1-17. (canceled)
18. A process for preparing a microcapsule composition, the process comprising:
providing a mixture comprising: (i) at least one water immiscible component selected from the group consisting of water immiscible solvents, water immiscible active ingredients, and combinations thereof, and (ii) at least one water immiscible surfactant;
adding a water absorbing component to the mixture to form a second mixture;
homogenizing the second mixture such that dispersed particles having a median particle size of less than 2 \u03bcm are formed;
combining the second mixture and a first microcapsule wall forming monomer to form a third mixture;
combining the third mixture and an aqueous mixture comprising a water soluble salt and a water soluble emulsifier to form a fourth mixture; and
combining the fourth mixture with a second microcapsule wall forming monomer.
19. The process according to claim 18, wherein the mixture comprises a water immiscible active ingredient selected from the group consisting of herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, nematicides, safeners, and combinations thereof.
20. The process according to claim 18, wherein a water immiscible active ingredient is added to the second mixture after homogenization.
21. The process according to claim 18, wherein the water absorbing component is added to the mixture in the form of an aqueous solution, and wherein an internal phase comprising an active ingredient is combined under agitation with the second mixture subsequent to homogenization.
22. The process according to claim 18, further comprising adding an anti-settling agent to the fourth mixture subsequent to combining the fourth mixture with the second microcapsule wall forming monomer.
23. The process according to claim 18, wherein the water absorbing component comprises a compound selected from the group consisting of salts, crosslinked polyacrylamides, polyvinyl pyrrolidones, cellulosic materials, pyrrolidone copolymers, polydextroses, water-attracting materials, propylene glycol, ethylene glycol, triethylene glycol, polyethylene glycol, ethoxylated glucose, propoxylated glucose, ethoxylated glycerine, hydrogenated starch hydrolysate, glucose glutamate monnitol, sorbital, glycerin, and mixtures thereof.
24. The process according to claim 18, wherein the water absorbing component comprises a compound selected from the group consisting of sodium chloride, magnesium sulfate, sodium bicarbonate, potassium carbonate, and mixtures thereof.
25. The process according to claim 19, wherein the water immiscible active ingredient comprises an herbicide selected from the group consisting of dinitroaniline compounds, chloracetanilide and mixtures thereof.
26. A microcapsule comprising a core disposed within a shell wall, the core comprising: (a) a continuous phase comprising: (i) at least one water immiscible component selected from the group consisting of water immiscible solvents, water immiscible active ingredients, and combinations thereof, and (ii) at least one water immiscible surfactant; and (b) a water absorbing component in an aqueous form dispersed within the continuous phase.
27. The microcapsule according to claim 26, wherein the continuous phase comprises a water immiscible active ingredient selected from the group consisting of herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, nematicides, safeners, and combinations thereof.
28. The microcapsule according to claim 27, wherein the water immiscible active ingredient is present in an amount of 5 to 50% by weight and the water absorbing component in an aqueous form is present in an amount of 5 to 40% by weight.
29. An agrochemical formulation comprising microcapsules according to claim 26 dispersed in a solvent.
30. A seed which has been treated with a microcapsule according to claim 26.
31. A method comprising: (a) providing a substrate or organism to be treated; and (b) contacting the substrate or organism with a microcapsule according to claim 26.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. A method for formulating a merged sorted list, the method comprising:
an act of accessing a plurality of input sorted lists;
an act of contiguously populating a first array with the plurality of input sorted lists;
an act of using the first array and a second array to merge the plurality of input sorted lists into a merged sorted list, wherein the merging occurs by merging the first and second sorted lists.
2. The method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the act of accessing the plurality of input sorted lists comprises:
an act of accessing a plurality of elements; and
an act of using the plurality of elements to formulate the plurality of input sorted lists.
3. The method in accordance with claim 2, wherein the act of using the plurality of elements to formulate the plurality of input sorted lists comprises the following proceeding one element at a time through the plurality of elements:
an act of determining whether or not there are any input sorted lists that have a tail member that has a higher priority in a sorting priority than the corresponding element,
if there are not any input sorted lists that have a tail member than has a higher priority in the sorting priority than the corresponding element, an act of creating a new input sorted list and an act of adding the corresponding element as a head element of the new input sorted list, the corresponding element also being a tail element of the new input sorted list since the corresponding element is the only element of the new input sorted list;
if there are one or more input sorted lists that have a tail member that has a higher priority in the sorting priority than the corresponding element, an act of adding the corresponding element to one of the one or more input sorted lists such that the corresponding element becomes a new tail member of the input sorted list to which the corresponding element is added.
4. The method in accordance with claim 3, wherein if there are multiple input sorted lists that have a tail member that has a higher priority in the sorting priority than the corresponding element, an act of selecting whichever of the multiple sorted lists have a tail member that has a lowest priority in the sorting priority as the input sorted list to which to add the corresponding element as a new tail member.
5. The method in accordance with claim 4, wherein the input sorted lists are ordered in sequence of lower to higher priority of each tail member in the sorting priority.
6. The method in accordance with claim 5, wherein for a given element of the plurality of elements, the act of determining whether or not there are any input sorted lists that have a tail member that has a higher priority in a sorting priority than the corresponding element, and the act of selecting whichever of the multiple input sorted lists has a tail member that has a lowest priority in the sorting priority as the sorted list to which to add the corresponding element as a new tail member, comprises the following:
an act of marking a last input sorted list to which a prior element of the plurality of elements was added;
an act of beginning a comparison of the given element with the tail member of the marked sorted list.
7. The method in accordance with claim 1, wherein the merging occurs in a plurality of phases, wherein the merging of the first and second sorted lists occurs in a first phase of the plurality of phases and results in a first intermediary merged list, the plurality of phases further comprising:
a subsequent plurality of phases each merging a prior intermediary merged list resulting from a prior phase of the plurality of phases with a next input sorted list of the plurality of input sorted lists to generate a next intermediary merged list, or a merged sorted list if there or no further input sorted lists after the next input sorted list in the plurality of input sorted lists,
wherein a location of the intermediary merged list alternates between the first array and the second array from one phase of the plurality of phases to the next phase of the plurality of phases.
8. A computer program product comprising one or more computer-readable storage media having thereon computer-executable instructions that are structured such that, when executed by one or more processors of the computing system, cause the computing system to perform a method comprising an act of merging a plurality of sorted lists to form a merged sorted list, the act merging the plurality of sorted lists comprising:
an act representing a first sorted list and a second sorted list contiguously in a first plurality of elements in a first array in memory
an act of establishing a first input cursor at the first element in the first sorted list in the first array;
an act of establishing a second input cursor at the first element in the second sorted list in the first array;
an act of formulating a second array in memory, the second array including at least a portion that includes a second plurality of elements equal in number to the first plurality of elements;
an act of sequentially assigning values to the elements of the second plurality of elements to thereby formulated a first merged sorted list of the first and second sorted lists,
the act of sequentially assigning comprising performing the following for each of the first element through a subsequent element in the secondary plurality of elements:
an act of comparing a value at an element pointed to by the first input cursor with a value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor;
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor satisfies a sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; an act of populating the corresponding element of the second plurality of elements with the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor; and an act of moving the first input cursor to a next element in the first sorted list of the first plurality of elements if there are any further elements in the first sorted list, and if there are not any further elements in the first sorted list, the corresponding element of the second plurality of elements is the subsequent element of the second plurality of elements, and thus the method further includes an act of further populating a remainder of the second plurality of elements with any remaining unprocessed elements of the second sorted list from an element pointed to by the second input cursor; and
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor does not satisfy a sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; an act of populating the corresponding element of the second plurality of elements with the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; and an act of moving the second input cursor to a next element in the second sorted list of the first plurality of elements if there are any further elements in the second sorted list, and if there are not any further elements in the second sorted list, the corresponding element of the second plurality of elements is the subsequent element of the second plurality of elements, and thus the method further includes an act of further populating a remainder of the second plurality of elements with any remaining unprocessed elements of the first sorted list from an element pointed to by the first input cursor.
9. The computer program product in accordance with claim 8, wherein the first array includes a third sorted list arranged contiguously with the first plurality of elements in the first array to form a first superset plurality of elements in the first array, the method further comprising an act of merging the first merged sorted list with the third sorted list comprising:
an act of establishing the first input cursor at the first element in the first merged sorted list in the second plurality of elements in the second array;
an act of establishing a second input cursor at the first element in the third sorted list in the first array;
an act of sequentially assigning values to the elements of the first superset plurality of elements in the first array to thereby formulate a second merged sorted list of the first, second and third sorted lists,
the act of sequentially assigning values to the elements of the first superset plurality of elements comprising performing the following for each of the first element through a subsequent element in the first superset plurality of elements:
an act of comparing a value at an element pointed to by the first input cursor with a value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor;
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor satisfies the sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; an act of populating the corresponding element of the first superset plurality of elements with the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor; and an act of moving the first input cursor to a next element in the first merged sorted list of the first plurality of elements if there are any further elements in the first merged sorted list, and if there are not any further elements in the first merged sorted list, the corresponding element of the first superset plurality of elements is the subsequent element of the first superset plurality of elements, and thus the method further includes an act of further populating a remainder of the first superset plurality of elements with any remaining unprocessed elements of the third sorted list from an element pointed to by the second input cursor; and
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor does not satisfy the sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; an act of populating the corresponding element of the first superset plurality of elements with the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; and an act of moving the second input cursor to a next element in the third sorted list of the first array if there are any further elements in the third sorted list, and if there are not any further elements in the third sorted list, the corresponding element of the first superset plurality of elements is the subsequent element of the first superset plurality of elements, and thus the method further includes an act of further populating a remainder of the first superset plurality of elements with any remaining unprocessed elements of the first merged sorted list from an element pointed to by the first input cursor.
10. The computer program product in accordance with claim 8, wherein the plurality of sorted lists is a first plurality of sorted lists, and the merged sorted list is a first merged sorted list, the method further comprising:
an act of persisting in sort order those higher prioritized values of the merged sorted list that have a more prioritized sort priority;
an act of removing the persisted values from the first plurality of sorted lists;
an act of accessing at least one additional element;
an act of formulating a second plurality of sorted lists using a combination of the at least one additional element and any remaining sorted lists of the first plurality of the sorted lists that remain after the act of removing; and
an act of formulating a second merged sorted list using the second plurality of sorted lists.
11. The computer program product in accordance with claim 8, wherein the act of merging the plurality of sorted lists to form the merged sorted list is performed in response to an act of detecting a notification that additional sorted lists in a stream of sorted lists that are beyond the plurality of sorted lists only include values that have lower prioritized sort priority than any of the values in the plurality of sorted lists.
12. The computer program product in accordance with claim 11, wherein the plurality of sorted lists is a first plurality of sorted lists, and the merged sorted list is a first merged sorted list, the method further comprising:
after the act of formulating the first merged sorted listed, an act of formulating a second merged sorted list using a plurality of elements received in the stream of sorted lists after the notification.
13. The computer program product in accordance with claim 12, the method further comprising:
an act of appending the second merged sorted list to the end of the first merged sorted list.
14. The computer program product in accordance with claim 8, wherein the plurality of sorted lists are ordered in the first array such that a longest sorted list of the plurality of sorted lists is last in the first array.
15. The computer program product in accordance with claim 8, wherein the method further comprises the following prior to the act of merging the plurality of sorted lists:
an act of arranging the plurality of sorted lists in order of increasing size such that any sorted list within the first array is equal to or smaller in number of elements than the number of elements of any of the sorted lists that appear after the given sorted list within the first array.
16. A method comprising an act of merging a plurality of sorted lists to form a merged sorted list, the method comprising:
an act of accessing a plurality of sorted lists including a first sorted list and a second sorted list;
an act representing the first sorted list and the second sorted list contiguously in a first array in memory, the portion of the first array that includes the first and second sorted listing including a first plurality of elements;
an act of establishing a first input cursor at the first element in the first sorted list in the first array;
an act of establishing a second input cursor at the first element in the second sorted list in the first array;
an act of formulating a second array in memory, the second array including a portion that includes a second plurality of elements equal in number to the first plurality of elements;
an act of sequentially assigning values to at least some of the elements of the second plurality of elements, the act of sequentially assigning comprising:
an act of populating a first element of the second plurality of elements, the act of populating the first element comprising:
an act of comparing a value at an element pointed to by the first input cursor with a value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor;
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor satisfies a sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; an act of populating the first element of the second plurality of elements with the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor; and an act of moving the first input cursor to a next element, if any, in the first sorted list of the first plurality of elements; and
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor does not satisfy a sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; an act of populating the first element of the second plurality of elements with the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; and an act of moving the second input cursor to a next element, if any, in the second sorted list of the first plurality of elements; and
an act of populating a second element of the second plurality of elements after the act of populating the first element of the second plurality of elements, the act of populating the second element comprising:
an act of comparing a value at an element pointed to by the first input cursor with a value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor;
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor satisfies the sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; an act of populating the second element of the second plurality of elements with the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor; and
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor does not satisfy the sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; an act of populating the second element of the second plurality of elements with the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor.
17. The method in accordance with claim 16, wherein the plurality of sorted lists are ordered in order of increasing size in the first array.
18. The method in accordance with claim 16,
wherein the act of populating the second element of the second plurality of elements further comprises the following:
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor satisfies the sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; an act of moving the first input cursor to a next element in the first sorted list of the first plurality of elements; and
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor does not satisfy the sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor, an act of moving the second input cursor to a next element in the second sorted list of the first plurality of elements;
the method further comprising an act of populating a third element of the second plurality of elements after the act of populating the second element of the second plurality of elements, the act of populating the third element comprising:
an act of comparing a value at an element pointed to by the first input cursor with a value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor;
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor satisfies the sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; an act of populating the third element of the second plurality of elements with the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor; and
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor does not satisfy the sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; an act of populating the third element of the second plurality of elements with the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor.
19. The method in accordance with claim 18,
wherein the act of populating the third element of the second plurality of elements further comprises the following:
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor satisfies the sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; an act of moving the first input cursor to a next element in the first sorted list of the first plurality of elements; and
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor does not satisfy the sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor, an act of moving the second input cursor to a next element in the second sorted list of the first plurality of elements;
the method further comprising an act of populating a fourth element of the second plurality of elements after the act of populating the third element of the second plurality of elements, the act of populating the fourth element comprising:
an act of comparing a value at an element pointed to by the first input cursor with a value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor;
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor satisfies the sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; an act of populating the fourth element of the second plurality of elements with the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor; and
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor does not satisfy the sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; an act of populating the fourth element of the second plurality of elements with the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor.
20. The method in accordance with claim 19,
wherein the act of populating the fourth element of the second plurality of elements further comprises the following:
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor satisfies the sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; an act of moving the first input cursor to a next element in the first sorted list of the first plurality of elements; and
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor does not satisfy the sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor, an act of moving the second input cursor to a next element in the second sorted list of the first plurality of elements;
the method further comprising an act of populating a fifth element of the second plurality of elements after the act of populating the fourth element of the second plurality of elements, the act of populating the fifth element comprising:
an act of comparing a value at an element pointed to by the first input cursor with a value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor;
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor satisfies the sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; an act of populating the fifth element of the second plurality of elements with the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor; and
if the value at the element pointed to by the first input cursor does not satisfy the sorting priority with respect to the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor; an act of populating the fifth element of the second plurality of elements with the value at the element pointed to by the second input cursor.