A saddle pad cover is disclosed and may include a first layer and a second layer, the first layer being coupled to the second layer, a closure device adapted for insertion of a saddle pad, and a patch positioned on the surface of the first layer, where the saddle pad cover may sleevably receive a saddle pad to form an assembly. A method of maintaining a saddle pad cover is also disclosed.

A stirrup pad for equitation includes a top member defining a surface for contacting at least a portion of a sole of a rider's foot or footwear and at least one side edge, and a rear member defining a surface for contacting at least a portion of a heel of the rider's foot or footwear. The rear member extends downwardly from the top member side edge. The top member is oriented along a first plane, and the rear member is oriented along a second plane which is substantially perpendicular to the first plane. A front member may be included, extending downwardly from the top member side edge. At least the front member and the rear member include flange elements for removably attaching the stirrup pad to a stirrup.

A printhead cartridge cradle is provided having a frame, a printed circuit board pivotally supported by the frame, a cover pivotally supported by the frame to pivot between a closed position at which a printhead cartridge is secured within the frame and the printed circuit board is pivoted to connect control circuitry on the printed circuit board with a controller of the secured cartridge and an open position at which access for the cartridge with the frame is provided and the printed circuit board is pivoted to disconnect the control circuitry and controller, and a motor operatively connected to a maintenance gear and actuator arrangement and a wiper gear and actuator arrangement for maintaining and wiping a printhead of the secured cartridge under control of the connected control circuitry.

The present invention is a saddle girth to be used in conjunction with either English or Western saddles. The girth band of the saddle girth is curved and made with an inelastic member which provides a more secure and comfortable fit on the horse. The saddle girth connectors are made of elastic material which allows for expansion of the horse's chest as it breaths. This saddle girth prevents shifting of the girth or saddle while fitting comfortably around the torso of the horse providing comfort and security to both the hose and rider.

The invention is directed to a piece (2) for a saddletree (1) of mat-like general shape conformed to have both a first overall concavity in a first direction of a longitudinal plane of symmetry and a second overall concavity in a second direction of a transverse plane, delimited by an exterior free edge (14) including a pommel portion, a cantle portion and two longitudinal portions, the exterior free edge being adapted to cooperate with a complementary interior free edge of the saddletree, the mat including a plurality of individual portions at least partly separate, placed in the vicinity of each other so that each individual portion can absorb forces and be deformed in bending or in torsion at least partly independently of the other individual portions, the piece being provided with elements for associating it with the saddletree.

The present invention relates to improvements in or relating to saddles and saddle trees, especially English saddle trees, particularly for horses. In particular, we describe a method of manufacture for a tree which is simplified by the use of leather, webbing and plastic in flat sheet material. This fabrication can be simply stitched and riveted together and a Y-bar and headplate are then bolted and or riveted to the finished leather plastic fabrication. This method of making a tree is fast, efficient, cost effective, safe, reliable, provides more consistent symmetrical performance, and above all is very light, providing a weight saving of 60% compared with conventional methods. The tree fabrication requires no additional finishing or tidying, unlike other forms of manufacture. As soon as the parts are assembled they are ready to go to the next stage of making the finished seat for the saddle.

A saddle pad assembly provides padding under a saddle while facilitating customization to inhibit undesirable pressure points from developing. The assembly includes a cover having a closed end and a perimeter wall extending from the closed end. An edge of the perimeter wall defines an open end opposite the closed end. A plurality of holes extends through the perimeter wall of the cover. The holes are arranged into a pair of opposed rows extending between the closed end and the open end. A pad is insertable into the cover through the open end. The pad has a row of apertures alignable with the rows of holes. A line may be laced through the rows and the apertures to couple the pad to the cover.

A dynamically rigged load distributing system for an equestrian saddle including several load-bearing sections positioned upon flexible inner side panels to be incorporated in the saddle. Several line guides are fixed respectively to the sections. One or more load distribution lines pass through the guides, and loop around free-running pulleys of the stirrup hanger system. A new stirrup hanger bat includes cliverter pulleys and cooperates with a pulley block to transfer loads through the load-distribution lines to the load-bearing sections around the saddle. A girthing system for the saddle includes webbing attached to the sections so as to depend therefrom and receive ends of girth straps whereby load is transferred to the sections on each side of the saddle.

Disclosed is a horseback riding animal and article carrier attachable to a horse saddle. The device comprises a housing having upstanding sidewalls, a plurality of securement straps and an elastic contact pad. The housing is an open enclosure having upstanding sidewalls, a base and an open upper to support a pet or a plurality of personal items therein. Along the underside of the base and extended along a forward side of the housing is a contact pad that bears against a horse croup and the backside of a horse saddle cantle. An upstanding, horizontal and diagonal strap are provided along the sides of the housing connect to a saddle strap connectable to a saddle girth along both sides of the horse. The straps are length adjustable to tension the straps and draw the housing toward the horse and the saddle during use.

There is disclosed an improved shock absorbing, light-weight, thermally insulative orthotic pad designed for use in a pad and boot assembly for hoofed livestock. The pad is comprised of a mixture of flexible spheroids and elastomeric materials. In a preferred embodiment, elastomeric material generally is more concentrated at the top portion of the pad, and spheroids dispersed in a matrix of elastomeric material concentrated at the bottom section of the pad. The spheroids have a lower density than the elastomeric materials and possess better thermally insulative properties, and in a particularly preferred embodiment, at least some of the spheroids are comprised of closed-cell polypropylene foam. A method of making the light weight pad is also disclosed.

A saddle latigo strap is threaded to secure a saddle. A body portion of a saddle latigo is looped through a permanent saddle rigging. A first end of the saddle latigo having a tapered portion is inserted through a second end. Notches of the body portion are engaged with holes of the first end to secure the saddle.

An adjustable equestrian saddle and adjusting and reinforcing system for adjusting an equestrian saddle to permit the saddle fit several sizes of the back and withers of one or more horses, wherein the adjusting system comprises a plurality of reinforcing members having different angular dimensions with the saddle having a headplate for interchangeably receiving the reinforcing members.

An adjustable equestrian saddle and adjusting and reinforcing system for adjusting an equestrian saddle to permit the saddle fit several sizes of the back and withers of one or more horses, wherein the adjusting system comprises a plurality of reinforcing members having different angular dimensions with the saddle having a headplate for interchangeably receiving the reinforcing members and a lid to have access to the reinforcing members.

A locking headplate for an adjustable saddle tree includes opposed, hingedly connected plates for securing to a saddle tree head portion, a rotatable displacing element for displacing the hingedly connected plates inwardly or outwardly, and at least one supplemental locking mechanism for selectively preventing rotation of the rotatable displacing element. The hingedly connected plates include apertures for receiving a portion of the rotatable displacing element therethrough, the apertures defining at least one cross-sectional dimension that is greater than a corresponding cross-sectional dimension of the rotatable displacing element. Saddle trees and saddles incorporating the locking headplate are provided.

A head harness for a horse includes a browband linked, at the ends thereof, to two headpieces, each of which has, symmetrically on either side of the harness, two attachments arranged side by side, and in that, on the front headpiece, the cheek strap of the bit and one end of the throat latch are attached to the first attachment and to the second attachment, respectively, and in that, on the rear headpiece, the noseband cheep strap and one end of an auxiliary cheek strap and one end of an auxiliary cheep strap are attached to the first attachment and to the second attachment, respectively, the other end of said auxiliary cheek strap being attached onto the noseband cheek strap located on the other side of the harness, and in that the second attachment of the front headpiece that receives the throat latch and the second attachment of the rear headpiece that receives the auxiliary cheek strap are rigidly connected by a link.

An apparatus includes a slider of a recording head comprising a plurality of electrical bond pads coupled to bias sources and a ground pad. Each of a plurality of electrical components of the slider is coupled to at least one of the electrical bond pads. At least one of the electrical bond pads is a shared electrical bond pad coupled to at least two of the electrical components. At least one diode is coupled to at least one of the electrical bond pads and at least one of the electrical components.

A method and apparatus for detecting tightness of a pick-up head, and a method and apparatus for controlling the moving of the pick-up head are disclosed. The method for detecting the tightness of the pick-up head includes moving the pick-up head to an inner area of the disc reading device when then disc reading device is powered on, moving the pick-up head to an outer area of the disc reading device within a predetermined time period, moving the pick-up head from the outer area of the disc reading device to the inner area at a constant speed by a first fixed force, and recording the moving duration for moving the pick-up head from the outer area of the disc reading device to the inner area at the constant speed.

A main pole has a front end face including a first end face portion and a second end face portion. A plasmon generator has a near-field light generating surface. A surrounding layer has a first surrounding layer end face and a second surrounding layer end face located on opposite sides of the first end face portion in the track width direction. A gap film has a first gap film end face and a second gap film end face located on opposite sides of the near-field light generating surface in the track width direction. Each of the first and second gap film end faces includes a portion located between the first and second surrounding layer end faces, but does not include any portion interposed between the first surrounding layer end face and the first end face portion or between the second surrounding layer end face and the first end face portion.

Embodiments disclosed herein generally relate to contact at the disk by the recording head in a hard disk drive. In one embodiment, a direct current is applied to an element in a HAMR head. An alternating current is then applied to the element over top of the direct current to cause the HAMR head to dither. By monitoring the head signal at the dither frequency, a touchdown or contact of a NFT on a disk may be detected based upon variations in the produced signal.

Methods, apparatuses and systems for detecting defective sectors on a recording medium, the method including calculating a servo gain for each servo sector of a track of a recording medium of a storage device; determining whether the servo gain of each servo sector exceeds a threshold value; and upon determining that the servo gain of a servo sector exceeds the threshold value, determining data sectors included in the servo sector to be defective sectors.

During field operation of a heat-assisted magnetic recording data storage device, a laser adjustment procedure is performed. The laser adjustment procedure involves writing on a recording medium at least three tracks. If a bit error rate of a middle tracks has increased, the laser current is swept while recording test tracks to determine a new laser current that results in a minimum bit error rate. The new laser current is used for subsequent write operations.

Various embodiments concern a suspension assembly of a disk drive. The suspension assembly includes a load beam comprising a major planar area formed from a substrate. The load beam further comprises a window in the substrate, a dimple formed from the substrate, and a flange. The flange is a region of the major planar area that extends partially around the dimple but does not extend along an edge of the dimple. The edge of the dimple is adjacent to the window. The dimple is in contact with the flexure. A HAMR block or other element can extend through the window. The lack of a full flange can minimize the necessary clearance between the dimple and the HAMR block or other element and thereby allow the window to be enlarged to accommodate the HAMR block or other element.

First and second signal patterns are used to write corresponding portions of first and second adjacent tracks to a magnetic storage medium. A characteristic of the first signal pattern is changed based on the second signal pattern, the changing of the characteristic reducing an adjacent track interference affecting the second track.

A data readout device (114) for reading out data from at least one data carrier (112) having data modules (116) located at least two different depths within the at least one data carrier (112) is disclosed. The data readout device (114) comprises: —at least one illumination source (122) for directing at least one light beam (124) onto the data carrier (112); -at least one detector (130) adapted for detecting at least one modified light beam modified by at least one of the data modules (116), the detector (130) having at least one optical sensor (132), wherein the optical sensor (132)has at least one sensor region (134), wherein the optical sensor (132)is designed to generate at least one sensor signal in a manner dependent on an illumination of the sensor region (134)by the modified light beam, wherein the sensor signal, given the same total power of the illumination,is dependent on a beam cross-section of the modified light beam in the sensor region (134); and -at least one evaluation device (136) adapted for evaluating the at least one sensor signal and for deriving data stored in the at least one data carrier (112) from the sensor signal. Further, a data storage system (110), a method for reading out data from at least one data carrier (112) and a use of an optical sensor (132) for reading out data are disclosed.

According to one embodiment, when an access destination of a reading request is a second region, a controller performs a first retry reading process by use of a second reading condition in first parameter information. The second region is adjacent to a first region, which is adjacent to a defect region and has a particular width, and is present as a region other than the defect region on a magnetic disk. When the access destination of the reading request is the first region, the controller performs a second retry reading process by use of a fourth reading condition in second parameter information. The second parameter information is set such that a grown defect is registered at an earlier time in the second retry reading process, as compared with that in the first retry reading process.

A computer system for monitoring head wear includes reading from a cartridge a high frequency pattern and a low frequency pattern, determining a first read amplitude corresponding to the high frequency pattern and a second read amplitude corresponding to the low frequency pattern, and determining a head wear metric according to the first read amplitude and the second read amplitude.

A computer-implemented method, according to one embodiment, includes: collecting performance data corresponding to a tape drive and/or a magnetic tape head, storing the performance data in memory, and using the data to perform problem analysis. The performance data includes a resistance of the tape drive and/or magnetic tape head and a resolution of the tape drive and/or the magnetic tape head. Moreover, performing the problem analysis includes: determining a condition of the tape drive and/or the magnetic tape head, wherein the condition is selected from a group consisting of: wear, corrosion, defective leads and wire bonds. Other systems, methods, and computer program products are described in additional embodiments.

An apparatus, according to one embodiment, comprises a near field transducer; an adhesion layer on a media facing side of the near field transducer, the adhesion layer comprising Ni and Cr; and a protective layer on a media facing side of the adhesion layer. Other apparatuses, systems and methods are described in additional embodiments.

The invention includes an alignment device and system having a guide member, a support member and a connector which engages the guide member and the support member. The guide member may be a relatively flat piece attachable to and edge of a frame. In one aspect the guide member includes a perimeter slot. The support member may have a first portion generally perpendicular with a second portion and the first portion may be attached to an object (or integral with an object such as a window or door casing) which is to be aligned with a frame. The second portion may have a connector portion or threaded hole for receiving a connector. The connector may also engage the slot of the guide member. The device allows for desired alignment of an object within a frame by transferring rotational movement to linear movement.

The invention relates to a path-controlled adjustment device for a window pane of a motor vehicle, with a carrier assembly, with at least two guideways provided at the carrier assembly, which define an adjustment path for an adjustable window pane and which are spaced from each other transversely to the adjustment path, and with a driver which on the one hand includes means for connection of the window pane to be adjusted and which on the other hand is in engagement with the guideways so as to be longitudinally movable. The carrier assembly consists of at least two carrier elements which are connected with each other at a plurality of fixing points. On at least one carrier element fixing points, via which that carrier element is to be fixed at a further carrier element of the carrier assembly, are connected with each other by reinforcement paths.

An automatic patio sliding door for residential (home) use is created using an existing motorized automatic system which is now in use in commercial, industrial, and public building entrances. A method incorporating a bracket system is used to apply the commercial (hanging track type) automatic door system to existing residential patio sliding doors or to new patio sliding doors. The purpose is to provide hands free opening and closing of patio glass or screen doors (single or double panels). This allows for ease of use of sliding doors when hands are full, guarantees the closing of screen doors or glass doors behind the person to prevent insects getting into the house or loss of air conditioning in the house, and provides an easy access door system in the home for the physically handicapped.

A mask plate for laser irradiation and a method of laser encapsulation using the same are disclosed to improve the display effect of the encapsulated display panel and also the utilization of substrate thereof, so as to reduce the cost. The mask plate includes a laser blocking region and a laser transmitting region surrounding the laser blocking region, wherein the laser blocking region is configured to block laser having a predetermined wavelength; and the laser transmitting region is configured to allow the laser having the predetermined wavelength to transmit there-through; along a direction perpendicular to a surface of the mask plate, a width of a cross-section of the laser transmitting region is smaller than a diameter of a light spot of the laser having the predetermined wavelength.

An improved organic photoconductor drum having a protective overcoat layer and method to make the same is provided. The protective overcoat layer is prepared from a curable composition including a crosslinkable hole transport molecule containing four radical polymerizable functional groups in combination with a crosslinkable acrylate having at least 6 functional groups.

An adjusting method for adjusting an imprint apparatus includes a preparation step of preparing a sample for evaluating a state in which a contact region of a test mold is in contact with an imprint material supplied on a substrate; an evaluation step of evaluating the sample; and an adjustment step of adjusting the imprint apparatus based on a result of evaluation obtained in the evaluation step. The contact region includes a flat region which does not include a pattern, the evaluation in the evaluation step includes a first evaluation, which is an evaluation of a state of the imprint material in the flat region, and the imprint apparatus is adjusted based on a result of the first evaluation in the adjustment step.

The invention provides a luminaire for illuminating a road, comprising a light source (10), a reflector arrangement (12) defining a light entrance window (18) at the top to which light is supplied by the light source (10) and a larger light exit window (20) at the bottom, and an optical plate (22) over the light exit window (20). The optical plate (22) comprises an array of elongate prisms which each extend in a side-to-side direction corresponding to the width direction of the road. The reflector (12) is primarily responsible for control of the light output in the road width direction and the optical plate (22) is primarily responsible for control of the light output in the road length direction.

A laser headlight optical module is disclosed herein and comprises a laser light source, a convex lens, a substrate, a mirror set, supporting rods, and a driving member. The laser light source generates a laser light and the convex lens is located at a transmitting path of the laser light generated from the laser light source and configured to focus the laser light. Yellow fluorescent powders are coated on the substrate. The mirror set is located at a transmitting path of the laser light reflected from the substrate with the phosphor layer. The supporting rods are located behind the mirror set to support the mirror set. The driving member is located behind the mirror set and connected with the supporting rods. The driving member drives the supporting rods to change a light reflective surface of the mirror set to vary an optical field.

The LED light has Track to install LED-units anywhere along the length. The LED-unit has pair of resilient or pop-out & fall-down movable contactor so can fit-within or add-on LED-units to track and connect with metal bus-strip(s) which has electric current or-and magnetic force to adhesive the pop-out & fall-down contactor on back of the LED-unit. LED light device including LED light source, or mini size LED fluorescent tube, or mini LED light bar, or mini LED Bulb, or mini LED lamp, mini LED Lamp as light source has housing to fit-in or add-on or magnetic adhesive on track to form a finish light device and get power from built-in or outside AC-to-DC transformer, circuit, power source and can control by switch, remote controller, motion/moving detector(s) sensor, all kind of sensor, APP software while incorporate with Wifi or wireless network to make the on-off, color changing, color mix, dimmer adjustment, moving light, all other light show for LED track light has fit-in LED-units by resilient contractors or LED track light has add-on LED-units by pop-out & fall-down movable contactor built on back of LED-unit and adhesive by magnetic force bus-strips.

An electronic display assembly having forced-air cooling. A thermally conductive plate or a thermally conductive backlight surface is located behind an electronic display of the electronic display assembly and within a housing thereof such that a gap is formed between the plate or backlight surface and an adjacent wall of the housing. External cooling air may be caused to flow in a top-to-bottom direction through the gap in order to remove heat from the electronic display that has been conductively transferred to the gap. A plurality of ribs may be placed within the gap and in thermal communication with the electronic display to enhance the conductive transfer of heat from the electronic display.

This disclosure describes systems and methods related to filtering data requests. In some embodiments, a system may determine an execution plan tree. The system may determine a backend-processed target table in the at least one first storage device. The system may traverse at least one first branch and at least one first node in the execution plan tree. The system may traverse at least one second branch and at least one second node from the parent join node. The system may determine that the rowsource is referenced at the rowsource-access node. The system may determine that the rowsource referenced at the rowsource-access node is a filtered-rowsource. The system may extract at least one join column from a join condition associated with the backend-processed target table and the filtered-rowsource. The system may determine at least one storage location of the filtered-rowsource. The system may determine an adaptive processing path based at least in part on the at least one storage location of the filtered-rowsource, the at least one join column determined from the join condition and the at least one direct predicate determined for the filtered-rowsource. The system may generate at least one target filter predicate for the backend-processed target table.

Described herein is an extensible extract, transform and load (ETL) framework. In accordance with one aspect of the framework, a file location object and a corresponding file format object are retrieved from a repository. The file location object stores file location parameters that specify a remote file system directory and a local file system directory, while the file format object stores location configuration parameters that specify a data file and the file location object. The data file may be transferred from the remote file system directory to the local file system directory according to the file location parameters and the location configuration parameters. An extract, transform and load (ETL) job may then be performed on the data file to generate an output file.

Techniques are described for automatic interval metadata determination for intermittent time series data. In one example, a method for determining intermittent time series interval metadata includes detecting one or more time variables in a time series data set. The method further includes determining whether the one or more time variables are intermittently regular. The method further includes determining one or more respective time intervals for the one or more time variables. The method further includes determining the parameters of intermittency for the one or more time variables. The method further includes generating an output comprising information about the one or more time variables based on the one or more respective time intervals and the parameters of intermittency for the time variable.

In one embodiment, a method includes deriving input topics based on a content item, generating a matrix of scores for the input topics according to a first set of cross-indexed topics, where each of the scores indicates a degree of similarity between a corresponding one of the input topics and a corresponding one of the first cross-indexed topics, calculating a total score for each of the first cross-indexed topics based on the scores for the first cross-indexed topic across all of the input topics, and selecting one or more of the first cross-indexed topics based on the total scores of the first cross-indexed topics. Deriving the input topics may include using a topic tagger to identify the topics based on the content item. The first set of cross-indexed topics may be generated from a database of topics, such as an online encyclopedia.

An apparatus, computer-readable medium, and computer-implemented method for visualizing relationships between pairs of columns, comprising identifying a relationship classification corresponding to two columns in a plurality of columns based on a data type of each column in the two columns, applying one or more statistical measures to data in the two columns to generate association data quantifying a plurality of relationships between data values in a first column of the two columns and data values in a second column of the two columns, wherein the one or more statistical measures are determined based at least in part on the relationship classification, and transforming the association data into a visualization, wherein the visualization comprises one or more indicators corresponding to one or more relationships in the plurality of relationships and wherein a layout of the visualization is determined based on the relationship classification.

A method for separating carbon dioxide from a gas stream, in particular from a flue gas stream, wherein, a gas stream is brought into contact with a washing medium in an absorber of a separation device and the carbon dioxide contained in the gas stream is separated; the charged washing medium is supplied to a desorber of the separation device to release the carbon dioxide; a vapor stream is removed from the desorber and is supplied to a cooling unit to form a condensate; degradation products, in particular nitrosamines, contained in at least a partial stream of the condensate are photolytically decomposed to decomposition products; at least the decomposition products, in particular nitrites and amines, are removed; and at least a partial stream of the condensate is returned to the desorber. A corresponding separation device separates carbon dioxide from a gas stream.

The invention relates to a method for preparing an adsorptive filter unit having extended useful cycle times and/or an extended service life, especially improved and/or greater resilience and/or resistance against biological contamination and/or biological fouling, in particular and adsorptive filter unit for treating and/or purifying a fluid medium.

Electret webs include a thermoplastic resin and a charge-enhancing additive. The charge-enhancing additive is a fused aromatic thiourea, a fused aromatic urea compound, or a combination thereof. The change-enhancing additive may also include a hindered amine light stabilizer compound. The electret webs may be a non-woven fibrous web or a film. The electret webs are suitable for use as filter media.

Systems and methods for using pressure swing adsorption to separate and/or capture resulting emissions are provided. A stream of recycled exhaust gas is passed into a first swing adsorption reactor comprising a first adsorbent material which adsorbs CO2. An enriched N2 stream is recovered from a forward end of the first swing adsorption reactor. The pressure in the first swing adsorption reactor is reduced. The first swing adsorption reactor is purged with a portion of the first N2 stream recovered from the first swing adsorption reactor. The first purge output is passed to a second swing adsorption reactor comprising a second adsorbent material which adsorbs CO2. A second N2 stream is recovered from the second swing adsorption reactor. The pressure in the second swing adsorption reactor is reduced. The second swing adsorption reactor is purged with a steam purge.

Methods of designing zeolite materials for adsorption of CO2. Zeolite materials and processes for CO2 adsorption using zeolite materials.

Embodiments of the present disclosure provide for metal-organic materials (MOMs), systems that exhibit permanent porosity and using hydrophobic MOMs to separate components in a gas, methods of separating CO2 from a gas, and the like.

An additive manufacturing device includes at least one liquefier assembly that receives filament material from at least one feedstock and extrudes the material in a flowable form. A thermal drying system removes water vapor and heats compressed air to a preselected temperature set point to form conditioned air. At least one enclosed filament path houses and guides the filament material from a supply to the at least one liquefier assembly. The enclosed filament path is exposed to the conditioned air from the thermal drying system so as to keep the filament material dry as it is fed to the at least one liquefier assembly.