Circular stapler buttress combination

A combination medical device comprising a circular stapler instrument (4) and one or more portions of preformed buttress material (16) adapted to be stably positioned upon the staple cartridge (12) and/or anvil (14) components of the stapler (4) prior or at the time of use. Positioned buttress material(s) (16) are delivered to a tissue site where the circular stapler (4) is actuated to connect previously severed tissue portions. An embodiment of the invention allows tissue portions to be joined without the use of sutures. The buttress material (16) is made up of two regions, one of which serves primarily to secure the buttress material (16) to the stapler (4) prior to actuation, and one of which serves primarily to form the improved seal. The former region is severed and discarded upon activation of the circular stapler (4) to form anastomoses, while the remaining material secures and seals the newly connected tissue. Methods of use and preparation of the buttress material (16) are also described.

Endoscope therapeutic device

In an endoscope therapeutic device having a plurality of introduction guide tubes for introducing a treatment tool into a body cavity, the introduction guide tubes are mutually joined at a position more proximal than bending portions thereof. Accordingly, the effects caused by the movement of the plurality of the introduction guide tubes are mutually invalidated at a joint portion as a fulcrum, so that the position of the introduction guide tube is relatively stabilized in the body cavity. As joining methods, there are integration, usage of a joint tool, and usage of an over tube. The operability is improved when the introduction guide tube is provided at the distal end thereof with a mechanism for retaining and/or rotating a distal end of a treatment tool inserted therethrough.

Techniques for detecting and correcting errors using multiple interleave erasure pointers

Techniques for detecting and correcting burst errors in data bytes formed in a two-level block code structure. A second level decoder uses block level check bytes to detect columns in a two-level block code structure that contain error bytes. The second level decoder generates erasure pointers that identify columns in the two-level block structure effected by burst errors. A first level decoder then uses codeword check bytes to correct all of the bytes in the columns identified by the erasure pointers. The first level decoder is freed to use all of the codeword check bytes only for error byte value calculations. The first level decoder does not need to use any of the codeword check bytes for error location calculations, because the erasure pointers generated by the second level decoder provide all of the necessary error locations. This techniques doubles the error correction capability of the first level decoder.

Organism tissue suturing apparatus

An organism tissue suturing apparatus for suturing a penetrated hole formed subcutaneously in a tissue membrane of an organism includes a body part having a predetermined length. The body part includes a rotary portion, disposed at a front end thereof, that can be inserted into the tissue of the organism from the hole, a needle member accommodated in a portion, inside the body part, rearward from the rotary position, and a pressing mechanism for advancing the needle member from a side surface of the body part and pressing the needle member into the rotary portion. The rotary portion has a needle member receiving portion for receiving essentially a front end of the needle member pressed into the rotary portion by the pressing mechanism, with the rotary portion disposed in the tissue of the organism. The needle member has a suturing thread of a duct for the suturing thread.

Method of controlling a surgical system based on a load on the cutting tip of a handpiece

A surgical system that is able to sense the onset of an occlusion or other surgical event as well as the instant an occlusion breaks. To help avoid overheating of the tip, the system determines an approximate temperature of the eye using an irrigation flow rate and reduces the power to the handpiece automatically if an overheating situation is predicted. Alternatively or in addition, the system monitors the power drawn by the handpiece, which is indicative of the cutting load on the tip, and automatically adjusts the power or stroke of the tip to compensate for increased loads on the tip.

Renal nerve stimulation method and apparatus for treatment of patients

A method and apparatus for treatment of heart failure, hypertension and renal failure by stimulating the renal nerve. The goal of therapy is to reduce sympathetic activity of the renal nerve. Therapy is accomplished by at least partially blocking the nerve with drug infusion or electrostimulation. Apparatus can be permanently implanted or catheter based.

Place specific buddy list services

An information service provides search and notifications to inform when certain people (e.g., friends, family, business contacts, etc.) are nearby so as to facilitate communications with those people. Users may define lists of people whose locations may be tracked by positioning equipment based on personal communications/computing devices carried by the people. The information service processes this people and place data to identify those of the listed people that are in the user's vicinity, and provide notifications and user-initiated search results informing the user such as via the user's personal communications/computing device.

Node-to node messaging transceiver network with dynamic routing and configuring

The invention is a system operating on a reference frequency. The system comprises a plurality of at least three nodes. Each node hands off a message received from another node to a subsequent node. Each of the nodes comprises a transceiver receiving a message on the reference frequency from another node and transmitting the received message on the reference frequency to a subsequent node, and a controller controlling operation of the transceiver to receive the message transmitted by another node and to transmit the received message to a subsequent node.

Systems and methods for browsing multimedia content on small mobile devices

The multimedia content browsing system for small mobile devices smoothly blends three key tasks: querying the multimedia contents by keywords, exploring the search results by viewing keyframes of the multimedia contents, and playing a stream of the multimedia contents, e.g., videos or video segments. Videos can be stored in a segment-based multimedia content database, which is designed to support the browsing, retrieval, and reuse of videos. A layered imaging model is introduced where each layer may have its own transparent value set individually, continuously, and interactively, and the layers can overlap on top of each other when rendered on the screen. Since a small mobile device alone may not have enough resources to handle the entire task of multimedia content browsing, a scalable architecture can be adopted to break up the task among the small mobile device, a Hard Disk Drive (HDD), and a resource-rich computing device.

User interface and time-shifted presentation of data in a system that monitors activity in a shared radio frequency band

An intelligent spectrum management (ISM) system and method that includes sophisticated features to detect, classify, and locate sources of RF activity. The system comprises one or more radio sensor devices positioned at various locations in a region where activity in a shared radio frequency band is occurring. A server is coupled to the radio sensor devices and aggregates the data generated by the sensor devices. Data collected and processed by the server from the sensors may be coupled to a console application that displays the data in desirable user interface format. According to one aspect, the server continuously stores spectrum analysis data pertaining to activity in a frequency band over time and/or protocol analysis data pertaining to analysis of packets transmitted in the frequency band according to a communication protocol. A console application includes a time-shift display mode that permits a user to specify an instant of time prior to the current time from which to playback spectrum analysis data and/or protocol analysis data generated by one or more radio sensor devices.