97results about How to "Minimize dependencies" patented technology

A highly mobile, ambient computing environment is disclosed for serving a knowledge worker away from the their desk. The present invention allows a knowledge worker to get increased leverage from personal, networked, and interactive computing devices while in their car, airplane seat, or in a conference room with others. An Open Agent Architecture is used to incorporate elements such as GPS agents, speech recognition, and opportunistic connectivity among meeting participants. Communication and cooperation between agents are brokered by one or more facilitators, which are responsible for matching requests, from users and agents, with descriptions of the capabilities of other agents. It is not generally required that a user or agent know the identities, locations, or number of other agents involved in satisfying a request, and relatively minimal effort is involved in incorporating new agents and “wrapping” legacy applications. Extreme flexibility is achieved through an architecture organized around the declaration of capabilities by service-providing agents, the construction of arbitrarily complex goals by users and service-requesting agents, and the role of facilitators in delegating and coordinating the satisfaction of these goals, subject to advice and constraints that may accompany them.

A liquid dispensing device includes first and second substrates, with the first substrate including an opening for introduction of a fluid, and the second substrate including a multiplicity of electrodes. The device includes a transfer electrode, located at least partially opposite to the opening, at least two drop-forming electrodes, and a reservoir electrode, located between the transfer electrode and the drop-forming electrodes, and with an area that is at least equal to three times the area of each drop-forming electrode.

A telemetry interface module according to the invention may be utilized to facilitate remote programming of a patient medical device such as an implantable medical device. The telemetry interface module includes processing logic, memory, and various software / firmware applications that are capable of generating a user interface (“UI”) description for transmission to a remote computing device. The UI description is transmitted in accordance with a standardized data communication protocol, and the remote computing device renders a UI in response to the received UI description. The remote computing device processes and renders the UI using its native operating system and native UI controls, thus eliminating the need for computing hardware customized for the particular medical device telemetry application.

A mobile communications device for communicating with a server over a network, including a visual interface device that displays data, an audio interface device that receives acoustic input and converts the acoustic input to data, a network connection, a memory containing an applications program, and a processor operably coupled to the visual interface device, the audio interface device, and the memory, wherein the applications program is executed on the processor. The applications program locally generates graphical user interfaces with the visual interface and controls the input of data via the audio interface and the transmission of such data over the network to the server such that the data are accessible to a recipient. The applications program also controls the retrieval of electronic messages from a server. In a particular embodiment, the mobile communications device further includes a tactile interface device for navigating data, the tactile interface device operably coupled to the processor.

Controlled release oral dosage forms are provided for the continuous, sustained administration of a pharmacologically active agent to the upper gastrointestinal tract of a patient in whom the fed mode as been induced. The majority of the agent is delivered, on an extended release basis, to the stomach, duodenum and upper regions of the small intestine, with drug delivery in the lower gastrointestinal tract and colon substantially restricted. The dosage form comprises a matrix of a biocompatible, hydrophilic, erodible polymer with an active agent incorporated therein, wherein the polymer is one that both swells in the presence of water and gradually erodes over a time period of hours, with swelling and erosion commencing upon contact with gastric fluid, and drug release rate primarily controlled by erosion rate.

In an optical information medium having an information bearing surface having projections and depressions and / or capable of forming recorded marks, a functional layer is added. The information borne on the information bearing surface can be read by using reading light of a wavelength longer than 4NA·PL wherein PL is the minimum size of the projections and depressions or the recorded marks and NA is the numerical aperture of a reading optical system, setting the power of the reading light within such a range that the functional layer does not change its complex index of refraction, and irradiating the reading light to the information bearing surface constructed by the functional layer or to the information bearing surface through the functional layer or to the functional layer through the information bearing surface. The medium enables reading at a high resolution beyond the diffraction limit.

A data compressor performing the compression algorithm compresses an original uncompressed pattern database to form an associated compressed pattern database configured for fast retrieval and verification. For each data pattern, the data compressor stores a data in an address of a first memory table and that is defined by a first segment of a group of bits associated with the data pattern. The data compressor stores a second data in an address of a second memory table and that is defined by a second segment of the group of bits associated with the data pattern and further defined by the first data stored in the first memory.

An optical filter includes a substrate, and a periodic structure in which a plurality of members formed of silicon are periodically arranged on a surface of the substrate. The filter selectively transmits light of a first wavelength included in light incident on the periodic structure in the direction of the substrate. The members are two-dimensionally arranged with a period of 400 nm to 500 nm. The dimension of the members in the direction parallel to the surface is of 120 nm to 160 nm. A local maximum value of the transmission spectrum of the first wavelength is within the range of 400 nm to 500 nm.

A tool to fasten tissue or to fasten a prosthetic to tissue includes a gripper to hold one or more tissue portions, a needle, an actuator to drive the needle, a fastener cartridge to store one or more tissue fasteners, a holder cartridge to store one or more holders, and a holder applier to secure one of the holders on one of the fasteners. The actuator drives the needle and the needle pulls a first fastener from the fastener cartridge. The actuator drives the needle through the one or more tissue portions held by the gripper to form a hole in the tissue portions. The needle pulls a leading portion of the first fastener through the hole without a trailing portion of the first fastener being pulled through the hole. The holder applier secures a first holder from the holder cartridge onto the leading portion of the first fastener.

A piezoelectric power generation system which performs a highly efficient power generation using a piezoelectric element without dependency on the direction of an externally driven vibration. The piezoelectric power generation system includes a vibrator having a beam in the form of a rod, and an impact element such as a steel ball. At one end of the beam is fixed the impact element, and at the other end of the beam, the beam is fixed to the base. The outer circumference of the impact element carries the cylinder shaped piezoelectric element. When the base vibrates due to an externally driven vibration, the vibrator vibrates in synchronization with the given vibration in the radial direction of the base to cause the impact element of the base to impact with the inner surface of the cylindrical piezoelectric element, forcing the piezoelectric element to deform and thereby generate electrical power. The dependency on the vibration direction in the vibrator is minimized to significantly improve the efficiency of power generation.

Network survivability is quantified in such a way that failure cases can be compared and ranked against each other in terms of the severity of their impact on the various performance measures associated with the network. The degradation in network performance caused by each failure is quantified based on user-defined sets of thresholds of degradation severity for each performance measure. Each failure is simulated using a model of the network, and a degradation vector is determined for each simulated failure. A comparison function is defined to map the degradation vectors into an ordered set, and this ordered set is used to create an ordered list of network failures, in order of the network degradation caused by each failure.

The present invention is an integration platform providing access to property tax and title document index (a.k.a. title plant) backend. The present invention is to provide the benefits of so-called thick-client architecture, with their real-time responsiveness and ability to browse through large numbers of huge reports and image collections, with so-called thin-client architectures, with their seamless software update capabilities and reduce centralized maintenance costs. The present invention serves as a title chain report and scanned document image ordering and download gateway. The present invention allows submission of requests in a batch and subsequent off-line browsing and analysis of fulfilled orders, and operates under challenging conditions of intermittent connections performing automatically data download resumption, therefore minimizing the dependency on live connections to situations where new data is required.

A piezoelectric power generation system which performs a highly efficient power generation using a piezoelectric element without dependency on the direction of an externally driven vibration. The piezoelectric power generation system includes a vibrator having a beam in the form of a rod, and an impact element such as a steel ball. At one end of the beam is fixed the impact element, and at the other end of the beam, the beam is fixed to the base. The outer circumference of the impact element carries the cylinder shaped piezoelectric element. When the base vibrates due to an externally driven vibration, the vibrator vibrates in synchronization with the given vibration in the radial direction of the base to cause the impact element of the base to impact with the inner surface of the cylindrical piezoelectric element, forcing the piezoelectric element to deform and thereby generate electrical power. The dependency on the vibration direction in the vibrator is minimized to significantly improve the efficiency of power generation.

An apparatus for determining fluid phase fraction of a multiphase fluid mixture (13) comprises:—a x-ray generator (20) arranged to emit a x-ray radiation spectrum comprising a low energy region and a high energy region, the high energy region including a Bremsstrahlung spectrum;—a pipe section (27) through which the multiphase fluid mixture (13) flows comprising a measurement section (28), said measurement section (28) being coupled to said x-ray generator (20);—a detector (30) coupled to said measurement section (28) and arranged to detect x-ray radiation that has passed through said multiphase fluid mixture (13), the detector (30) being coupled to a multichannel analyzer (32) producing a measurement output comprising a low energy (LE) and high energy (HE) measurement counts; wherein the measurement output further comprises a low energy (LV) and high energy (HV) control counts, in a low energy and high energy control windows located on an edge of the Bremsstrahlung spectrum, respectively; and wherein the apparatus further comprises an electrical parameter control arrangement (33) coupled to the x-ray generator (20) and the detector (30), the electrical parameter control arrangement (33) being arranged to calculate a first ratio of the high energy control count relative to the low energy control count (RV=HV / LV) and a second ratio of the high energy measurement count relative to the low energy measurement count (RE=HE / LE), and to adjust the electrical operation of the x-ray generator (20) based on an electrical parameter control function (FC(V)) of said ratios that minimize a dependence of the electrical operation of the x-ray generator on the fluid phase fraction of the multiphase fluid mixture (13) flowing in the measurement section (28).

A method of manufacturing a decorative surface includes the steps of a) impregnating a paper substrate with a thermosetting resin; b) jetting a colour pattern with one or more aqueous inkjet inks including a polymer latex binder on the thermosetting resin impregnated paper; c) drying the one or more aqueous inkjet inks; and d) heat pressing the thermosetting paper carrying the colour pattern into a decorative surface.

A system and method for providing prepaid billing for users of an instant messaging system. A method includes determining whether a prepaid account balance associated with an IM client request satisfies a pre-determined criteria, establishing a regular IM session if the prepaid account satisfies the criteria, and establishing a limited IM session if the prepaid account does not satisfy the criteria. The system includes a prepaid account screener operable to determine whether a prepaid account balance satisfies the criteria, establish a regular IM session if the prepaid account satisfies the criteria, and establish a limited IM session if the prepaid account does not satisfy the criteria.

In a phase shift mask blank comprising a phase shift multilayer film on a substrate, the phase shift multilayer film consists of at least one layer of light absorption function film and at least one layer of phase shift function film, and the light absorption function film has an extinction coefficient k which increases as the wavelength changes from 157 nm to 260 nm, and has a thickness of up to 15 nm. The phase shift mask blank has minimized wavelength dependency of transmittance and can be processed with a single dry etching gas.

A system for generating and recovering energy comprising an electric generator integrated with a consumer's utility provider's network to generate electrical energy. Electrical power is transmitted from an electric power grid to a control box at a location requiring energy (e.g., home or business) via a bidirectional meter which measures power delivered by and to the power grid. The control box powers an AC driver which feeds a load to and controls the speed of a motor. A torque multiplier multiplies a first torque output from the motor to produce a second torque output which is fed to an alternator. The power generated by the electric generator is transmitted to a remote location for consumption. In one embodiment, exported energy is returned to the utility provider in exchange for credit against the consumer's account or for payment. In an alternative embodiment, the present invention functions as an independent power plant.

The present invention relates to a method, a processing device, and a system for providing message(s) to a user of e.g. a mobile terminal. The method comprises receiving a message(s) including an indication in a processing device and retrieving a personal file, which is stored in a personal unit, in the processing device. After receiving the message(s) and the personal profile, the processing device compares the personal profile and the indication. Therefore, in case the personal profile and the indication match, showing the message(s) to the user or in case the personal profile and the indication do not match, not showing the message(s) to the user.

An inkjet printing method for manufacturing decorative surfaces includes the steps of a) jetting a colour pattern with one or more aqueous inkjet inks including a polymer latex binder on a thermosetting resin impregnated paper; and b) drying the one or more aqueous inkjet inks.

The present invention is directed to minimizing the dependency of source code on the characteristics of a set-top box's in-band (streaming video or audio) hardware. The set-top box software consists of a device driver layer, which is intimately aware of hardware characteristics, an application layer, which is relatively unaware of any hardware details, a middleware layer which is also relatively unaware of any hardware details, and a device translation layer (DTL). In the DTL, all of the translation between device abstractions to device driver calls that were formerly made in middleware are moved down to an engine manager. Middleware thus becomes device-independent with respect to in-band devices, and porting Middleware to new hardware becomes trivial.

A system and method for providing prepaid billing for users of an instant messaging system. A method includes determining whether a prepaid account balance associated with an IM client request satisfies a pre-determined criteria, establishing a regular IM session if the prepaid account satisfies the criteria, and establishing a limited IM session if the prepaid account does not satisfy the criteria. The system includes a prepaid account screener operable to determine whether a prepaid account balance satisfies the criteria, establish a regular IM session if the prepaid account satisfies the criteria, and establish a limited IM session if the prepaid account does not satisfy the criteria.

A method of performing a test using automated test equipment (ATE) is disclosed. The method comprises configuring a proxy application programming interface (API) services module, wherein the proxy API services module provides an interface between a test framework and a test software environment, wherein the test framework communicates with the test software environment though the proxy API services module, wherein the test software environment is communicatively coupled with test hardware, and wherein the proxy API services module is configured to isolate the test framework from dependencies associated with the test software environment. The method further comprises communicating commands synchronously between the test framework and the test software environment, wherein the test framework comprises a plurality of components, and wherein the plurality of components is operable to receive commands from the test software environment and further operable to transmit commands to the test software environment through the proxy API services module.

A graphics system and method with which thick graphic primitives are efficiently drawn by minimizing dependence on drawing algorithms that require appreciable setup time. The method contemplates drawing a thick primitive in which an offset or displacement value is first calculated, based upon the thickness of the graphic primitive. The offset is approximately one half of the thickness of the primitive. Following calculation of the offset value, line drawing parameter values are determined for a line that is parallel to the origin line and displaced from the origin line in a minor axis direction by the displacement or offset value. A loop is then repeated for each grip point in the major axis range of the line. The loop includes an initial step in which a boundary pixel of the thick graphic primitive is drawn using the line drawing algorithm and the line drawing parameter values calculated for the offset line. After the boundary pixel has been drawn, one or more adjacent pixels are drawn using a stepping routine in which the mirior axis coordinate of the selected pixel is either decremented or incremented, depending upon the slope of the line, to write the pixels adjacent the boundary pixel. In this fashion, the present invention draws a thick primitive as a sequence of segments that are parallel to the minor axis of the origin line. In the preferred embodiment, the line drawing routine is preferably comprised of a Bresenham line drawing algorithm or a similar derivative algorithm. In the preferred embodiment, the displacement D is equal to FLOOR((W−1) / 2), where W is the thickness of the primitive and FLOOR(X) is the integer portion of X.

A method for manufacturing decorative laminates includes the steps of a) impregnating a paper substrate with a thermosetting resin by submersion of the paper substrate in a bath of thermosetting resin; b) applying on the thermosetting resin impregnated paper substrate an ink acceptance layer containing an inorganic pigment P and a polymeric binder B having a weight ratio P / B of inorganic pigment to polymeric binder of larger than 1.5; c) jetting on the ink acceptance layer a colour pattern with one or more aqueous pigmented inkjet inks and / or organic solvent based pigmented inkjet inks containing a colour pigment C; and d) heat pressing the thermosetting paper into a decorative laminate, wherein the weight ratio P / C of the inorganic pigment of the ink acceptance layer to the jetted colour pigment in the colour pattern is larger than 4.0.

Computer-implemented systems and methods for generating executable code for a simulation-based courseware program are provided. The system may comprise a courseware server having a processor, a database, a compiler, an analysis subsystem, a design subsystem, a development subsystem, an implementation subsystem, an evaluation subsystem, and / or an access control system. Each of the subsystems may facilitate manipulation of information in the database by training developers (e.g., subject matter experts, information system designers, and / or media technicians) to generate a simulation-based courseware program for execution by and evaluation of trainees.

An image data decoding apparatus and method assures rapid decoding and displaying of image data stored at an external storage device. A controller for decoding the image data is divided into a main controller and a sub-controller. The sub-controller serves to store the image data transferred from a storage device at an image buffer. The main controller functions to transfer the image data stored at the image buffer to a decoding buffer and controls a decoder to decode the image data. The sub-controller's operation of transferring the image data stored at the storage device to the image buffer and the main controller's operation of causing a decoder to decode the image data can be performed simultaneously, thus allowing faster decoding and displaying of the image data.

Disclosed is a method of producing an estolide, including a) converting biomass-derived oil into a fatty acid mixture, b) separating the fatty acid mixture into a C16 saturated fatty acid and a C18 unsaturated fatty acid, c) converting the C16 saturated fatty acid into a C15 or C16 linear internal olefin, d) subjecting the C15 or C16 linear internal olefin to an estolide reaction using a linking agent, thus obtaining an estolide A, e) subjecting the C18 unsaturated fatty acid to partial hydrogenating to increase the amount of oleic acid, and f) subjecting the oleic acid to an estolide reaction using a linking agent and then esterification, thus obtaining an estolide B.