International Business Machines Corporation

Eric Howland Jenney

George James Romano

Eric Nels Herness

John Christopher Ripstra

Frank William Gilchrist

Matthew Ryan Weaver

David Robert Draeger

John D Vasquez

Michael J Branson

Contactless blood pressure monitoring, includes: illuminating a blood vessel of a patient with infrared ('IR') light; receiving, by an IR camera through a polarizing filter, IR light reflected by the patient; capturing at a time based on a heartrate of the patient, a first IR image of the blood vessel of the patient when the blood vessel is distended; determining, from the first image, a maximum diameter of the blood vessel; capturing at a time based on the heartrate of the patient, a second IR image of the blood vessel of the patient when the blood vessel is contracted; determining, from the second IR image, a minimum diameter of the blood vessel; and calculating blood pressure of the patient in dependence upon the maximum and minimum diameters of the blood vessel.

Contactless blood pressure monitoring of a patient

A pallet content identification mechanism is a small electronic device that is attached to a pallet. The pallet content identification mechanism reads RFID tags on the pallet using an RFID portal scanner, converts the RFID information into corresponding barcode information, and transmits the corresponding barcodes to a barcode-based inventory control system in a format that looks like output of a wireless barcode scanner. In this manner the pallet identification mechanism allows a user to benefit from RFID technology on the pallet while still using barcode technology in the barcode-based inventory control system.

Pallet content identification mechanism that converts RFID information to corresponding barcode information

A pallet content identification mechanism is a small electronic device that is attached to a pallet. The pallet content identification mechanism reads RFID tags on the pallet using an RFID portal scanner, converts the RFID information into corresponding barcode information, and displays the corresponding barcodes on a small display. These barcodes may then be scanned by a conventional barcode scanner, thereby allowing all of the items on the pallet to be scanned into the barcode system without unpacking the pallet. The pallet identification mechanism allows a user to benefit from RFID technology on the pallet while still using barcode technology in the inventory control system.

A framework for use with object-oriented programming systems provides an expert system shell that executes with a rule set developed by a framework user. The framework includes a condition manager object that keeps track of what conditions are true at any time and a rules compiler that processes the rules so they can be used by the condition manager. The conditions are a set of object classes that are organized into an inheritance hierarchy for use by the condition manager. A detector determines when to set conditions to true. When a condition state is changed, the condition manager realizes that one or more rules might indicate a particular action might now be appropriate. Therefore, the condition manager checks the rules against the conditions each time a condition changes. The expert system developer provides the set of rules and conditions appropriate for the knowledge domain of the expert system under development.

Object oriented rule-based expert system framework mechanism

An apparatus, program product, and method is provided for monitoring a remote computer to determine the existence of a status signal indicating that the remote computer is operational. The monitoring computer interprets a sudden absence of the status signal within a predetermined time period as a non-operational status of the remote computer. In response to the non-operational status of the remote computer, the monitoring computer generates an alert sequence to alert personnel that the remote computer is non-operational. The alert sequence may alert various personnel, including the user of the remote computer or security personnel, depending upon the time of day that the alert sequence is generated. Inputs from the user determine the frequency of the monitoring process and also the method of contacting personnel upon an alert sequence. The user may selectively start and stop the monitoring process as desired for minimal disruption of computer operation and workflow.

Computer system, program product and method for monitoring the operational status of a computer

A framework for use with object-oriented programming systems provides a common message processing system structure that can be placed on any OOP platform and be configured to support any e-mail message protocol standard or specific mail server function. The framework defines an e-mail message as a number of distinct objects, each of which contains information that describes some portion of the message. All messages received by a system in which the framework is implemented are defined on this core object structure. Another set of objects and methods define the processing steps required for a mail server to process a message. A message is received as a class of message objects, which are assigned a message type that determines the subsequent processing steps to which the message object is subjected. As a message is processed, the objects of which it is comprised are changed, so that the message processing can be interrupted and then resumed without loss or duplication of processing steps.

Object oriented mail server framework mechanism

An intelligent creator design pattern for instantiating a new application subclass of an application base class without revising existing application code in an object-oriented programming system. The intelligent creator design pattern of this invention specifies a base class to be inherited by an intelligent creator subclass added to an existing application to instantiate a new application subclass responsive to recognition of predetermined application input data without modification to the remainder of the application code. A dynamic list object that includes methods for autonomously updating a list of references to all intelligent creator subclasses eliminates knowledge of specific creator subclasses from the application. The dynamic list object code need not be updated when adding creator subclasses because the list object is self-updating responsive to the recognition methods of each new creator subclass added to the application. The recognition capacity provided in each intelligent creator subclass also eliminates all knowledge of specific application subclasses from the application.

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Rochester, MN, United States of America

Eric Howland Jenney