Abstract: Superhydrophilic and antifogging non-porous TiO2 films for glass substrates and methods of providing the TiO2 films are provided. The TiO2 films may maintain a water contact angle less than 5° in the dark for five days after an annealing treatment, and the water contact angle of the TiO2 films may stabilize at less than 20° after ten days from the annealing treatment. The TiO2 films may have a thickness of about 20 nm and may be transparent. The methods may include depositing a TiO2 film on a glass substrate using e-beam evaporation. The methods may further include annealing the TiO2 film after depositing the TiO2 film on the glass substrate. The methods may not include UV radiation.

Abstract: A medical device and method for detecting a ventricular arrhythmia event is disclosed. The medical device includes input circuitry configured to receive an electrocardiogram (ECG) signal and processing circuitry coupled to the input circuitry that is configured to identify fiducial points within the ECG signal. Feature extraction circuitry coupled to the processing circuitry is configured to determine interval variability between the fiducial points. Machine learning circuitry is coupled to the feature extraction circuitry and is configured to detect ventricular arrhythmia based on the interval variability between the fiducial points.

Abstract: This invention relates to methods and systems for controlling appliances, particularly climate control appliances such as air conditioning units used in buildings. Embodiments of the invention provide methods and systems which provide a framework of semi-autonomous sensors and actuators which can achieve climate control without the need for centralised or explicit coordination. In certain embodiments, the climate control system is capable of identifying suitable pairings of sensors and actuators and taking into account actions of other actuators. The embodiments have particular application in buildings where large numbers of individual sensors and actuators are deployed in an ad-hoc or unplanned manner over time, but can communicate with each other. The embodiments of the invention can provide improved efficiency, reduced infrastructure costs, improved flexibility and can be deployed across multiple sites.

Abstract: This invention relates to methods and systems for estimating offset, skew and drift. Embodiments of the invention relate to methods and systems which allow these relationships between a slave clock and a master clock to be estimated based on the exchange of timestamped messages between the master and the slave. Further embodiments of the invention set out uses of these estimates to synchronize a local clock in a slave to a master and to steer the slave clock to stay aligned to the master clock when the master clock is temporarily unavailable or the communication path between slave and master is temporarily unavailable.

Abstract: There is provided an enhanced OFDM communication system using an enhanced channel estimation and data detection techniques. The system is based on replacing pilot symbols by real-valued information symbols, which enables realizing one-shot blind channel estimator (OSBCE) with low complexity. The channel estimator used is equivalent to pilot-based channel estimators for a wide range of signal to noise ratios (SNRs), yet, the OSBCE offers higher power and spectral efficiencies.

Abstract: The invention, in some embodiments, relates to solar energy collectors, and methods of use thereof. In some embodiments, the invention relates to liquid-air transpired solar energy collectors, and methods of use thereof. In some embodiments, the invention relates to thermal energy transfer systems that comprise solar energy collectors, and methods of use thereof. In some embodiments of the invention, methods of constructing solar energy collectors are provided.

Abstract: Architecture and a method for maximally stable extremal regions (MSERs)-based detection of exudates in an ocular fundus is disclosed. The architecture includes a communication interface to receive pixels of an ocular fundus image. The architecture further includes processing circuitry that is coupled to the communication interface. The processing circuitry is configured to automatically provide labels for light image regions and dark image regions within the ocular fundus image for a given intensity threshold and find MSERs within the ocular fundus image based on the labels. The architecture also determines MSER regions based on the MSER criteria and then highlights the pixels of the ocular fundus image that are located within MSER regions to indicate the exudates in the ocular fundus. The architecture is further configured to determine MSER ellipses parameters based on MSER regions and MSER criteria and then highlight the locations of the exudates in the ocular fundus.

Abstract: There is provided an ultra-light decoder for high speed digital communications based on block codes such as turbo product codes (TPCs). The new decoder can perform soft decision decoding without an algebraic hard decision decoder, which is the core of conventional soft decision decoders. The elimination of algebraic decoder significantly reduces the number of computations required per codeword, consequently, it reduces the decoding delay and processing power. However, reducing the decoding delay would immediately enable increasing the transmission speed, and minimize the need for large buffers at the receiver. Moreover, reducing the complexity and delay would enable using codes with high code rates to increase the system capacity, or use powerful codes with low code rates to reduce the transmission power. Such benefits can be achieved for about 1 dB loss in coding gain. There is also provided a receiver comprising the ultra-light decoder, as well as a decoding process.

Abstract: A multi-standard transmitter architecture with digitally upconverted intermediate frequency (IF) outphased signals is disclosed. The transmitter architecture includes a Gallium Nitride (GaN) power amplifier (PA) circuit having a Current Mode Class-D (CMCD) configuration. The GaN PA circuit includes a lower switching device electrically coupled to an input to receive an input RF signal and an upper switching device to switchably electrically couple the first switching device to a power supply to drive an antenna circuit based on the input RF signal. Thus, a reconfigurable transmitter architecture is disclosed that utilizes a high-speed Gallium Nitride (GaN) driver to achieve a peak drain efficiency of at least 85% while delivering output power of 10 W at 1 GHz frequency, for example.

Abstract: This invention relates to methods and systems for optimizing network catchment areas, in particular based on completion times of the customer premises. Embodiments of the invention aggregate different customer premises to form demarcated catchment areas by minimizing the overall weighted cost function comprising the distance and completion time within each catchment area, while also considering practical constraints. Embodiments of the invention allow network planners to specify their preferences of distance against time to produce cost-effective network schemes for very large numbers of customer premises and form network catchment areas without any overlapping.

Abstract: A method and system for determination of contaminants, such as black powder, in a flowing fluid, such as natural gas, is disclosed. The method comprises transmitting a plurality of light beams over a spectrum of wavelengths through the flowing fluid and receiving a plurality of measurements relating to transmitted and scattered light beams over the spectrum of wavelengths. The received plurality of measurements are compared with a plurality of stored patterns and a result indicative of the determination of the contaminants is output.

Abstract: The present invention introduces a new concept of applying a parallel mechanism in automated fiber placement for aerospace part manufacturing. The proposed system requirements are 4DOF parallel mechanism consisting of two RPS and two UPS limbs with two rotational and two translational motions. Both inverse and forward kinematics models are obtained and solved analytically. Based on the overall Jacobian matrix in screw theory, singularity loci are presented and the singularity-free workspace is correspondingly illustrated. To maximize the singularity-free workspace, locations of the two UPS limbs with the platform and base sizes are used in the optimization which gives a new design of a 4DOF parallel mechanism. A dimensionless Jacobian matrix is also defined and its condition number is used for optimizing the kinematics performance in the optimization process. A numerical example is presented with physical constraint considerations of a test bed design for automated fiber placement.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for estimating a down-hole annulus pressure, and/or a down-hole tubing pressure, and/or a down-hole lift gas rate through a gas injection valve of gas lift system, which comprises at least one gas lift choke and at least one gas injection valve and at least one production choke. A state estimator is proposed to obtain the values of these down-hole process variables. The estimator contains a number of local estimators and an interpolation module.

Abstract: In this work, we present a novel receiving device design for communications systems that incorporates multiple antennas at the transmitting device/receiving device. Unlike existing systems, the new system does not require prior knowledge of the channel state information (CSI) at the receiving device side to extract the information symbols from the received signal. Consequently, complexity reduction and bit error rate improvement can be jointly achieved. Moreover, the new system may offer spectral efficiency enhancement since it does not require nulling to prevent the pilot symbols as in the case of conventional systems. The results obtained show that in certain scenarios the proposed system can offer up to 15 dB of bit error rate improvement over conventional systems. Moreover, the new system can provide about 16.6% of the spectral efficiency improvement.

Abstract: A SoC includes an AFE to receive a plurality of differential input channels and generate digitized data corresponding to the channels, and a classification processor configured to receive the digitized data from the AFE. The AFE includes a Dual-Channel Chopper to perform channel multiplexing of two channels while simultaneously chopping the channels, a Dual Channel Charge Recycled-AFE having an Chopper-Stabilized Capacitive-Coupled IA including bias sampling capacitors that store bias values associated with the first and second channels to enable swapping between the channel, and a DC servo loop (DSL) having a reduced setting time based on a reduction in a resistance of the pseudo-PMOS in response to engaging a system reset. The classification processor includes a Frequency-Time Division Multiplexing (FTDM) Feature Extraction (FE) engine and a Dual-Detector Architecture (D2A) classification processor.

Abstract: This invention relates to methods and systems for monitoring mobile service quality in a mobile network and also for determining parts of a mobile network which need expansion or upgrade. Embodiments of the invention monitor the market impact and/or service quality, and determine an expansion ranking. The market impact, service quality and/or expansion ranking may view the network from a plurality of perspectives, including a location perspective, an historical time perspective, a future time perspective and/or a network element type perspective. The results of the monitoring and determining can be acted on by predetermined rules and/or actions to derive a list of prioritized expansion tasks for the network.

Abstract: The present invention relates generally to microalgae strains that are tolerant to high salinity, the products derived from the high salinity tolerant microalgae strains, and methods of producing high salinity tolerant microalgae strains and their products.

Abstract: A radio-frequency (RF) body-coupled communications (BCC) transceiver is disclosed according to one embodiment of the present disclosure. The RF BCC transceiver includes an RF BCC transmitter and an RF BCC receiver, such that the RF BCC transmitter transmits an RF signal to the RF BCC receiver via a body area network (BAN) of a human body.

Abstract: Systems and methods for low-power single-wire communication are provided. In some embodiments, a method of operation of a transmitter to transmit a data word to a receiver using low-power single-wire communication includes receiving the data word to be transmitted to the receiver. The method also includes encoding the data word to be transmitted in a Pulsed Index Communication (PIC) format to produce a PIC data word and transmitting the PIC data word to the receiver. In this way, the transmitter may be able to transmit an increased amount of data while maintaining a simple communication protocol that uses low power and does not require a Clock-Data Recovery circuit.

Abstract: The various embodiments herein provide a Uniform Circular Displaced Sensor Array (UC-DSA) system and method for measuring/estimating Direction of Arrival (DOA) of a wireless signal. The UC-DSA system comprises at least a set of two circular antenna arrays. The two circular antenna arrays have a number of elements. A Radio frequency (RF) receiver captures a wireless signal incident on a circular antenna array. A Direction of Arrival (DOA) estimator processes a received input signal and a Triangulation system provides the exact location of the source of the wireless signal. The two circular antenna arrays with the same number of elements are placed on different radii, and are shifted to have equal separation between inner elements and outer elements.