Abstract: A control system for a swimming pool or spa may detect a water level of the swimming pool or spa. The water level may be detected based on information from an APC, information from an environmental sensor, and/or information from an optical sensor. In various embodiments, the control system may determine or estimate a cause of water displacement based on the received information from the APC, environmental sensors, and/or optical sensors.

Abstract: A data analytics system is disclosed that can include a data repository configured to store data for multiple clients, a metadata repository separate from the data store, an access control system, and a policy store. The data analytics system can automatically generate metadata for data in the data repository using a metadata engine, the metadata including technical metadata and usage metadata, and store the metadata in the metadata repository. The data analytics system can obtain a client policy governing access to the data. The data analytics system can receive a request to provide the data, the request including instructions to create a pipeline to provide the data. The data analytics system can authorize, by the access control system, the request using the policy and usage metadata; create the pipeline using the technical metadata; and provide the data using the pipeline.

Abstract: Systems and methods are disclosed providing user emotion information to a customer service provider. For example, a method may include: transmitting, to a user device over a communication network, application data enabling the user device to perform a functionality usable by a user of the user device, the user device including a camera; receiving, from the user device over the communication network, user feedback data indicative of a characteristic of image data of the user obtained by the camera during usage of the functionality by the user; inputting the value of the facial expression parameter into a machine learning model to determine an assessment of an emotional state of the user during the usage of the functionality; and providing the assessment to the customer service provider.

Abstract: Systems and methods for integrated retail and ecommerce shopping platforms. A shopping system for selling products including: a shopping facility including a primary product storage area; at least one showroom; at least one delivery location; a transport system for moving products between locations within the primary product storage area, the at least one showroom and the at least one delivery location; an inventory control system; a network server in operational communication with the inventory control system and the transport system, the network server adapted to transmit interactive shopping interface pages over a network; and a customer client device associated with one of the customers adapted to receive and display the interactive shopping interface pages, for selectively displaying product information about the products sold by the shopping system, and receiving customer input regarding the selecting and deselecting of one or more of the products for possible purchase by the customer.

Abstract: A smart molten metal pump system and method automatically controls the operating speed of the pump rather than requiring an operator to control the speed. The system includes a pump, a controller for controlling the speed of the pump and one or more vibration sensors (such as an accelerometer) to measure vibration. The controller receives input about the vibration of the pump or one or more pump components, and possibly other data, such as the temperature of the molten metal, and/or the depth of the molten metal, ad/or parameters related to the operation of the pump. The controller analyzes the one or more inputs to vary the speed of the pump, turn the pump off, and/or send a communication to an operator.

Abstract: A portable belt cutting device comprises a cutting head and cutting blade movably arranged on the cutting head. The cutting head has a drive mechanism to move the blade from a retracted position to an extended position, such that the blade severs the belt. The drive mechanism may be coupled to the blade such that the blade is actively driven in both directions between the retracted position and the extended position. In some embodiments, the drive mechanism may comprise a drive spindle which may engage a thread formed in the cutting head. The spindle may be bi-directionally movable and comprise a torque input geometry. In another embodiment the drive spindle and blade comprise connecting elements that form a positive connection when engaged.

Abstract: A system for assessing a characteristic of a reference electrode assembly for an electrochemical cell that cycle lithium ions includes a controller and a test cell assembly. The test cell assembly includes a metal case electrically coupled to the controller and a test cell disposed within the metal case. The test cell includes a lithium metal layer and a separator assembly. The separator assembly includes a separator layer, a current collector layer deposited on the separator layer, and optionally an electroactive layer deposited on the separator layer such that the electroactive layer at least partially overlaps the current collector layer. The current collector layer is in direct physical contact with an electroactive layer and is electrically isolated from the lithium metal layer by the separator layer.

Abstract: A three-tiered content notification system that trifurcates the content notification system into a message consumption component, a message filtering component, and a message delivery component. The message queue comprises content published to an event application programming interface (“API”) for the content notification system. By generating this queue of available content, the message filtering component may apply a batch filter on the available content as opposed to conventional per item filtering. During batch filtering, filtering criteria may be applied to all content currently in the queue. The system may rank this content such that only the highest priority and/or relevance ranking may remain in the batch. Content that is not filtered out by the system may then be sent to the message delivery component. At the message delivery component, the system may select delivery channels for the remaining content.

Abstract: A system and method and for searching for an element in and replacement a portion of a video is conducted by retrieving the video and generating a video index for the video, the video index indexing a plurality of elements of the video such as text, audio and video. To search in the vide, a search query is received that includes at least one of a text element, an audio element, an image element, or a video element. Features and embeddings are extracted from the search query before comparing the search query features with the video index to identify a portion of the video that includes one of the text element, audio element, image element or video element of the search query. The identified portion is then automatically replaced with a replacement portion to generate a revised video.

Abstract: A food preparation and delivery system can include a plurality of cooking units such as ovens, each containing one or more prepared, but partially or completely uncooked, food items. The food items in the cooking units are for delivery to each of a corresponding plurality of consumer delivery destinations. The cooking units are loaded into a cargo compartment of a delivery vehicle for delivery to the plurality of consumer delivery destinations. The cooking conditions within the cooking unit are controlled such the each food item is cooked prior to arrival at the consumer destination location. In at least some embodiments, the estimated delivery time for each consumer destination location can be dynamically updated and the cooking conditions within the cooking unit adjusted.

Abstract: A system for multi-mode connectivity for group vehicle activity and for over-the-air updates via time synchronized device-to-device side-link communications is provided. The system includes a remote communication device configured to transmit data, vehicles to receive the data, and a computerized controller. The controller includes programming to analyze hardware of the vehicles to identify alpha vehicles including excellent wireless capabilities, monitor signal strength between the vehicles and the remote communication device to identify vehicles including relatively strong communication strength, and determine a portion of the plurality of vehicles including highly functioning vehicles including the capabilities and communication strength. The controller generates a series of data transfers to first transfer the data from the remote communication device a highly functioning vehicle and subsequently transfer the data from the highly functioning vehicle to a second of the vehicles and transfers the data.

Abstract: Systems and methods for mitigating DNS amplification attacks are provided. In one example, a threat intelligence system collects data about the requests received by a DNS server, and/or responses generated by the DNS server. The threat intelligence system triggers a threat mitigation action upon detecting evidence (in one or more forms) of a DNS amplification attack. The threat mitigation action may include filtering DNS responses generated by the DNS server. The filtering rule may indicate that a DNS response in which the payload size is above a threshold payload size is to be dropped. In examples, the payload threshold size is dynamically set by the threat intelligence system using a machine learning model to minimize the filtering of DNS responses for valid DNS queries, while maximizing filtering of DNS responses for malicious DNS queries.

Abstract: Various embodiments are generally directed to utilizing a steganographically encoded image with an offline and/or online verification or authentication protocol. A method for using the steganographic image can include: receiving or utilizing a steganographic image associated with a user at a third-party device, the steganographically encoded image including an identification of a user steganographically encoded with a fingerprint template of the user, and authenticating the user using the steganographically encoded image.

Abstract: A client device operates by: providing a wallet associated with the user configured to store non-fungible tokens (NFTs); reading, via the camera, an optical code associated with a game token; sending, via the network interface and in response to reading the optical code, a request to download a game token NFT associated with the game token from an NFT distribution platform; receiving from the NFT distribution platform, via the network interface, the game token NFT associated with the game token; and storing the game token NFT in the wallet associated with the user.

Abstract: A device may be configured to detect a glare condition and may comprise a photo sensing circuit and a visible light sensing circuit. The photo sensing circuit may be configured to periodically generate an illuminance signal that indicates an illuminance value. The visible light sensing circuit may be configured to periodically record images of the space at an exposure time. The device may receive an illuminance signal from the photo sensing circuit and determine a present illuminance based on the illuminance signal. The device may adjust the frequency at which the visible light sensing circuit records images based on the present illuminance. The exposure time may be determined based on the present illuminance and a glare condition type. An image recorded at a respective exposure time may wash out pixels above a certain illuminance value. The device may detect a glare condition at the location of washed out pixels.

Abstract: A modular battery system includes a plurality of battery modules positioned on a different floor of an enclosure. Each of the plurality of battery modules includes a plurality of battery arrays of rechargeable batteries. A controller is configured to select one of the plurality of battery modules for charging or discharging. A power converter is positioned on a different floor of the enclosure from each of the plurality of battery modules. The power converter is configured to convert an alternating current (AC) input to a direct current (DC) input and to switch the DC input to the selected one of the plurality of battery modules for charging.

Abstract: A method of operating a swimming pool or spa includes controlling equipment for a swimming pool or spa based on a predicted future state of the swimming pool or spa. A method of controlling equipment for a swimming pool or spa may include receiving a scheduled future use for the swimming pool or spa, predicting a future state of the swimming pool or spa based on the scheduled future use, and controlling the equipment to perform cleaning or other action based on the predicted future state. A method of operating a swimming pool or spa includes receiving an indication of a cleaning trigger event, generating a first alert based on the received indication, generating a cleaning response by equipment for the swimming pool or spa, and generating a second alert based on a state of the swimming pool or spa meeting or exceeding a threshold value.

Abstract: A method for document extraction includes receiving, from a user device associated with a user, an annotated document that includes one or more fields. Each respective field of the one or more fields of the annotated document is labeled by a respective annotation. The method includes clustering, using a template matching algorithm, the annotated document into a cluster and inducing, using the annotated document, a document template for the cluster. The method includes receiving, from the user device, an unannotated document including the one or more fields. The method includes clustering, using the template matching algorithm, the unannotated document into the cluster and, in response to clustering the unannotated document into the cluster, extracting, using the document template, the one or more fields.

Abstract: Innovations in phase quantization during speech encoding and phase reconstruction during speech decoding are described. For example, to encode a set of phase values, a speech encoder omits higher-frequency phase values and/or represents at least some of the phase values as a weighted sum of basis functions. Or, as another example, to decode a set of phase values, a speech decoder reconstructs at least some of the phase values using a weighted sum of basis functions and/or reconstructs lower-frequency phase values then uses at least some of the lower-frequency phase values to synthesize higher-frequency phase values. In many cases, the innovations improve the performance of a speech codec in low bitrate scenarios, even when encoded data is delivered over a network that suffers from insufficient bandwidth or transmission quality problems.

Abstract: A left atrial appendage (LAA) closure device that includes an anchor portion having a first segment and a second segment that are connected in spaced-apart manner by a first connector, a sealing portion, and a second connector that connects the anchor portion and the second segment sealing portion. The first segment is adapted to be positioned outside the LAA and in the pericardial sac after deployment of the closure device, and the second segment is positioned between the first segment and the sealing portion inside the LAA.