14314 results about "Contactor" patented technology

A system and method for identifying ideal channels for communications based on an analysis of communication channel reliability, communicating party preferences, and communicating party contexts is provided. The system attempts to optimize the utility of a communication based on inferred or directly accessed channel reliability data, communicating party preferences and communicating party contexts. Such optimization can be achieved using reliabilities, preferences and policies concerning handling the attempted contact based on a deterministic specification or through inferring reliability, context, content and task under uncertainty by employing decision-theoretic inferences. The methods may consider channels currently available as well as channels available at later times. Thus, the service can include automated rescheduling of communications based on a consideration of forecasts of reliability and availability. The approach may include the use of forecasts about the time required for a communication and the likelihood that a connection will be dropped or will lose fidelity over this period of time. The methods may also include a consideration of metadata within a standard schema that is transmitted along with a communication attempt, the metadata representing information about attributes like the potential communication channels, the identity of the contactor, the task at hand, and the context of the communicating parties. The invocation of the communication service may be performed in a variety of ways, including single button invocations, and via a communication service that is more deeply integrated with other applications and functionalities.

The present invention relates to engineered structured adsorbent contactors for use in pressure swing adsorption and thermal swing adsorption processes. Preferably, the contactors contain engineered and substantially parallel flow channels wherein 20 volume percent or less of the open pore volume of the contactor, excluding the flow channels, is in the mesopore and macropore range.

A system for optimizing the value of communications between communicating parties is provided. The system includes a communication group manager that facilitates specifying policies, preferences and / or automated analysis of ideal communication channels, routing and / or scheduling in terms of communicating party groups that can be pre-populated clusters of communicating parties, assembled based on relationships (e.g., organizational), and / or assembled based on satisfying inclusion criteria (e.g., age, location, competence, communication history, meeting history). The communication group manager maps communicating parties into predefined and / or dynamically created groups that facilitate specifying and / or automatically computing ideal communication actions like selecting a channel, displaying lists of potential channels sorted by communicating party preferences, and (re)scheduling communications to different channels and / or times. Ideal communication actions can be identified by maximizing a measure of expected communication utility, where groups provide simplifying abstractions to facilitate assessment of outcome utilities. The method can employ representations of preferences of the contactor and contactee that allow for group-specific preference considerations that weight differentially contactor and / or contactee preference considerations in communication action optimization. The system includes a group wise communication coordinator that identifies optimal group communication sets. The method facilitates a recipient communicating with a group member where the communication utility is optimized based on a preference, and a context associated with the group to which the member belongs.

Methods and apparatus for providing uninterruptible power are provided by aspects of the invention. One aspect is more particularly directed to an uninterruptible power supply for providing power to a load. The uninterruptible power supply includes an input to receive input power, an output to provide output power, a back-up power source coupled to the output to provide backup power at the output, a contactor coupled to the input and having an open state and a closed state, a contactor control circuit having an output coupled to the contactor to provide an output voltage to control an operational state of the contactor, the contactor control circuit being configured to provide an output voltage having a first voltage level to the contactor to control the contactor to switch from the open state to the closed state and to provide a second output voltage having a second voltage level to maintain the contactor in the closed state.

There is provided herein methods and apparatus for apparatus for controlling the interconnection of an auxiliary AC generator with an electrical system, such as an electrical distribution system, e.g., a utility grid. A measuring circuit measures the frequency of an auxiliary AC generator and the phase angle between one voltage phase of the generator and the correspondent voltage phase of the electric utility's electricity supply lines, i.e., the grid, each of which are averaged and filtered. The measured frequency of the auxiliary AC generator is matched to the frequency of the electrical system and the measured phase angle of the generator is matched to the electric utility's electricity supply lines. Once matching is achieved to within a defined tolerance, interconnecting contactors are closed.

Temperature gauge, and ceramic susceptors and semiconductor manufacturing equipment utilizing the temperature gauge, in which the thermocouple may be easily replaced even if damaged, and in which heat from the temperature-gauging site is readily transmitted to the temperature-gauging contact, shortening time until the measurement temperature stabilizes. A temperature-gauging contact (12) in the tip of the thermocouple contacts, in an exposed-as-it-is state, a temperature-gauging site on a ceramic susceptor (1), and by means of a circular cylindrical-shaped retaining member (11) screwed into female threads in the ceramic susceptor (1) is detachably pressed upon and retained against the ceramic susceptor. Thermocouple lead lines (13), passing through a through-hole (14) in the retaining member (11), stretch from one end face to the other end face thereof. The retaining member may be provided with a flange having threaded holes and screwlocked into female screws in the ceramic susceptor.

The present invention relates to the separation of one or more of CO2, N2, and H2S gas components from a gas mixture containing at least a second gas using a swing adsorption process unit. The adsorbent contactors of the swing adsorption process unit are engineered structured adsorbent contactors having a plurality of flow channels wherein 20 volume percent or less of the open pore volume of the contactors is in the mesopore and macropore range.

A process for the separation of one or more heavy hydrocarbon gases from a gas mixture containing heavy hydrocarbon gas components and methane. The process is conducted in swing adsorption apparatus containing adsorbent contactor having a plurality of flow channels and wherein 20 volume percent or less of the open pore volume of the contactors, is in the mesopore and macropore range.

A system for charging batteries of electric vehicles from public fixtures such as street lights and parking meters includes modifying the fixture to convert it to a vehicle battery charging station using a power interface module having a novel keyed electrical power output receptacle connectable to power mains powering the fixture. The system includes a complementarily coded, keyed plug which must be inserted into the power output receptacle to access electrical power from the receptacle, the plug being located at the input end of vehicle charger cable terminated at output end thereof by a vehicle-mounted charge control system which will actuate a charging current contactor permitting charging current to flow from the receptacle to batteries within the vehicle only if a pre-paid charge authorization payment device, such as a magnetically or electronically encoded charge card is inserted into a charger station access enable device such as card reader mounted in the vehicle.

System, methods and apparatus for coupling photovoltaic arrays are disclosed. The apparatus may include a first input adapted to couple to a neutral line of a first photovoltaic array; a second input adapted to couple to a neutral line of a second photovoltaic array; a contactor configured to switchably couple the neutral line of a first photovoltaic array to the a neutral line of a second photovoltaic array, the contactor being remotely controllable.

The present invention relates the separation of a target gas from a mixture of gases through the use of engineered structured adsorbent contactors in pressure swing adsorption and thermal swing adsorption processes. Preferably, the contactors contain engineered and substantially parallel flow channels wherein 20 volume percent or less of the open pore volume of the contactor, excluding the flow channels, is in the mesopore and macropore range.

A catheter system and methods for repairing a valvular annulus or an annular organ structure of a patient comprising intimately contacting the annular organ structure by a tissue-contactor member having energy-delivering elements, and delivering tissue-shrinkable energy at the annular organ structure through the elements, wherein the tissue-shrinkable energy is applied at a distance wirelessly from the elements sufficient to shrink and tighten the organ structure.

One embodiment of the present invention is a socket useful to contact an electronic device, the socket including: (a) one or more contactor holder plates including one or more first through holes having a first hole cross sectional area, and one or more second through holes having a second hole cross sectional area; (b) one or more first contactors having a body with a first body cross sectional area disposed in the first through holes; (c) one or more second contactors having a body with a second body cross sectional area disposed in the second through holes; and (d) a heat sink in thermal contact with one or more of the one or more contactor holder plates; wherein a first ratio of the first hole cross sectional area to the first body cross sectional area is different from a second ratio of the second hole cross sectional area to the second body cross sectional area.

A contact apparatus is provided having a permanent magnet disposed in a region where a fixing contact point is mounted to a fixing contact and a movable contact to which a movable contact point is mounted. An arc generated between both the contact points is moved in a lateral direction by the magnetic force of the permanent magnet and stretched. An arc-extinguishing member which is heated by the arc for generating arc-extinguishing gas is provided such as to surround the fixing contact point and the movable contact point.

Watch (1) including time display means (8; 10) covered by a crystal (4). This watch includes an interface device for controlling a computer cursor. It forms a contactless watch-mouse. For this purpose, a plurality of touch sensitive sensors are arranged so that their sensitive pads (16) are supported at least partially by the crystal (4). The sensitive pads are arranged in particular in the shape of a matrix extending over most of the crystal (4). The click function is performed using a push-button (14) associated with electric contactor or by a pressure sensor or by a touch sensitive sensor provided for this purpose.

A catheter system and methods for repairing a valvular annulus or an annular organ structure of a patient comprising intimately contacting the annular organ structure by a tissue-contactor member having energy-delivering elements, and delivering tissue-shrinkable energy at the annular organ structure through the elements, wherein the tissue-shrinkable energy is applied at a distance wirelessly from the elements sufficient to shrink and tighten the organ structure.

The present invention relates to methods for recovering a hydroxide based sorbent from carbonate or another salt by electrochemical means involving separation schemes that use bipolar membranes and at least one type of cationic or anionic membrane. The methods can be used in an air contactor that removes carbon dioxide from the air by binding the carbon dioxide into a solvent or sorbent.

The invention relates in general to methods of controlled mixing one fluid with another. In particular it relates to a distributed direct fluid contactor including arrays of streamlined perforated tubes distributed across a flow to efficiently contact and mix one or more fluids flowing through one or more tubes with a second fluid flowing across those tubes. These distributed contactors thereby mix the fluids in a fairly uniform fashion causing a prescribed uniformity or variation in the ratio of the first to second fluid across the space. This thereby to generally creates and controls the physical and / or chemical changes in those fluids, including evaporation, condensation, forming powders and conducting chemical reactions including combustion.

A vibrotactile transducer provides a point-like vibrational stimulus to the body of a user in response to an electrical input. The apparatus includes a housing held in contact with the skin and a moving mechanical contactor protruding through in an opening in said housing and preloaded into skin. The contactor is attached to a torroidal moving magnet assembly suspended by springs in a magnetic circuit assembly consisting of a housing containing a pair of electrical coils. The mass of the magnet / contactor assembly and the compliance of the spring are chosen so that the electromechanical resonance of the motional masses, when loaded by a typical skin site on the human body, are in a frequency band where the human body is most sensitive to vibrational stimuli. By varying the drive signal to the vibrotactile transducer and activating one or more transducer at specific location on the body using an appropriate choice of signal characteristics and / or modulation, different information can be provided to a user in a intuitive, body referenced manner.

An adsorbent material fabricated into a reinforcement-free, self-supported coherent thin sheet and configured for use as a parallel passage contactor element in adsorption / separation applications with gases and liquids is disclosed. The adsorbent sheet material is obtained by enmeshing fine adsorbent particulates in a polymer binder. Particulates include but are not limited to carbon particles, inorganic oxides particles, or ceramic particles, or synthetic polymer resin particles. The adsorbent sheet advantageously contains a large volume percentage of active adsorbent particles. The parallel passage contactor device fabricated from the adsorbent sheet material is characterized by minimal mass transfer resistance and better separation efficiency expressed as height equivalent to a theoretical plate, while it maintains most of the adsorptive properties of the starting particulates, and can be used in gas separation applications with short adsorption cycles, such as rapid pressure swing adsorption, rotary concentrators, rapid electric swing adsorption.

A system for optimizing the value of communications between communicating parties is provided. The system includes a communication group manager that facilitates specifying policies, preferences and / or automated analysis of ideal communication channels, routing and / or scheduling in terms of communicating party groups that can be pre-populated clusters of communicating parties, assembled based on relationships (e.g., organizational), and / or assembled based on satisfying inclusion criteria (e.g., age, location, competence, communication history, meeting history). The communication group manager maps communicating parties into predefined and / or dynamically created groups that facilitate specifying and / or automatically computing ideal communication actions like selecting a channel, displaying lists of potential channels sorted by communicating party preferences, and (re)scheduling communications to different channels and / or times. Ideal communication actions can be identified by maximizing a measure of expected communication utility, where groups provide simplifying abstractions to facilitate assessment of outcome utilities. The method can employ representations of preferences of the contactor and contactee that allow for group-specific preference considerations that weight differentially contactor and / or contactee preference considerations in communication action optimization. The system includes a group wise communication coordinator that identifies optimal group communication sets. The method facilitates a recipient communicating with a group member where the communication utility is optimized based on a preference, and a context associated with the group to which the member belongs.

A system and method for identifying communication channels and appropriate timing of communications that facilitate enhancing or maximizing the utility of a communication between communicating parties, based on the participants' preferences and capabilities is provided. The system and method implement policies for facilitating optimal communications between communicating parties based on deterministic and / or uncertain preferences, capabilities and context, both present and predicted, where a decision to employ an initially selected channel and timing of communication may be overridden by contactor or contactee based on user-configurable triggers. The system and method further provide for mixed / multi-initiative overriding of the identified optimal communication channel and indicated best time for a communication. The methods can be implemented on a widescale communication system or within a single portable device. In one approach, the system attempts to optimize the inferred or directly accessed preferences of a contactee given the accessed or inferred preferences, capabilities and goals of the contactor while keeping the rationale and context of the contactee private. Such optimization can be achieved using preferences and policies concerning handling the attempted contact based on a deterministic specification or through inferring context, content and task under uncertainty by employing probabilistic or decision-theoretic inferences to attempt to maximize the expected utility of the communication to the contactee.

Water treatment systems and methods. Embodiments provide water treatment systems which comprise first oxidation, particulate filtration, and membrane filtration subsystems in that order. Systems also comprise recirculation paths and sensors for these subsystems. A controller determines whether to recirculate water to a previous subsystem in the order. Systems can comprise downstream second oxidation, high pressure membrane, ion exchange, activated carbon subsystems and / or ultraviolet contactors. Systems with high pressure membranes can comprise a pump before the high pressure membranes, a booster pump of the high pressure membrane subsystem, and a damping tank. In such systems the controller maintains a pressure in the damping tank. High pressure membrane subsystems can further comprise nanofiltration membranes and RO membranes. Systems can comprise bypass paths for some / all of the subsystems. For such systems, the controller further determines, whether to bypass these subsystems.

An improved interconnection system is described, such as for electrical contactors and connectors, electronic device or module package assemblies, socket assemblies, and / or probe card assembly systems. An exemplary connector comprises a first connector structure comprising a contactor substrate having a contact surface and a bonding surface, and one or more electrically conductive micro-fabricated spring contacts extending from the probe surface, a second connector structure comprising at least one substrate and having a set of at least one electrically conductive contact pad located on a connector surface and corresponding to the set of spring contacts, and means for movably positioning and aligning the first connector structure and the second connector structure between at least a first position and a second position, such that in at least one position, at least one electrically conductive micro-fabricated spring contact is electrically connected to at least one electrically conductive contact pad.

A process for the separation of one or more heavy hydrocarbon gases from a gas mixture containing heavy hydrocarbon gas components and methane. The process is conducted in swing adsorption apparatus containing adsorbent contactor having a plurality of flow channels and wherein 20 volume percent or less of the open pore volume of the contactors, is in the mesopore and macropore range.

Control of an induction motor is carried out to limit damaging arcing stress and mechanical stresses placed on the control contactor assembly and the induction motor resulting from the simultaneous or synchronous breaking and making of contactors employed to connect the windings of the motor to a power supply. Asynchronously connecting the windings to the power supply via the asynchronous or non-simultaneous closing of the contactors of a modular contactor assembly reduces the potentially damaging transient current, the associated torque oscillations, and mechanical stresses. The present invention is particularly applicable to delta motors that are started with its windings in a star or wye configuration followed by the reconnection of the windings in a delta configuration when the motor is at normal running speed.

A method and system for the selective removal of CO2 and / or H2S from a gaseous stream containing one or more acid gases. In particular, a system and method for separating CO2 and / or H2S from a gas mixture containing an acid gas using an absorbent solution and one or more ejector venturi nozzles in flow communication with one or more absorbent contactors. The method involves contacting a gas mixture containing at least one acid gas with the absorbent solution under conditions sufficient to cause absorption of at least a portion of said acid gas. The absorbent contactors operate in co-current flow and are arranged in a counter-current configuration to increase the driving force for mass transfer. Monoliths can be used that operate in a Taylor flow or slug flow regime. The absorbent solution is treated under conditions sufficient to cause desorption of at least a portion of the acid gas.

A battery management system based on a real time operation system which belongs to the technical field of vehicle storage battery management includes a CPU, a load voltage collecting module, a total voltage collecting module, a module voltage collecting module, a current collecting module, a temperature collecting module, a time collecting module, a CAN bus communicating module and a contactor control module. The CPU is respectively connected with a voltage collecting module, the current collecting module, the temperature collecting module, the time collecting module, the CAN bus communicating module and the contactor control module. The battery management system based on a real time operation system transplants a uc / OS-II multi-task real time operation system into the CPU, thus simplifying the software programming of a vehicle storage battery management system under the dispatching of the real time operation system, improving the execution efficiency to manage the system software, ensuring the real time property of data collection and enhancing the working stability of the system.