77results about How to "Less stiff" patented technology

An apparatus and method for the self-administration of a plurality of doses of an intranasal liquid pharmaceutical composition, including opioid analgesics, that includes a drug delivery device containing a plurality of sealed vials, each vial containing a predetermined volume of the pharmaceutical composition, a pump assembly for conveying the liquid pharmaceutical composition from the interior of the vial and discharging it as a nasal spray in response to manual activation by the patient, and programmable means for sequentially advancing a vial to the ready position after passage of a prescribed time interval following the last activation of the delivery device.

A motion restoring prosthesis to be interposed between the ends of two bones adjoining a mammalian appendage or spinal joint is formed of two components with the components having inner cooperating articulating surfaces and outer bone engaging surfaces. At least one of the components has an inner section made of relatively hard, stiff material defining one or the articulating surfaces and an outer section made of a softer material defining the bone engaging surface. The softer material having a hardness / stiffness characteristic compatible with the bone to reduce stress shielding and more evenly distribute the forces from the articulating surfaces to the associate bone interface.

A dynamic porous coating for an orthopedic implant, wherein the dynamic porous coating is adapted to apply an expansive force against adjacent bone so as to fill gaps between the dynamic porous coating and adjacent bone and to create an interference fit between the orthopedic implant and the adjacent bone.

The present invention provides pads and padding systems for use in protective helmets, and particularly ballistic helmets. Generally, the pad includes a first, outer layer which provides substantial impact resistance and a second, inner layer which provides cushioning and comfort. The pad does not require the use of a moisture-proof, non-perforated, encapsulating layer since both layers provide little resistance to fluid flow. The pad may also include a cover made of moisture-wicking material.

A catheter with a spring tip that facilitates atraumatic initial placement and also continues to protect tissue contacted by the catheter device subsequent to the initial placement. The spring tip is shock-absorbing and axially compliant and allows enhanced use of various devices in conjunction with the tip such as bioptomes, electrodes, needles, flushing catheters, delivery catheters, and the like. The atraumatic shock-absorbing tip could include conductive or non-conductive materials.

An elastomeric load bearing surface with different load support characteristics in different directions. In one embodiment, the surface includes an elastomeric membrane that is oriented in only a single direction, for example, by compression or stretching. In another embodiment, the surface includes mechanical structures, such as connectors and variations in thickness that vary the load support characteristics in different directions. In another embodiment, a surface is both oriented and includes mechanical structures.

An apparatus and method for the self-administration of a plurality of doses of an intranasal liquid pharmaceutical composition, including opioid analgesics, that includes a drug delivery device containing a plurality of sealed vials, each vial containing a predetermined volume of the pharmaceutical composition, a pump assembly for conveying the liquid pharmaceutical composition from the interior of the vial and discharging it as a nasal spray in response to manual activation by the patient, and programmable means for sequentially advancing a vial to the ready position after passage of a prescribed time interval following the last activation of the delivery device.

Presently disclosed is a protective helmet, which may include a shell defining a shell exterior and a shell interior, and being configured to receive a wearer's head and extend to protectively cover the head circumferentially and vertically over the top of a wearer's skull; a first cushioning member disposed within the shell interior and configured for cushioning the skull; and a plurality of columnar cushioning members configured for supporting the shell on the skull and being configured for bending to allow rotational movement of the shell with respect to the skull, the columnar cushioning members having inner surfaces disposed further inwardly with respect to the shell than the first cushioning member surface to position the columnar member inner surfaces for resting against the skull and leaving a space between the first cushioning member inner surfaces and the skull.

The present invention provides improved devices, systems and methods for repositioning teeth from an initial tooth arrangement to a final tooth arrangement. Repositioning is accomplished with a system comprising a series of polymeric shell appliances configured to receive the teeth and incrementally reposition individual teeth in a series of successive steps. The individual appliances may be formed from layers having different stiffnesses (elastic moduluses), and the stiffnesses of successive appliances may be different, or both.

The present invention provides improved devices, systems and methods for repositioning teeth from an initial tooth arrangement to a final tooth arrangement. Repositioning is accomplished with a system comprising a series of polymeric shell appliances configured to receive the teeth and incrementally reposition individual teeth in a series of successive steps. The individual appliances may be formed from layers having different stiffnesses (elastic moduluses), and the stiffnesses of successive appliances may be different, or both.

A porous coating for a medical implant, wherein the porous coating comprises a porous, shape memory material.

An absorbent hygiene article that comprises a barrier component, which comprises a nonwoven barrier sheet, comprising at least a spunbond nonwoven web or layer with spunbond fibers and / or a meltblown nonwoven web or layer with meltblown fibers, either or both or all layers comprising fibers comprising thermoplastic polymers and an organic additive component.

A card sheet including a top material having punched lines, the front side of the top material being printable. A carrier material of at least one polymer layer is directly applied as by extruding to the back side of the top material. The polymer has a stress-at-break in the range of 10 to 30 MPa and an elongation at break in the range of 10 to 120%. From the card sheet individual cards may be broken out to form high quality calling (business) cards, photograph cards, post cards or the like.

A method of manufacturing biodegradable / bioresorbable tissue augmentation / reconstruction devices by defining material density distributions at selected time points during a material degradation lifecycle. These different density distributions are then superposed using general linear and / or nonlinear functions that could include both time and degraded base stiffness weighting factors. The material density distribution may be created using topology optimization, image-based design or computed aided design methods to create a degradable device that retains sufficient physical properties (ie modulus, strength, electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity) through the material degradation lifecycle process. Thus, any bulk degrading material can be designed using this process for any tissue augmentation / reconstruction application.

A low density polyethylene film layer is extrusion coated on densified bleached kraft paper liner to form a film-coated liner sheet. A facestock sheet is adhered with a layer of hot melt adhesive to the film layer to form a laminate sheet web, which is rolled on a roll. The facestock sheet, the film layer and the adhesive layer together define a laminate feedstock. The roll is transported to and loaded on a press with the liner side up. One (or both) edge(s) of the web is (are) crushed with a calendering die to form thin lead-in edge(s). The web is die cut on the bottom face, up through the laminate facestock, but not through the paper liner, to form the perimeters of a grid of blank business cards or other printable media, with a waste paper frame of the laminate facestock encircling the grid. The web is then die cut from the top through the paper liner and to but not through the laminate facestock, to form liner strips covering the back face of the laminate facestock. According to one preferred embodiment of the invention, alternate ones of the strips are then pulled off of the laminate facestock web. A final production step is to sheet the web to form the desired sheet width (or length) of the laminated sheet construction. The individual laminated business card sheets can be stacked into the infeed tray of an ink jet printer for example, and the sheets individually and automatically fed lead-in edge first into the printer and a printing operation performed on each of the printable media, to form a sheet of printed media. The remaining strips on the back of the laminate facestock cover the lateral cut lines in the laminate facestock and thereby hold the facestock together as it is fed into and passed through the printer. The user then individually peels the printed media off of the strips and out from the waste paper frame. Thereby printed business cards (or other printed media), each with its entire perimeter defined by clean die cuts, are formed. Instead of calendering both edges of the web and thus the sheet, one end can be calendered and a strip of the laminate facestock can be stripped off of the liner sheet from the other end. The remaining thin liner sheet strip at the other end forms a thin infeed edge for feeding into a horizontal feed, ink jet printer.

An assembly for gliding on snow, the assembly comprising a snowboard and a binding system for the boots of the user. The snowboard is provided with a large central depression defining two longitudinal lateral spars placed directly on either side of the depression. Anchor points are formed in said two longitudinal lateral spars. Respective intermediate plates for the front foot and for the back foot are fixed in the anchor points. The intermediate plate is provided in its middle zone overlying the depression with means for anchoring and fixing to the corresponding boot.

A method of forming printable media including providing a laminate construction which includes (1) a film coated liner having a film layer on a liner and (2) a facestock adhered with an adhesive layer to the film layer of the film coated liner. The facestock, the film layer and the adhesive layer together form a laminate facestock. The facestock is cut to the liner to form facestock cut lines defining at least in part perimeters of printable media. Areas of the liner cover backsides of the facestock cut lines and thereby hold the printable media together for a printing operation on the printable media in a printer or copier and allow the printed media to be removed from the liner after the printing operation into individual printed media.

A card sheet including a top material having punched lines, the front side of the top material being printable. A carrier material of at least one polymer layer is directly applied as by extruding to the back side of the top material. The polymer has a stress-at-break in the range of 10 to 30 MPa and an elongation at break in the range of 10 to 120%. From the card sheet individual cards may be broken out to form high quality calling (business) cards, photograph cards, post cards or the like.

A system and method for improving mechanical assemblies, such as prosthetic implants, intended to be installed in living tissue such as bone. Force-imparting devices are adapted and may include angularity, which may be introduced with specialized additive manufacturing, which may impart congruent cross-sections while providing variable stiffness. In some cases, the variable stiffness may be “stretchy” in a longitudinal direction and “rigid” in a radial directional which may provide an assembly bias. Additive manufacturing may allow the material of a prosthesis to be varied (e.g., density / porosity) to create variable stiffness over a length.

An intravascular delivery catheter includes a middle member or manipulator to ameliorate the effect of buckling of the graft cover during the tracking or positioning of the delivery device within a body flow lumen to deploy an exclusion device, such a stent graft. The delivery device / catheter includes a region or regions of lower resistance to bending than other portions of the delivery device, which are positioned, within the delivery device, to preferentially bend the delivery system at locations where buckling will have minimal effect upon the deployment of the exclusion device from the delivery system. The preferential bending is accomplished, by providing a middle member / manipulator that is a rod with laterally oriented slots, having different depth and spacing configurations, or by using a wire coil as a portion of the middle member where the variable stiffness is created either by providing a variable / multiple coil diameter or by using a wire having a variable diameter along its length while the wire coil diameter is relatively uniform.

A porous coating for a medical implant, wherein the porous coating comprises a porous, shape memory material.

A roll stock of a graphic transfer strip for use in making a high visibility safety garment for wearing by an individual exposed to a higher than normal risk of injury from vehicular traffic. The safety garment complies with the visibility requirements of a published standard such as the American National Standards Institute for High Visibility Safety Apparel. The safety garment has one or more high visibility safety stripes that encircle the torso. The safety stripe is formed of a plurality of separate but closely spaced stripe segments in a generally repetitive pattern that is substantially continuous for the length of the stripe. The stripe segments are formed of a retroreflective material. The stripe segments occupy a portion of the total area of the stripe sufficient to impart to the stripe a coefficient of retroreflectivity that meets or exceeds that required by the standard being addressed for the safety garment.

A garment steamer (1) comprising a base body (10) accommodating a liquid water tank (26); a liquid water pump (32), having a water inlet (32a) and a water outlet (32b), wherein the water inlet (32a) is fluidly connected to the liquid water tank (26). The garment steamer also comprises a steam head (50) that is moveable with respect to the base body (10) and that accommodates a steam chamber (70), having a liquid water inlet and a steam outlet, wherein said steam outlet includes at least one steam nozzle (76); a heating element (72) that is provided in or adjacent said steam chamber (70), and configured to evaporate liquid water passing through said steam chamber. A liquid water tube (38b, 38c) fluidly interconnects the water outlet (32b) of the water pump (32) and the liquid water inlet of the steam chamber (70) in the steam head (50).

Devices that facilitate insertion of tube-like structures, e.g., catheters and other medical devices, into passages in mammalian bodies, e.g. in the human body. Devices according to various embodiments of the invention provide greater stiffness and / or rigidity to elongated tube-like structures. According to some embodiments, a portion or the entire insertion facilitation device can be removed from the tube-like structure after insertion thereof. According to some embodiments of the invention, an insertion facilitation device comprises a releasable engagement arrangement to releasably engage the stiffener and a tube-like structure to inhibit or prevent relative motion between the stiffener and tube-like structure.

A motor vehicle door and armrest assembly using a thin plate that is vertically strong while laterally collapsible. The plate is comprised of a matrix of intersecting parallel struts forming four sided cells having a first set of opposing acute angles and a second set of opposing obtuse angles. The obtuse angles span a direction normal to the motor vehicle door and allow the plate to more easily limit force transmission from a side impact force. The struts are coupled to a frame, the coupling struts variable in cross sectional area to further determine the lateral stiffness of the plate.

There is provided a variable reluctance sensor for sensing the speed or torque of a shaft in a gear box or gas turbine engine, comprising a magnetic pole piece a conductive wire wrapped around the pole piece a housing surrounding the pole piece, the housing having a front face and at least one side wall, wherein, in use, the front face is positioned proximate to an object to be sensed wherein the pole piece is rigidly fixed to the side wall of the housing. This arrangement reduces microphony in the sensor.

Disclosed herein is a bat comprising a handle portion, a transition portion attached to the handle portion, and a barrel portion attached to the transition portion. The barrel portion includes one or more first cross-sections having a first stiffness and a plurality of second cross-sections having a second stiffness. Each first cross-section is beside one second cross-section or between two of the second cross-sections and the first stiffness is greater than the second stiffness. The variance in stiffness between the first cross-sections and the second cross-sections is created by varying the amount of material in the cross-section or by, more accurately, removing material in the second cross sections to make the second cross-sections more flexible by creating slots. Likewise, a bat may be provided with third cross sections on the sides of the second cross-sections distal from the first cross-section whereby the third cross-sections are less stiff that the second cross-sections because more material is removed.

An absorbent article such as a sanitary napkin, adult incontinence device, or the like. The absorbent article has a pair of flaps for securing the absorbent article. The flaps extend laterally outward from the main body portion of the article. The flaps are associated with the main body portion at a juncture along the longitudinal edges of the main body portion. The flaps have a notch. The flaps have at least one first zone of anisotropic stiffness contiguous with the notch. The first zone of anisotropic stiffness has a relatively stiffer direction and a relatively less stiff direction. The first zone of anisotropic stiffness can be made of corrugated or ring-rolled portions of the absorbent article.