1. A pipe lap joint, comprising:
an inside pipe having a first pipe end;
an outside pipe telescopically receiving said first pipe end and having a second pipe end and a slot, said slot being located in said second pipe end;
a gasket located over said first pipe end and within said second pipe end and at least partly sandwiched between said first and second pipe ends, said gasket having an embossment extending radially outwardly from an outer surface of said gasket and being received at least partly in said slot of said outside pipe;
a band located over said second pipe end and extending circumferentially from a first end to a second end; and
a tightening mechanism connected to said band at said first and second ends, said tightening mechanism including at least one fastener to bring said first and second ends toward each other to tighten said band.
2. A pipe lap joint as defined in claim 1, wherein, upon tightening of said band, said slot at least partly circumferentially collapses and compresses said embossment.
3. A pipe lap joint as defined in claim 2, wherein said slot has an open end located at a terminal end of said second pipe end and has a closed end located axially inward of said terminal end, and wherein said at least partial circumferential collapsing of said slot causes a portion of said embossment to migrate toward said closed end of said slot.
4. A pipe lap joint as defined in claim 1, wherein said embossment has substantially the same width and length dimensions as said slot.
5. A pipe lap joint as defined in claim 1, wherein said gasket has an outwardly-extending flange that, upon insertion of said gasket into said second pipe end, engages a terminal end of said second pipe end, thereby restricting further insertion of said gasket into said second pipe end.
6. A pipe lap joint as defined in claim 5, wherein said gasket extends axially from a first edge to a second edge and wherein said flange is located at one of said edges.
7. A pipe lap joint as defined in claim 1, wherein said embossment has a radial height which is about 0.5 mm to 1.5 mm greater than a radial height of said outside pipe.
8. A band clamp, comprising:
a band extending circumferentially from a first end to a second end and being sized to fit over an outside pipe end to be clamped;
a tightening mechanism connected to said band at said first and second ends, said tightening mechanism including at least one fastener to bring said first and second ends toward each other to tighten said band over the outside pipe end; and
a gasket constructed to fit over an inside pipe end and within the outside pipe end such that the gasket is at least partially sandwiched between said inside and outside pipe ends, said gasket having an embossment extending radially outwardly from an outer surface of said gasket and being constructed to be received at least partly within a slot of said outside pipe end.
9. A band clamp as defined in claim 8, wherein said embossment has a length and a substantially uniform width along its length.
10. A band clamp as defined in claim 8, wherein said gasket extends axially from a first edge to a second edge and wherein one of said gasket has an outwardly extending flange at only one of said edges.
11. A band clamp as defined in claim 8, wherein said embossment has a radial height which is about 0.5 mm to 1.5 mm greater than a radial height of the outside pipe end.
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 selecting animations corresponding to a text in a natural language, said method comprising the steps of:
receiving a text of request in a natural language;
dividing said text into sentences;
dividing said sentences into words;
reducing each word to a normalized form;
selecting a sequence of templates for the normalized text;
combining the sequences of templates for each sentence in a certain order into a single common sequence of templates;
selecting an animation for each template;
combining the selected animation files into a resulting clip.
2. The method of claim 1, characterized in that words, phrases and symbols are formally replaced in the predefined words, phrases or symbols equivalent thereto.
3. The method of claim 1, characterized in that misprints are corrected in the words.
4. The method of claim 1, characterized in that neutral background animations for each template are selected if necessary.
5. The method of claim 1, characterized in that it is determined whether any sequences of templates corresponding to the normalized text are available in the cache, wherein
if a sequence of templates is available in the cache, the sequence of templates is selected from the cache.
6. The method of claim 1, characterized in that it is determined whether an animation style is set for the incoming text, wherein
if the style is set, animations corresponding to the style are selected provided that for the selected style, an animation of each template from the sequence is available in this style; and
if no style is set, the style is randomly selected for which all animations are available for the selected templates;
if there is a number of such styles, any style is randomly selected;
if no styles are available, a selection of animations in various styles is used.
7. The method of claim 1, characterized in that the original text of request, the selected sequence of templates are saved in the database; and
statistics for templates, words, animations, the list of unknown words and statistics for unknown words is updated.
8. A method for searching an optimum sequence of templates for subsequently selecting animations corresponding to the sequence of templates, comprising the steps of:
a) selecting from the list, all templates having all template words included in a sentence, wherein if a particular animation style is set, selecting templates from the list of templates having animations in the selected style rather than from the list of all templates;
b) deriving from the list of templates obtained in the previous step, the information regarding the hierarchy of templates, wherein the template hierarchy level determines the template rank;
c) if templates belonging to the same hierarchy but having different levels are included in a single set of templates obtained in step a), deleting from this set the templates with a minimum rank (a higher level);
d) selecting from the list of templates obtained in step c), an optimum set of templates for which a target function will have the most optimum value,
wherein the target function is given by:
f
\ue8a0
(
x
)
=
k
1
*
1
N
crosses
+
k
2
*
N
coverage
+
k
3
*
N
rank
+
k
4
*
N
pairs
\ue89e
\ue89e
in
\ue89e
\ue89e
\ue89e
correct
\ue89e
\ue89e
sequence
–
k
4
*
N
pairs
\ue89e
\ue89e
in
\ue89e
\ue89e
incorrect
\ue89e
\ue89e
\ue89e
sequence
->
MAX
,
where:
Ncrosses is a number of crossings of the template words in the set of templates,
Ncoverage is an aggregate coverage of all words by the templates (number of all words from a sentence, encountered in the templates),
Nrank is an aggregate rank of all templates from the set,
Npairs in correct sequence is a number of word pairs of the composite (i.e., consisting of a few words) templates corresponding to the sequence of words in a phrase,
Npairs in incorrect sequence is a number of word pairs of the composite templates not corresponding to the sequence of words in a phrase, and
k1, k2, k3, k4 are empirically calculated coefficients. They have a value of 0.4, 0.33, 0.4, 0.2, respectively.
9. The method of claim 8, characterized in that an optimum value of the target function is searched either by means of an exhaustive search of the sequence of templates (successively going through all combinations of unique templates) or by means of multicriteria optimization.
10. The method of claim 8, characterized in that it is determined whether any sequences corresponding to the normalized test are available in the cache, wherein,
wherein if a sequence of templates is available in the cache, the sequence of templates is selected from the cache.
11. The method of claim 8, characterized in that it is determined whether an animation style is set for the incoming text, wherein
if the style is set, animations corresponding to the style are selected provided that for the selected style, an animation of each template from the sequence is available in this style; and
if no style is set, the style is randomly selected for which all animations are available for the selected templates;
if there is a number of such styles, any style is randomly selected;
if no styles are available, a selection of animations in various styles is used.
12. The method of claim 8, characterized in that the original text of request, the selected sequence of templates are saved in the database; and
statistics for templates, words, animations, the list of unknown words and statistics for unknown words is updated.
13. The method of searching an optimum sequence of templates for subsequently selecting animations corresponding to the sequence of templates, said method comprising the steps of:
using the Levenshtein edit-distance algorithm, finding all templates all words of which are found in the phrase being sought;
sorting the found templates by the number of words in ascending order; sequentially determining for each template from this formed set of templates, whether the template is part of any other template from the set, wherein if the template is part of any other template from the set, deleting the same;
in the resulting set of templates, defining the templates non-crossing each other and crossing each other;
adding the non-crossing templates to the resulting set;
calculating for each template an average value of the template word positions in the text; and
sorting the templates by that average value to obtain an optimum sequence of templates.
14. The method of claim 13, characterized in that the rate of crossing (number of word crosses) of the words from the set of non-crossing templates and the number of new words not included in this set, covering the phrase is determined in the crossing templates.
15. The method of claim 13, characterized in that if no non-crossing templates exist, an optimum set of templates is formed from the crossing templates, considering the following criteria: maximum aggregate rank, maximum coverage, minimum crosses; wherein
the set of templates is formed by carrying out the following steps of:
a) selecting a first template with a maximum weight, said template weight being the number of words in the template;
b) selecting templates minimally crossing the first template and non-crossing each other;
c) selecting from the remaining templates those templates that contain >=50% of new words; wherein
d) if in step a) a few templates with a maximum weight were available, selecting as the resulting set of templates the set having a maximum difference between the aggregate rank of templates and the number of word crosses.
16. A method of animation of SMS messages, said method comprising the steps of:
receiving a SMS message from a sender;
analyzing the received SMS message by defining the message text;
sending a request containing the text to an animation service;
selecting animations using the method of claim 1;
combining the selected animations and sending to a service processing service;
forming an MMS containing the received animation and sending to a recipient.
17. The method of claim 16, characterized in that the recipient’s subscriber number and the message text are included in the SMS message.
18. The method of claim 16, characterized in that the sender and the recipient are identified in the received SMS message.
19. The method of claim 16, characterized in that a SMS message is sent to the sender saying that the animation has been sent or failed.
20. A method of animation of SMS messages, said method comprising the steps of:
receiving a SMS message from a subscriber;
analyzing the received SMS message by defining the message text;
sending a request containing the text to an animation service;
selecting and image or animations using the method of claim 1;
sending the selected image or animations to a service processing service;
forming an MMS containing the received image or animation and sending to a subscriber.
21. The method of claim 20, characterized in that the subscriber is identified in the received SMS message.