96results about How to "Provide efficiency" patented technology

A method and apparatus for switching AC appliances and lights of residences and other automation systems through SPDT or DPDT relays connected in electrical circuit with SPDT or DPDT switch including a current sensor and / or a status sensor. The operating key of the relay and the key lever of the electric switch can each be used for operating a dedicated appliance or light, a group of appliance and lights and all appliance and / or lights including scenarios setup via the many well known two way, three way or four way light switches, by operating the switch lever or key in multi steps. The SPDT or DPDT relays are operated via RF, IR and fiber optic communicating two way signal for operating the lights and reporting statuses.

A relevancy ranking and clustering method and system that determines the relevance of a document relative to a user's query using a similarity comparison process. Input queries are parsed into one or more query predicate structures using an ontological parser. The ontological parser parses a set of known documents to generate one or more document predicate structures. A comparison of each query predicate structure with each document predicate structure is performed to determine a matching degree, represented by a real number. A multilevel modifier strategy is implemented to assign different relevance values to the different parts of each predicate structure match to calculate the predicate structure's matching degree. The relevance of a document to a user's query is determined by calculating a similarity coefficient, based on the structures of each pair of query predicates and document predicates. Documents are autonomously clustered using a self-organizing neural network that provides a coordinate system that makes judgments in a non-subjective fashion.

A system and method is provided for incentivizing players to visit a gambling location. In one aspect, a qualified person is invited to play an electronic game which has a plurality of outcomes, at least one of which is a winning outcome. One aspect relates to accumulating outcomes. Another relates to incentives provided to player program member(s). In some embodiments, the person does not need to be qualified. In one embodiment, the person may be required to redeem the outcome at the gambling location, in another at a redemption location. In one embodiment, a player is required to take an action in order to redeem an outcome. In some embodiments, game play and / or redemption and / or any action must occur in a specified time, respectively. In one embodiment the electronic game is not located at a gambling location, in another it is not located at a redemption location. According to another aspect, redemption systems and methods are provided for facilitating determination and validation of bonus awards by a bonus game operator. According to one embodiment, processing of redemption occurs at a gambling location using equipment connected to a bonus game operator, that retrieves awards corresponding to player entries.

A system and method is provided for incentivizing players to visit a gambling location. In one aspect, a qualified person is invited to play an electronic game which has a plurality of outcomes, at least one of which is a winning outcome. One aspect relates to accumulating outcomes. Another relates to incentives provided to player program member(s). In some embodiments, the person does not need to be qualified. In one embodiment, the person may be required to redeem the outcome at the gambling location, in another at a redemption location. In one embodiment, a player is required to take an action in order to redeem an outcome. In some embodiments, game play and / or redemption and / or any action must occur in a specified time, respectively. In one embodiment the electronic game is not located at a gambling location, in another it is not located at a redemption location. According to another aspect, redemption systems and methods are provided for facilitating determination and validation of bonus awards by a bonus game operator. According to one embodiment, processing of redemption occurs at a gambling location using equipment connected to a bonus game operator, that retrieves awards corresponding to player entries.

A method and a device for joining a remotely controlled switching and current sensing AC device structured for attachment to standard and popular three way SPDT AC switches or cross DPDT AC switches and / or power outlets, such that the front wall plate of a single gang electrical box will cover the joined AC device with the manual switch or the AC outlet. The AC device is operated and communicates via lightguide or fiber optic cable using two way optical signals and via IR in air in line of sight and / or via RF in air. The lightguide is cascaded in series from one AC device to another and / or from a joint switch device to a joined AC outlet and to an optoport in front of an outlet socket for communicating the current drain and / or operation controls with the appliance, powered by the AC socket, via a lightguide included in the power cable with plug assembly of the appliance.

An embodiment is a medical prosthesis for blocking or reducing tear flow through a punctum or canaliculus of a human eye and delivering a drug to the eye that comprises a dehydrated covalently crosslinked synthetic hydrophilic polymer hydrogel with dimensions to pass through a puncta lacrimali, with the dehydrated hydrogel absorbing physiological water to swell to at least 1 mm in cross-sectional width and conformably fit a canaliculus, with the hydrogel comprising a therapeutic agent dispersed through the hydrogel for release to an eye, with the hydrogel having a water content of at least about 50% by weight or volume when allowed to fully hydrate in vitro in physiological saline.

A scheme for allowing logical routers to achieve data path efficiency and still maintain network visible virtual links is provided by allowing logical routers in the same physical router to share routing information using standard protocols in place of proprietary route leaking, and by analyzing received data packets to determine if they are tandem data packets or terminating data packets. Tandem data packets are routed directly to egress ports with a single pass through the switch fabric to achieve efficiency, while the TTL value of the packet is decremented twice to maintain the external appearance of the separation of the logical routers. Terminating data packets are routed to other logical routers over virtual links to allow network visibility of the inter-logical router links.

Certain embodiments of the invention may be found in a method and system for antenna selection diversity with prediction. An antenna diversity system may use information that it has stored on the antenna selection process in previous frames to predict the starting receiving antenna and the starting transmission antenna for the next frame. The prediction may be based on which antennas were selected in previous frames or may be based metrics associated with performance of the antennas. Prediction may be based on a majority polling scheme of previously selected antennas in a determined number of previous frames. Prediction may also be based on a weighted sum of at least one selection metric for all antennas in a determined number of previous frames. Antenna prediction provides a significant performance improvement by reducing the processing and operational overhead in cases where a transmit or a receive antenna dominates.

A system for separating a composite fluid into component parts thereof, including: a centrifuge having a rotor with a separation space and at least two valve members disposed thereon and a container set having a separation container adapted to be disposed in the separation space of the rotor and first and second collection containers connected to the separation container by a first and a second tubes. The tubes are adapted to be disposed in operative relationship with the valve members so that flow through the tubes may be controlled thereby. Three components of the composite fluid may be separated therefrom by the present system and two components may be moved to the collection containers. The container set may further include a third collection container connected to the separation container by a tube, and a third component may thus be moved to this third container.

A solution for cleaning silicon semiconductors or silicon oxides, and methods for cleaning silicon semiconductors or silicon oxides using the solution, is disclosed. The solution includes hydrogen peroxide, ammonium hydroxide, an alkanolamine, and at least one of a tetraalkylammonium hydroxide, an alkanolamide, an amido-betaine, an α,α-dihydroxyphenol, a carboxylic acid, a phosphonic acid, a chelating agent or a surfactant. The weight ratio of ammonium hydroxide to peroxide to water is between about 1:1:5 and 1:1-4:50, the weight ratio of ammonium hydroxide to water is between 1:5 and 1:50, and the molar ratio of component A to ammonium hydroxide is between 1:10 and 1:5000 is disclosed. The solution can achieve the efficiency equivalent to that of the conventional RCA two-step cleaning solution within a shorter time by one step preserving the silicon and silicon oxide substrate integrity and effectively remove contaminants such as organics, particles and metals from the surfaces of silicon semiconductors and silicon oxides without using strong acids such as HCl and sulfuric acid.

This invention relates to a method, system and computer program product for restoration of a real hardware server or a Virtual Machine server from hibernation. The method starts with running the execution environment on the hardware platform and suspending the execution environment and storing a state of the execution environment; then updating the stored state with drivers corresponding to a new hardware platform; then restoring an updated state on the computing system on the new hardware platform; then continuing operation of the execution environment on the new hardware platform. The state of execution environment includes operating memory state and nonvolatile storage stage.

A lean-burn gasoline engine including an exhaust system, which system has a first oxidation catalyst for oxidizing engine-derived, unburned hydrocarbons during lambda>1 conditions, and a NOx-trap downstream of the oxidation catalyst. Also included in one embodiment is by-pass means arranged between an upstream end and a downstream end of the oxidation catalyst and means for switching at least some exhaust gas flowing in the exhaust system to flow in the bypass during rich or stoichiometric running conditions, thereby substantially to prevent bypassed exhaust gas from contacting the oxidation catalyst. Included in the invention are methods of treating the exhaust gas streams with the apparati defined above.

A system and method are disclosed for calibrating a plurality of projectors for three-dimensional scene reconstruction. The system includes a plurality of projectors and at least one camera, a camera-projector calibration module and a projector-projector calibration module. The camera-projector calibration module is configured to calibrate a first projector with the camera and generate a first camera-projector calibration data using camera-projector duality. The camera-projector calibration module is also configured to calibrate a second projector with the camera and generate a second camera-projector calibration data. The projector-projector calibration module is configured to calibrate the first and the second projector using the first and the second camera-projector calibration data.

A system and method for monitoring soil and water resources is disclosed herein. Sensors capable of monitoring soil temperature, moisture and salinity are utilized with other sensors capable of monitoring such values as air temperature in order to provide real-time parameters to users / operators of land area.

A water-dispersible oil / grease-sizing and water-sizing agent that provides oil / grease and water-sizing for paper and other cellulosic materials. The agent works effectively for both oil / grease and water sizing at high temperatures. The polymeric agent's key features include a polyamine component which is a repeating monomer unit with cellulose-reactive and fluorinated groups substituted on the polyamine.

A heat exchanger has tubes defining refrigerant passages therein and fins disposed between the tubes. The tubes have tube main walls opposed to each other. The fins are joined to the tube main walls. The tube main walls have projections that project inside of the tubes and define recesses on outer sides of the tubes. Each of the tubes has an outer dimension, in a direction perpendicular to the tube main walls, in a range between equal to or greater than 0.8 mm and equal to or less than 1.9 mm.

Certain embodiments of the invention may be found in a method and system for antenna selection diversity with prediction. An antenna diversity system may use information that it has stored on the antenna selection process in previous frames to predict the starting receiving antenna and the starting transmission antenna for the next frame. The prediction may be based on which antennas were selected in previous frames or may be based metrics associated with performance of the antennas. Prediction may be based on a majority polling scheme of previously selected antennas in a determined number of previous frames. Prediction may also be based on a weighted sum of at least one selection metric for all antennas in a determined number of previous frames. Antenna prediction provides a significant performance improvement by reducing the processing and operational overhead in cases where a transmit or a receive antenna dominates.

A method and apparatus for cleaning exterior surfaces, particularly aircraft exteriors, which method and apparatus applies cleaning solution to a soiled surface, scours the surface, squeegees the contaminated solution from the surface and evacuates it through a vacuum manifold for collection and environmentally appropriate disposal. Applicant's method and apparatus are designed principally to alleviate the problem of toxic run-off and ground water pollution as attends present-day wash-rack or bucket and brush type washing operations. Applicant's method and apparatus are also beneficial from a convenience standpoint, as an aircraft may be cleaned in any location without the necessity of removing the aircraft to a maintenance facility. Applicant's method and apparatus are also useful for other exterior surfaces, such as for cleaning skyscraper surfaces.

A unique laparoscopy instrument tip and method which allows simultaneous gasping, cauterization, dissection, containment, enclosure and removal of body tissue. Mechanisms for grasping, holding, manipulating, cauterizing, dissecting, encasement in an enclosed cavity and removing the tissue are provided in one implement allowing easy, safe and quick performance of the procedure.

An exhaust gas stack includes an elongate, tubular stack member having inlet and outlet ends and a central longitudinal axis. An end section is mounted on the outlet end and has open first and second ends, the first end connected to the outlet end of the stack member and a frustoconical passage extending between these ends. An inner duct section has a central axis co-axial with the axis of the stack member and is mounted centrally in the end section. An annular gas passage is formed between the duct section and the end section. An air plug is movable between an open position at which exhaust gases can flow through the inner duct section and another position at which the plug restricts or prevents passage of exhaust gases through this duct section. An actuator is connected to the plug in order to move it between an open and other positions.

The invention discloses an air cushion bed system and an air charging and deflating pressure regulating system and method. The air charging and deflating pressure regulating system is used for the air cushion bed provided with at least two air pipelines, and the air charging and deflating pressure regulating system comprises an air charging and deflating device, a pressure detection unit and a control unit. The air charging and deflating device is used for charging or deflating air for the air cushion bed; the pressure detection unit is used for continuously detecting an instant pressure value of the air cushion bed; the control unit is used for obtaining the instant pressure value detected by the air cushion bed in a loading state according to the pressure detection unit, and whether the instant pressure value reaches the preset pressure value before setting time is up or not is judged; the control unit determines a first air charging and deflating strategy or a second air charging and deflating strategy according to judge results to control the air charging and deflating device to charge or deflate the air for the air cushion bed.

The enterprise database system provides methods, data, and user interfaces for performing reassessments and creating financial and accounting disclosure reports. Data fields for entities are monitored for changes that are evident at the end of reporting periods and may trigger the need to reassess the categorization of the entity. The system receives a request to perform a reassessment based on changes to particular data fields during the reporting period. The system retrieves entities that require reassessment based on the trigger events applicable to the entities. A reassessment is performed for each of the entities having a trigger event and the reassessment is stored in a historical database. Based on the reassessment, the system generates prompts to re-categorize the reassessed entity. Following the reassessment and categorization, the system can generate a disclosure report that presents information about the newly categorized entity.