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Higgins, PA
Brian J. Higgins, Reading, PA US
| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|---|---|
| 20080226488 | PRODUCTION OF HIGH-PURITY NIOBIUM MONOXIDE AND CAPACITOR PRODUCTION THEREFROM - The present invention relates to high-purity niobium monoxide powder (NbO) produced by a process of combining a mixture of higher niobium oxides and niobium metal powder or granules; heating and reacting the compacted mixture under controlled atmosphere to achieve temperature greater than about 1945° C., at which temperature the NbO is liquid; solidifying the liquid NbO to form a body of material; and fragmenting the body to form NbO particles suitable for application as capacitor anodes. The NbO product is unusually pure in composition and crystallography, and can be used for capacitors and for other electronic applications. The method of production of the NbO is robust, does not require high-purity feedstock, and can reclaim value from waste streams associated with the processing of NbO electronic components. The method of production also can be used to make high-purity NbO | 09-18-2008 |
Daniel Higgins, Jamison, PA US
| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|---|---|
| 20090105793 | Therapeutic device for thermally assisted urinary function - A therapeutic device for thermally assisted urinary function is presented. The therapeutic pad ( | 04-23-2009 |
Derrick C. Higgins, Philadelphia, PA US
| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|---|---|
| 20090190839 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR HANDLING THE CONFOUNDING EFFECT OF DOCUMENT LENGTH ON VECTOR-BASED SIMILARITY SCORES - A computer-implemented method, system, and computer program product for generating vector-based similarity scores in text document comparisons considering confounding effects of document length. Vector-based methods for comparing the semantic similarity between texts (such as Content Vector Analysis and Random Indexing) have a characteristic which may reduce their usefulness for some applications: the similarity estimates they produce are strongly correlated with the lengths of the texts compared. The statistical basis for this confound is described, and suggests the application of a pivoted normalization method from information retrieval to correct for the effect of document length. In two text categorization experiments, Random Indexing similarity scores using pivoted normalization are shown to perform significantly better than standard vector-based similarity estimation methods. | 07-30-2009 |
John C. Higgins, Germansville, PA US
| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|---|---|
| 20100315213 | DPF Warning System - A system for providing external notification of a vehicle event to an operator includes a reader device connected to a control unit providing status of at least one vehicle condition with the vehicle having a diesel particulate filter (DPF), a plurality of warning devices connected to the reader device and a power supply connected to the reader device and to the warning devices wherein the reader device receives data via data lines from the control unit, decodes the received data to determine the occurrence of a vehicle event relating to the DPF and controls ground signal lines of the warning devices to trigger at least one of the warning devices based on the detection of a particular event. | 12-16-2010 |
Martin E. Higgins, State College, PA US
| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|---|---|
| 20090029178 | Process for the modification of substrate surfaces through the deposition of amorphous silicon layers followed by surface functionalization with organic molecules and functionalized structures - Functionalized substrates and method of passivating the surface of a substrate to improve the surface by imparting desirable surface properties to improve the performance of a surface, the method steps including exposing the substrate to a chemical vapor deposition process to coat the substrate with silicon, and functionalizing the coated surface by exposing the substrate surface to a binding reagent having at least one unsaturated hydrocarbon group. | 01-29-2009 |
| 20110177349 | Process for the modification of substrate surfaces through the deposition of amorphous silicon layers followed by surface functionalization with organic molecules and functionalized structures - Functionalized substrates and method of passivating the surface of a substrate to improve the surface by imparting desirable surface properties to improve the performance of a surface, the method steps including exposing the substrate to a chemical vapor deposition process to coat the substrate with silicon, and functionalizing the coated surface by exposing the substrate surface to a binding reagent having at least one unsaturated hydrocarbon group. | 07-21-2011 |
Rose Higgins, Washington Crossing, PA US
| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|---|---|
| 20080215627 | Standardized health data hub - A central health data repository stores health data from various data providers and provides data to various data consumers. The data hub is a standardized central repository that conforms to various standards, such as Health Level Seven (HL7). The data is received according to the HL7 specification and is transmitted to the various data providers using HL7. The data may also be transmitted as a continuous data feed. In this manner, a large volume of health data may be collected, stored, and disseminated using the data hub as a standardized service. A computer system includes one or more processors, an output network interface and an input network interface, a memory for storing multiple personal health records having fields for storing data in a proprietary format or in a standard format. The memory may also include an HL7 translation module and a data insertion/retrieval code module, wherein the computer system performs as a standardized health data repository for various entities in the healthcare industry. | 09-04-2008 |
Rose Marie Higgins, Washington Crossing, PA US
| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|---|---|
| 20120029933 | POINT-OF-CARE DECISION SUPPORT DRIVEN AUTO-ADJUDICATION SYSTEM, AND ASSOCIATED METHOD AND COMPUTER-READABLE STORAGE MEDIUM - A system is provided that includes a processor configured to access a catalog of a plurality of medical services spanning a plurality of one or more of clinicians responsible for diagnoses of respective patients, facilities responsible for performing medical services with respect to respective patients, or paying entities responsible for the coverage of respective patients. The clinicians, facilities or paying entities have a respective plurality of nomenclatures for identifying the medical services, with at least some of the nomenclatures differing in identifying similar medical services. The processor is therefore configured to receive identification of a medical service in the nomenclature of one clinician, facility or paying entity, and from the catalog, translate the identification to the nomenclature of another clinician, facility or paying entity for transmission thereto. | 02-02-2012 |
William E. Higgins, State College, PA US
| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|---|---|
| 20080207997 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONTINUOUS GUIDANCE OF ENDOSCOPY - Methods and apparatus provide continuous guidance of endoscopy during a live procedure. A data-set based on 3D image data is pre-computed including reference information representative of a predefined route through a body organ to a final destination. A plurality of live real endoscopic (RE) images are displayed as an operator maneuvers an endoscope within the body organ. A registration and tracking algorithm registers the data-set to one or more of the RE images and continuously maintains the registration as the endoscope is locally maneuvered. Additional information related to the final destination is then presented enabling the endoscope operator to decide on a final maneuver for the procedure. The reference information may include 3D organ surfaces, 3D routes through an organ system, or 3D regions of interest (ROIs), as well as a virtual endoscopic (VE) image generated from the precomputed data-set. The preferred method includes the step of superimposing one or both of the 3D routes and ROIs on one or both of the RE and VE images. The 3D organ surfaces and routes may correspond to the surfaces and paths of a tracheobronchial airway tree extracted, for example, from 3D MDCT images of the chest. | 08-28-2008 |
| 20090156895 | PRECISE ENDOSCOPIC PLANNING AND VISUALIZATION - Endoscopic poses are used to indicate the exact location and direction in which a physician must orient the endoscope to sample a region of interest (ROI) in an airway tree or other luminal structure. Using a patient-specific model of the anatomy derived from a 3D MDCT image, poses are chosen to be realizable given the physical characteristics of the endoscope and the relative geometry of the patient's airways and the ROI. To help ensure the safety of the patient, the calculations also account for obstacles such as the aorta and pulmonary arteries, precluding the puncture of these sensitive blood vessels. A real-time visualization system conveys the calculated pose orientation and the quality of any arbitrary bronchoscopic pose orientation. A suggested pose orientation is represented as an icon within a virtual rendering of the patient's airway tree or other structure. The location and orientation of the icon indicates the suggested pose orientation to which the physician should align during the procedure. | 06-18-2009 |
| 20100280365 | GUIDANCE METHOD BASED ON 3D-2D POSE ESTIMATION AND 3D-CT REGISTRATION WITH APPLICATION TO LIVE BRONCHOSCOPY - A method provides guidance to the physician during a live bronchoscopy or other endoscopic procedures. The 3D motion of the bronchoscope is estimated using a fast coarse tracking step followed by a fine registration step. The tracking is based on finding a set of corresponding feature points across a plurality of consecutive bronchoscopic video frames, then estimating for the new pose of the bronchoscope. In the preferred embodiment the pose estimation is based on linearization of the rotation matrix. By giving a set of corresponding points across the current bronchoscopic video image, and the CT-based virtual image as an input, the same method can also be used for manual registration. The fine registration step is preferably a gradient-based Gauss-Newton method that maximizes the correlation between the bronchoscopic video image and the CT-based virtual image. The continuous guidance is provided by estimating the 3D motion of the bronchoscope in a loop. Since depth-map information is available, tracking can be done by solving a 3D-2D pose estimation problem. A 3D-2D pose estimation problem is more constrained than a 2D-2D pose estimation problem and does not suffer from the limitations associated with computing an essential matrix. The use of correlation-based cost, instead of mutual information as a registration cost, makes it simpler to use gradient-based methods for registration. | 11-04-2010 |
| 20110128352 | FAST 3D-2D IMAGE REGISTRATION METHOD WITH APPLICATION TO CONTINUOUSLY GUIDED ENDOSCOPY - A novel framework for fast and continuous registration between two imaging modalities is disclosed. The approach makes it possible to completely determine the rigid transformation between multiple sources at real-time or near real-time frame-rates in order to localize the cameras and register the two sources. A disclosed example includes computing or capturing a set of reference images within a known environment, complete with corresponding depth maps and image gradients. The collection of these images and depth maps constitutes the reference source. The second source is a real-time or near-real time source which may include a live video feed. Given one frame from this video feed, and starting from an initial guess of viewpoint, the real-time video frame is warped to the nearest viewing site of the reference source. An image difference is computed between the warped video frame and the reference image. The viewpoint is updated via a Gauss-Newton parameter update and certain of the steps are repeated for each frame until the viewpoint converges or the next video frame becomes available. The final viewpoint gives an estimate of the relative rotation and translation between the camera at that particular video frame and the reference source. The invention has far-reaching applications, particularly in the field of assisted endoscopy, including bronchoscopy and colonoscopy. Other applications include aerial and ground-based navigation. | 06-02-2011 |
| 20110184238 | IMAGE-BASED GLOBAL REGISTRATION SYSTEM AND METHOD APPLICABLE TO BRONCHOSCOPY GUIDANCE - A global registration system and method identifies bronchoscope position without the need for significant bronchoscope maneuvers, technician intervention, or electromagnetic sensors. Virtual bronchoscopy (VB) renderings of a 3D airway tree are obtained including VB views of branch positions within the airway tree. At least one real bronchoscopic (RB) video frame is received from a bronchoscope inserted into the airway tree. An algorithm according to the invention is executed on a computer to identify the several most likely branch positions having a VB view closest to the received RB view, and the 3D position of the bronchoscope within the airway tree is determined in accordance with the branch position identified in the VB view. The preferred embodiment involves a fast local registration search over all the branches in a global airway-bifurcation search space, with the weighted normalized sum of squares distance metric used for finding the best match. | 07-28-2011 |
Williams E. Higgins, State College, PA US
| Patent application number | Description | Published |
|---|---|---|
| 20100310146 | MEDICAL IMAGE REPORTING SYSTEM AND METHOD - This invention relates generally to medical imaging and, in particular, to a method and system for reconstructing a model path through a branched tubular organ. Novel methodologies and systems segment and define accurate endoluminal surfaces in airway trees, including small peripheral bronchi. An automatic algorithm is described that searches the entire lung volume for airway branches and poses airway-tree segmentation as a global graph-theoretic optimization problem. A suite of interactive segmentation tools for cleaning and extending critical areas of the automatically segmented result is disclosed. A model path is reconstructed through the airway tree. | 12-09-2010 |