Author: claimsbot

1. A removable insert for a food holding tray, the food holding tray having an open top, an inside width between two opposing sides, an inside length between two opposing ends, and an inside depth between the open top and a bottom, the food holding tray being is sized, shaped and arranged to hold a number of pre-cooked food items, the insert comprising:
first and second opposing sides;
first and second opposing ends configured to hold the opposing sides in a first fixed, spaced-apart relationship to each other;
a surface extending between the first and second opposing sides;
a food product holding compartment formed into the insert surface, between the opposing sides and between the opposing ends, the holding compartment comprising a depression formed into the surface of the insert, the depression having a predetermined depth and shape, the predetermined depth corresponding a thickness of a food item to be held in the holding compartment, the predetermined shape corresponding to a shape of the food item to be held in the holding compartment;
wherein the insert is configured such that when placed into the food holding tray, the insert reduces the number of pre-cooked food items that can be held in the food holding tray, to a fixed and smaller number of pre-cooked food items.
2. The removable insert of claim 1, wherein the first and second sides of the insert each have a top and a bottom and a nominal height, substantially equal to a vertical separation distance between the top and bottom of the first and second sides, the nominal height being less than or equal to the inside depth of the food holding tray, wherein the surface of the insert is substantially planar and located substantially between the tops of the first and second sides, the food holding compartment formed into the insert surface having an open top and a closed bottom, the nominal height of the first and second sides being substantially equal to the inside depth of the food holding tray.
3. The removable insert of claim 1, wherein the first and second opposing sides are spaced apart from each other by a distance less than the inside width of the food holding tray.
4. The removable insert of claim 2, wherein the first and second opposing ends are spaced apart from each other by a distance less than the inside length of the food holding tray.
5. This removable insert of claim 2, further comprising a sleeve comprising first and second substantially upright sides and a horizontally-oriented cover supported by the first and second upright sides, the sleeve being configured to receive the food holding tray with the insert therein and to provide a cover to the food holding compartment in the insert.
6. The removable insert of claim 5, wherein the sleeve is configured to provide a space between the cover and the top surface of the insert that is less than about one-quarter of an inch.
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 replacement toner cartridge for a printer having an existing print density control operating point table, comprising:
a memory device, the memory device storing data including an updated print density control operating point table from a programming host; and
a controller coupled to the memory device and configured to perform a parity check on the data stored in the memory device and, when the replacement cartridge is installed in the printer, to send data including the updated print density control operating point table from the memory device to the printer depending upon the parity check wherein, when received by the printer, the updated print density control operating point table overwrites the existing print density control operating point table in the printer.
2. The replacement toner cartridge of claim 1, wherein the programming host is a programmer in a manufacturing facility.
3. The replacement toner cartridge of claim 1, wherein the controller receives a parity bit from the memory device, calculates data parity and compares the calculated data parity to the received parity bit to perform the parity check.
4. The replacement toner cartridge of claim 1, wherein the controller transmits the updated print density control operating point table to the printer when the replacement toner cartridge is installed in the printer and when the data passes the parity check.
5. The replacement toner cartridge of claim 1, wherein the controller transmits an error signal to the printer when the replacement toner cartridge is installed in the printer and when the data fails the parity check.
6. The replacement toner cartridge of claim 1, wherein the controller provides the updated print density control operating point table to the printer in response to a read request from the printer.
7. The replacement toner cartridge of claim 1, wherein the updated print density control operating point table includes data to be used by the printer to determine laser power, duty cycle and developer bias voltage.
8. A method of confirming and sending data from a memory device in a replacement toner cartridge installed in a printer having an existing print density operating point control table, comprising the steps of:
sending a read command to the memory device in the replacement toner cartridge, the memory device having data including an updated print density operating point control table previously programmed by a programming host;
checking parity of the previously programmed data at the toner cartridge; and
transmitting the data to a printer based on the parity check, the data being transmitted with an error message if the parity check fails, and
if no error message is received by the printer, overwriting the existing print density operating point control table in the printer with the updated print density operating point control table.
9. The method of claim 8, wherein the programming host device is a programmer in a manufacturing facility.
10. The method of claim 8, wherein the step of checking parity at the replacement toner cartridge comprises:
receiving a parity bit;
calculating a data parity; and
comparing the calculated data parity to the received parity bit.
11. The method of claim 8, wherein the printer sends the read command including an address of a requested data and the replacement toner cartridge parity checks and transmits a confirmation message with the requested data to the printer if the parity check passes.
12. The method of claim 8, wherein the updated print density control operating point table includes data to be used by the printer to determine laser power, duty cycle and developer bias voltage.

1. A method for site diversity combining, comprising the steps of:
receiving a transmitted signal at at least two receive sites, the transmitted signal includes coded symbols;
translating, at a first receive site of the at least two receive sites, sampled symbol values from the coded symbols of the transmitted signal into a stream of first soft-decision values from the transmitted signal, the first soft-decision values being first log likelihood ratio values;
translating, at at least one other receive site of the at least two receive sites, sampled symbol values from the coded symbols of the transmitted signal into a stream of second soft-decision values from the transmitted signal, wherein the second soft-decision values are second log likelihood ratio values;
connecting to the at least one other receive site of the at least two receive sites that provides data for the stream of second soft-decision values from the transmitted signal;
digitally synchronizing the stream of first soft-decision values and the stream of second soft-decision values; and
combining the first soft-decision values and the second soft-decision values into combined soft-decision values for each coded symbol of the transmitted signal.
2. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:
separating the receive sites far enough to decorrelate weather phenomena between the receive sites.
3. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:
connecting the receive sites via a ground link.
4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:
sending the sampled symbol values of coded symbols via a ground link between the receive sites.
5. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:
sending the soft-decision values via a ground link between the receive sites.
6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:
transmitting the signal using bandwidth efficient modulation.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein the combining step averages the first log likelihood ratio values for a coded symbol of the transmitted signal with the second log likelihood ratio values for the coded symbol of the transmitted signal to provide the combined soft-decision values for the each coded symbol of the transmitted signal.
8. The method of claim 7, further comprising the step of:
decoding data from the transmitted signal using the combined soft-decision values for the each coded symbol of the transmitted to signal to produce a set of decoded bit values from the coded symbol of the transmitted signal, the combined soft-decision values being averaged combined log likelihood ratio values.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein the data for the stream of second soft-decision values include the second soft-decision values.
10. A method for site diversity combining, comprising the steps of:
receiving, at a first receiver located at a first receive site, a modulated carrier signal transmitting a coded symbol;
receiving, at a second receiver located at a second receive site, the modulated carrier signal transmitting the coded symbol, wherein at least one of the first and second receive sites is connected via at least one ground link;
producing, using a first demodulator, a first sampled symbol value from the coded symbol;
producing, using a second demodulator, a second sampled symbol value from the coded symbol;
translating, using a first soft-decision computation module, the first sampled symbol value into a first set of soft-decision values for the coded symbol;
translating, using a second soft-decision computation module, the second sampled symbol value into a second set of soft-decision values for the coded symbol that are digitally synchronized with the first set of soft-decision values, wherein the first soft-decision computation module and the second soft-decision computation module are at a same receive site and sampled symbol values are sent between the first and second receive sites via the at least one ground link; and
combining, using a soft-decision combining module, the first set of soft-decision values and the second set of soft-decision values to produce a set of combined soft-decision values for the coded symbol, wherein data is sent from at least one of the first and second receive sites to the soft-decision combining module via the ground link so that the first set of soft-decision values and the second set of soft-decision values are provided to the soft-decision combining module.
11. A method of claim 10, further comprising:
producing a set of decoded bit values for the coded symbol using a decoder connected to the soft-decision combining module.
12. A method of claim 10, wherein the first sampled symbol value is a pair I,Q of values, wherein I is an in-phase value and Q is a quadrature value determining the location of the coded symbol in a phase plane.
13. A method of claim 10, wherein the first soft-decision computation module translates an I,Q pair of the first sampled symbol value from the coded symbol into the first set of soft-decision values that are n-bit representations of the likelihood of each bit of a bit mapping for a modulation scheme of the modulated carrier signal transmitting the coded symbol.
14. A method for site diversity combining, comprising:
transmitting, using a transmitter that is located on a satellite, a coded symbol via a modulated carrier signal, using a bit mapping of coded symbols to a modulation scheme, over a combined link comprising at least two links, including a first link and a second link;
connecting, via the first link, a first receive site to the transmitter, the first receive site including a first receiver that receives the modulated carrier signal and a first demodulator that demodulates the modulated carrier signal and produces a first sampled symbol value I,Q pair from the coded symbol;
connecting, via the second link, a second receive site to the transmitter, the second receive site including a second receiver that receives the modulated carrier signal and a second demodulator that demodulates the modulated carrier signal and produces a second sampled symbol value I,Q pair from the coded symbol, wherein the first receive site and the second receive site are separated from each other by a distance that allows decorrelation of weather phenomena;
the first receive site and the second receive site being connected via a ground link to provide the first sampled symbol value I,Q pair and the second sampled symbol value I,Q pair to a joint soft-decision computation module to compute a combined soft-decision output value for the coded symbol; and
receiving, by a decoder that is connected to the joint soft-decision computation module, the combined soft-decision output value and producing a set of decoded bit values for the coded symbol.
15. The method of claim 14, wherein the transmitter uses bandwidth efficient modulation; and the modulation scheme is chosen from quadrature amplitude modulation, quadrature phase shift keying, binary phase shift keying, and amplitude phase keying.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.

We claim:

1. Modified human ciliary neurotrophic factor having the modification Cys17Ala, Gln63Arg, and a deletion of the terminal 15 amino acid residues.
2. An isolated nucleic acid molecule encoding the modified human ciliary neurotrophic factor of claim 1.
3. A recombinant DNA molecule of claim 2, operatively linked to an expression control sequence.
4. A host cell transformed with the recombinant DNA molecule of claim 3.
5. A method for producing a modified ciliary neurotrophic factor molecule comprising: (a) growing a recombinant host cell containing the DNA molecule of claim 3, so that the DNA molecule is expressed by the host cell to produce the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor molecule and (b) isolating the expressed, modified ciliary neurotrophic factor molecule.
6. The method according to claim 5, wherein said host cell is a eukaryotic cell.
7. The method according to claim 5, wherein said host cell is a prokaryotic cell.
8. A composition comprising the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor molecule of claim 1, and a carrier.
9. A method of treating a disease or disorder of the nervous system comprising administering the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor of claim 1.
10. The method according to claim 9, wherein said disease or disorder is a degenerative disease.
11. The method according to claim 9, wherein said disease or disorder involves the spinal cord, motor neurons, cholinergic neurons or cells of the hippocampus.
12. The method according to claim 9, in which the disease or disorder of the nervous system comprises damage to the nervous system caused by an event selected from the group consisting of trauma, surgery, infarction, infection, malignancy and exposure to a toxic agent.
13. The method according to claim 9, wherein said disease or disorder involves muscle atrophy.
14. A method of protecting striatal neurons from degeneration comprising treating said striatal neurons with an effective amount of the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor of claim 1.
15. A method of treating Huntington’s disease comprising direct administration to the central nervous system of the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor of claim 1.
16. A method of inducing weight loss in a mammal comprising administration of the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor of claim 1.
17. The method of claim 16, wherein the mammal is a human.
18. The method claim 17, used in the treatment of morbid obesity or obesity of a genetically determined origin.
19. A method of preventing the occurrence of gestational or adult onset diabetes in a human comprising administration of the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor of claim 1.
20. A method of treating gestational or adult onset diabetes in a human comprising administration of the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor of claim 1.
21. The method according to any one of claims 15 to 20, wherein said administration is via a route of delivery selected from the group consisting of intravenous, subcutaneous, intramuscular, intrathecal, intracerebroventricular and intraparenchymal.
22. The method according to any one of claims 15 to 20, wherein said administration is via implantation of cells that release the modified ciliary neurotrophic factor.