Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090277084 | PLANT CONTAINER ASSEMBLY AND METHOD - A transplantable plant container assembly is provided for containing a growing medium for a plant that significantly promotes air root pruning. The container assembly includes a container device that includes a sidewall support and a bottom support collectively defining an interior cavity. The sidewall support is comprised of a lattice framework defining a plurality of spaced apertures that extend from an interior wall to an exterior wall thereof. A relatively thin, moisture absorbent liner material is disposed adjacent to the lattice framework. The liner material is sufficiently penetrable to enable root penetration therethrough, by the plant, at the apertures. However, the liner material must also have sufficient structural integrity, when moist, to bound the growing medium and moisture across the spaced apertures of the lattice framework when contained in the interior cavity. | 11-12-2009 |
20120291350 | PLANT CONTAINER ASSEMBLY AND METHOD - A transplantable plant container assembly is provided for containing a growing medium for a plant that significantly promotes air root pruning. The container assembly includes a container device that includes a sidewall support and a bottom support collectively defining an interior cavity. The sidewall support is comprised of a lattice framework defining a plurality of spaced apertures that extend from an interior wall to an exterior wall thereof. A relatively thin, moisture absorbent liner material is disposed adjacent to the lattice framework. The liner material is sufficiently penetrable to enable root penetration therethrough, by the plant, at the apertures. However, the liner material must also have sufficient structural integrity, when moist, to bound the growing medium and moisture across the spaced apertures of the lattice framework when contained in the interior cavity. | 11-22-2012 |
Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090007972 | Water circulation system valve assemblies having water temperature control - A valve assembly for a water circulation system includes a valve body defining a bypass passage between a hot water side and a cold water side of the valve body. The bypass passage has a valve seat therein. A bypass valve is received within the bypass passage. The bypass valve restricts the flow of water through the bypass passage based on a temperature of the water in the bypass passage. The bypass valve is variably positionable with respect to the valve seat to control a bypass shut-off temperature of the water. | 01-08-2009 |
20090007975 | WATER CONTROL FIXTURE HAVING AUXILIARY FUNCTIONS - A water control fixture includes a housing having a plurality of ports defining a hot water inlet port, a cold water port, a fixture outlet port, and an auxiliary port, wherein water is dispensed from the housing via the fixture outlet port. A flow control unit is configured to be selectively positioned in fluid communication with different combinations of the plurality of ports, wherein the flow control unit has a main passage in fluid communication with the hot water inlet port, the cold water port, and the fixture outlet port. The flow control unit controls the flow of water from the hot water inlet port and the cold water port to the fixture outlet port. The flow control unit has an auxiliary passage in fluid communication with the auxiliary port and at least one of the hot water inlet port, the cold water port, and the fixture outlet port to perform an auxiliary function. | 01-08-2009 |
20100300555 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR CONTROLLED RELEASE OF HOT WATER FROM A FIXTURE - A valve assembly for a water circulation system includes a bypass valve with an inlet and an outlet that permits recirculating flow of water from a hot water line of the water circulation system. The valve assembly also includes a shut- off valve with a valve body having a hot water inlet and a hot water outlet configured to be coupled to a fixture of the water circulation system. The shut-off valve is located proximate the fixture and operating in an open position allowing water to flow to the hot water outlet and a closed position restricting water from flowing to the hot water outlet. The shut-off valve is configured to move automatically from the open position to the closed position in a controlled manner to limit discharge, from the hot water outlet, of water having a temperature below a desired level. | 12-02-2010 |
20110132989 | WATER CONTROL FIXTURE HAVING A FAILED CLOSED BYPASS VALVE - A water control fixture for use in a water circulation system includes a housing having a plurality of ports defining a hot water inlet port, a bypass port, and a fixture outlet port, wherein water is dispensed via the fixture outlet port. The water control fixture includes at least one operating valve disposed in the housing for controlling a flow of water from the hot water inlet port to the fixture outlet port, and a bypass valve disposed in the housing for controlling a flow of water through a bypass path between the hot water inlet port and the bypass port. The bypass valve includes a valve unit in the bypass path of the water circulation system that is operable in a closed state, an open state, and a failed state. The valve unit restricts water flow through the bypass path in the closed state, the valve unit allows water flow through the bypass path in the open state, and the valve unit restricts water flow through the bypass path in the failed state. The bypass valve includes a control mechanism in the bypass path of the water circulation system that is used for controlling the operation of the valve unit, wherein water flowing through the bypass path flows past the control mechanism. | 06-09-2011 |
20110259445 | WATER CIRCULATION SYSTEM VALVE ASSEMBLIES HAVING WATER TEMPERATURE CONTROL - A valve assembly for a water circulation system includes a valve body defining a bypass passage between a hot water side and a cold water side of the valve body. The bypass passage has a valve seat therein. A bypass valve is received within the bypass passage. The bypass valve restricts the flow of water through the bypass passage based on a temperature of the water in the bypass passage. The bypass valve is variably positionable with respect to the valve seat to control a bypass shut-off temperature of the water. | 10-27-2011 |
20120222757 | WATER CONTROL FIXTURE HAVING BYPASS VALVE - A water control fixture includes a fixture body in fluid communication with a pressurized supply of hot water and a pressurized supply of cold water. The fixture body interconnects the supply of hot water and the supply of cold water. The fixture body has a spout outlet configured to dispense water from the fixture body. At least one operating valve is coupled to the fixture body for controlling a flow of water to the spout outlet. A bypass valve is disposed in the fixture body for controlling a recirculating flow of water through the fixture body. The bypass valve blocks and permits recirculating flow from the supply of hot water to the supply of cold water based on a temperature of the water. | 09-06-2012 |
20120325918 | BYPASS VALVE FOR A WATER CIRCULATION SYSTEM - A bypass valve includes a housing having a hot water port configured to communicate with a hot water supply line and a return port configured to discharge water from the housing for recirculation to a hot water source. The housing has a passage permitting recirculating flow between the hot water port and the return port. A valve member is operable to allow and restrict recirculating flow through the passage. The valve member restricts water flow through the passage in a failed state. | 12-27-2012 |
20130180611 | WATER CONTROL FIXTURE HAVING AUXILIARY FUNCTIONS - A water control fixture includes a housing having a plurality of ports defining a hot water inlet port, a cold water port, a fixture outlet port, and an auxiliary port. A flow control unit is configured to be selectively positioned in fluid communication with different combinations of the plurality of ports, wherein the flow control unit has a main passage in fluid communication with the hot water inlet port, the cold water port, and the fixture outlet port. The flow control unit controls the flow of water from the hot water inlet port and the cold water port to the fixture outlet port. The flow control unit has an auxiliary passage in fluid communication with the auxiliary port and at least one of the hot water inlet port, the cold water port, and the fixture outlet port to perform an auxiliary function. | 07-18-2013 |
20130240053 | WATER CIRCULATION SYSTEM VALVE ASSEMBLIES HAVING WATER TEMPERATURE CONTROL - A valve assembly for a water circulation system includes a valve body defining a bypass passage between a hot water side and a cold water side of the valve body. The bypass passage has a valve seat therein. A bypass valve is received within the bypass passage. The bypass valve restricts the flow of water through the bypass passage based on a temperature of the water in the bypass passage. The bypass valve is variably positionable with respect to the valve seat to control a bypass shut-off temperature of the water. | 09-19-2013 |
20130299010 | WATER CONTROL FIXTURE HAVING BYPASS VALVE - A water control fixture includes a fixture body in fluid communication with a pressurized supply of hot water and a pressurized supply of cold water. The fixture body interconnects the supply of hot water and the supply of cold water. The fixture body has a spout outlet configured to dispense water from the fixture body. At least one operating valve is coupled to the fixture body for controlling a flow of water to the spout outlet. A bypass valve is disposed in the fixture body for controlling a recirculating flow of water through the fixture body. The bypass valve blocks and permits recirculating flow from the supply of hot water to the supply of cold water based on a temperature of the water. | 11-14-2013 |
20140034166 | WATER CONTROL VALVE ASSEMBLY - A water control valve assembly includes a valve manifold having a mixing chamber for mixing water from a supply of hot water and a supply of cold water. The valve manifold has a water control element controlling the flow of water from the mixing chamber to a discharge port of the valve manifold. A thermostatically controlled bypass valve is in fluid communication with the valve manifold, wherein the bypass valve is configured to bypass water from the supply of hot water to the supply of cold water. | 02-06-2014 |
Patent application number | Description | Published |
20090205046 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR COMPENSATING FOR AND REDUCING SECURITY ATTACKS ON NETWORK ENTITIES - Security attacks on network entities can be compensated for and reduced through insurance that modifies incentives. In one example, a virtual slice provider includes a secure and non-secure slice having resources to provide network access to users through a service provider. The secure slice is assigned a first security level and a non-secure slice is assigned a second lower security level. In one embodiment, the second slice is isolated from the first slice. The virtual slice provider also has a risk policy between the slice provider and the service provider to establish different rates charged to the service provider for access to the secure and non-secure slices and to provide different levels of payment to the service provider for losses resulting from a lack of security in each slice. | 08-13-2009 |
20100058147 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR RELIABLE MEDIA TRANSPORT - Methods and apparatuses to model the relation between the delay samples and congestion losses and to protect media flows against congestion losses are disclosed. In one embodiment, the method comprises measuring congestion by delay samples, and performing a dynamic FEC algorithm that uses convex hull clustering for loss-event classification, including determining an FEC rate according to the loss-event classification. In another embodiment, the method comprises measuring congestion by delay samples, modeling loss events associated with the delay samples by grouping loss events as unions of convex hulls to identify a period of potentially increased congestion, dynamically changing the FEC rate based on the modeling, and applying FEC protection to the media flow during the period based on the FEC rate. In yet another embodiment, the method comprises forming clusters using past loss events and their {FTT, F{dot over (T)}T} or {RTT, R{dot over (T)}T} estimates, and estimating future loss events using most recent {FTT, F{dot over (T)}T} or {RTT, R{dot over (T)}T} estimates and their membership in convex hull clusters. | 03-04-2010 |
20100077470 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SECURITY-RISK BASED ADMISSION CONTROL - A method and apparatus is disclosed herein for security risk-based admission control. In one embodiment, the method comprises: receiving a request from the user device to access the network; determining whether to admit the user device based on a security-based admission control policy that admits user devices based on a constraint optimization that attempts to maximize the sum utility of the currently admitted user devices in view of a security assessment of the user device and security risk imposed on the network and already admitted user devices if the user device is admitted to the network, wherein the constraint optimization is based on a utility associated with admitting the user device to the network, a reputation value associated with the user device, and a botnet damage estimation on the network associated with the user device; and admitting the user device to the network based on results of determining whether to admit the user device. | 03-25-2010 |
20110286324 | Link Failure Detection and Traffic Redirection in an Openflow Network - Failure detection and traffic redirection are implemented in an OpenFlow switch. Link failure detection packets, such as Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) packets, are periodically sent out on links to peer OpenFlow switches, such as via the Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS) Transport Profile (MPLS-TP). Link failure detection packets are received from the peer OpenFlow switches on the links, and monitored. A link failure is detected if no incoming link failure detection packets are received on a link for a predetermined interval. In the event of a link failure, traffic is redirected from the failed link to a backup link by altering entries on a flow table of the OpenFlow switch. | 11-24-2011 |
20120300615 | Implementing EPC in a Cloud Computer with OpenFlow Data Plane - A method implements a control plane of an evolved packet core (EPC) of a long term evolution (LTE) network in a cloud computing system. A cloud manager monitors resource utilization of each control plane module and the control plane traffic handled by each control plane module. The cloud manager detects a threshold level of resource utilization or traffic load for one of the plurality of control plane modules of the EPC. A new control plane module is initialized as a separate virtual machine by the cloud manager in response to detecting the threshold level. The new control plane module signals the plurality of network elements in the data plane to establish flow rules and actions to establish differential routing of flows in the data plane using the control protocol, wherein flow matches are encoded using an extensible match structure in which the flow match is encoded as a type-length-value (TLV). | 11-29-2012 |
20130054761 | Implementing a 3G Packet Core in a Cloud Computer with Openflow Data and Control Planes - A method for implementing a general packet radio service (GPRS) tunnel protocol (GTP) in a packet core (PC) of a third generation (3G) network having a split architecture where a control plane of the PC of the 3G network is in a cloud computing system, the cloud computing system including a controller, the controller to execute a plurality of control plane modules, the control plane to communicate with the data plane of the PC through a control plane protocol, the data plane implemented in a plurality of network elements of the 3G network by configuring switches implementing a data plane of the SGSN and GGSN and intermediate switches to establish a first and second GTP tunnel endpoint. | 02-28-2013 |
20130086236 | USING MPLS FOR VIRTUAL PRIVATE CLOUD NETWORK ISOLATION IN OPENFLOW-ENABLED CLOUD COMPUTING - Embodiments of the invention include a method performed by a cloud network manager flow entries in a cloud network. The CNM is coupled to virtualized servers for hosting virtual machines (“VM”) that each comprise a virtual switch coupled to a top of rack switch (“TORS”). The CNM receives notification messages that indicate virtual machines have been scheduled for activation on virtualized servers. The CNM determines a VM media access control (“MAC”) address associated with the VM and a virtual switch MAC address associated with that virtualized server's virtual switch. The CNM records an association between the VM MAC address and the virtual switch MAC address. The CNM further determines a label that associates the TORS with the virtual switch. The CNM sends a modifies flow entries in the virtual switch to indicate data packets matching the MPLS label and the VM MAC address should be forwarded to the VM. | 04-04-2013 |
20130125124 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR SEGREGATING TENANT SPECIFIC DATA WHEN USING MPLS IN OPENFLOW-ENABLED CLOUD COMPUTING - A tenant database is used to add tenant ID information to the cloud network manager (CNM) address mapping table to isolate tenant specific data to a tenant ID to the CNM. The CNM maintains a mapping among a plurality of items in a plurality of databases or tables. The plurality of databases or tables include a tenant database (DB), a tenant identifier to tenant label (TITL) table, a top of rack server label to virtual switch link label (TLVLL) table, a label mapping table (SMVL), and a CNM address mapping table. The CNM uses the plurality of databases to generate tenant specific labels that are added to packets sent between tenant virtual machines (VMs). | 05-16-2013 |
20140098813 | IP MULTICAST SERVICE JOIN PROCESS FOR MPLS-BASED VIRTUAL PRIVATE CLOUD NETWORKING - A multicast cloud controller (“MCC”) in a cloud system implements a process to manage multicast traffic in a cloud network. The MCC is coupled to at least one virtualized server for hosting one or more virtual machines (“VM”), wherein the virtualized server comprises at least one virtual switch (“VS”) that supports multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) and the virtual switch is coupled to a top of rack switch (“TORS”) that supports MPLS. MPLS is utilized to support multicast data traffic in the cloud system such that the system and method reduces state and is scalable. | 04-10-2014 |
20140098815 | IP MULTICAST SERVICE LEAVE PROCESS FOR MPLS-BASED VIRTUAL PRIVATE CLOUD NETWORKING - A multicast cloud controller (“MCC”) in a cloud system implements a process to manage multicast traffic in a cloud network. The MCC is coupled to at least one virtualized server for hosting one or more virtual machines (“VM”), wherein the virtualized server comprises at least one virtual switch (“VS”) that supports multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) and the virtual switch is coupled to a top of rack switch (“TORS”) that supports MPLS. MPLS is utilized to support multicast data traffic in the cloud system such that the system and method reduces state and is scalable. | 04-10-2014 |
20140241247 | IMPLEMENTING A 3G PACKET CORE IN A CLOUD COMPUTER WITH OPENFLOW DATA AND CONTROL PLANES - A control plane device in a cloud computing system executes a plurality of virtual machines for implementing network function virtualization (NFV). The control plane device is operable to manage implementation of a general packet radio service (GPRS) tunnel protocol (GTP) in a packet core (PC) of a third generation (3G) network having a split architecture where a control plane of the PC of the 3G network is in the cloud computing system. The control plane communicates with a data plane of the PC through a control plane protocol. The data plane is implemented in a plurality of network devices of the 3G network. The control plane device and the plurality of virtual machines are operable to communicate with other control plane devices in the cloud computing system and with the plurality of network devices of the data plane. | 08-28-2014 |
20140344439 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING NETWORK SERVICES ORCHESTRATION - A method and apparatus for providing network services orchestration is disclosed. A network services orchestration module runs on a network controller. Service data is specified for a network operator using a service management northbound application programming interface (API). Virtual machines (VMs) and specialized APIs are managed in response to operator requests from the service management northbound API using an instance management submodule. Statistics are monitored and service instances are affected using an autoscaling and power management submodule. Changes in deployed network services instance availability are pushed to a steering module using an instance location southbound API. | 11-20-2014 |
20150071053 | IMPLEMENTING EPC IN A CLOUD COMPUTER WITH OPENFLOW DATA PLANE - A method implements a control plane of an evolved packet core (EPC) of a long term evolution (LTE) network in a cloud computing system. A cloud manager monitors resource utilization of each control plane module and the control plane traffic handled by each control plane module. The cloud manager detects a threshold level of resource utilization or traffic load for one of the plurality of control plane modules of the EPC. A new control plane module is initialized as a separate virtual machine by the cloud manager in response to detecting the threshold level. The new control plane module signals the plurality of network elements in the data plane to establish flow rules and actions to establish differential routing of flows in the data plane using the control protocol, wherein flow matches are encoded using an extensible match structure in which the flow match is encoded as a type-length-value (TLV). | 03-12-2015 |