective.