Methods and apparatus are provided for enclosing existing outdoor areas defined by a fence, wall or the like by the utilization of an air supported covering, the base of which is supported by the existing fence or wall, in a manner eliminating the need for additional space outside the existing fenced or walled area, and in a manner providing a substantial increase in usable space within the defined area over previous such structures. In addition, an arrangement is provided for simultaneously uti...

Methods, the products produced thereby, and apparatus for forming conformable garments having selected discrete elasticized areas. More specifically, methods and apparatus for stretching one or more ribbons of thermoplastic elastomeric material, immobilizing the stretched material in its extended state, subjecting spaced discrete areas of the stretched elastic material to heat so as to "kill" the elastic properties thereof in the heated regions while leaving the elastic properties of the interme...

A toothbrush arrangment is provided specifically for cleaning sulcular areas of the teeth below the gum line. The brush head is curved and has bristles extending from opposite sides thereof, facilitating an improved access to the teeth, particularly at the gingival margins. In one embodiment, the bristles are arranged in rows which may be canted inward along the curve, with tufts on opposite sides of the curved brushing head providing access to oppositely curved dental profiles. In a second embo...

A conventional handlebar is provided with selectively recessed portions for the reception of reflective or decorative material for thereby enhancing the visibility and attention-arresting characteristics of the handlebar.

Efficient printing of data including two types of areas in the sub-scanning direction, a color area and a monochromatic area, are present. During monochromatic mode printing, in the event that (1) the lowermost main scan lines of the achromatic unit band enter the color areas, assuming that J iterations of the color mode sub-scan (feed quantum Sc<Sm) are to be executed instead of the color mode sub-scan (feed amount Sm); and also (2) the lowermost main scan lines of the achromatic unit band d...

A paging receiver is disclosed which is compatible with transmissions from analog or digital paging transmitters. The paging receiver has a command structure which permits it to be dynamically programmable to change its functionality including programming of the channels which the paging receiver is to receive. The programmability of the channels permits the paging receiver to be used for making national, regional, remote area, local area, and sublocal area pages, and pages to a group in the loc...

An improved method of managing media defects in disk drives keeps an operating list of the tracks in the disk drive, and for each track enters on the list the number of good sectors (i.e., those free of defects) in that track. Thus the information on the operating list is sufficient for the disk drive microprocessor to avoid use of the defective sectors, each of which is labelled in its header as being defective. This method is compatible with SCSI and other common disk drive interfaces.

Video system for detection of colored areas on black/white patterned background which comprises a video camera for formation of a set of primary color signals R, G, B and a signal processing unit, which provides information about the recorded area based on a processing of one or more of the signal difference (R-Y), (B-Y), (G-Y) between the primary color signals R, G, B and luminance signal Y. The system can particularly be used for digitalizing of interpreted seismic sections.

A roof tile construction includes a ventilation tile having pliable portions provided by a membrane of PVC (polyvinyl chloride) which is readily deformable to complement the shapes and configurations of adjacent roof tiles, whereby gaps between the headlap, side-lock and tail portions of tiles immediately adjacent the ventilation tile are substantially closed. The ventilation tile also includes a rigid body portion for supporting the membrane, the body portion being generally of planar configura...

The speed at which a display screen is updated is increased by updating only those areas of the screen that have changed since the last update. This is accomplished by dividing the screen display elements into a grid of contiguous areas, and defining those areas which changing video information as unprotected areas and other areas as protected areas. As new images are generated, the memory containing information displayed in the protected areas is protected from updating while that in the unprot...