Abstract: Disclosed are systems, methods and computer-readable media for controlling and managing the identification and provisioning of resources within an on-demand center as well as the transfer of workload to the provisioned resources. One aspect involves creating a virtual private cluster within the on-demand center for the particular workload from a local environment. A method of managing resources between a local compute environment and an on-demand environment includes detecting an event associated with local compute environment and based on the detected event, identifying information about the local environment, establishing communication with an on-demand compute environment and transmitting the information about the local environment to the on-demand compute environment, provisioning resources within the on-demand compute environment to substantially duplicate the local environment and transferring workload from the local-environment to the on-demand compute environment.

Abstract: An aerosol generating system including a housing defining an airflow outlet; a liquid aerosol-forming substrate; an aerosol generator, configured to generate an aerosol from the liquid aerosol-forming substrate; a perforated plate disposed between the aerosol generator and the airflow outlet, the perforated plate defining a plurality of apertures extending through the perforated plate; and an electrode disposed between the aerosol generator and the perforated plate, wherein the perforated plate is electrically conductive, and wherein the electrode and the perforated plate are configured to generate an electrical potential.

Abstract: An electrostatic oiling system for use with single blanks in batch systems having an open spray chamber without the need for a negative vacuum chamber. Further, the provided electrostatic oiling system may utilize induction beams and a charge wall that allows for utilization of a smaller vacuum system. Further, the provided electrostatic oiling system may provide variable blank coverage without the need for metered pumps.

Abstract: A dual polarity ion detector comprises: an entrance electrode disposed to receive ions and maintained at a reference voltage, V0; a first dynode maintained at a voltage, V1, that is negative relative to V0; a second dynode maintained at a voltage, V2, that is positive relative to V0; a shielding electrode disposed between the first and second dynodes and maintained at a voltage, V3; and an ion detector comprising an entrance aperture configured to receive first secondary particles from the first dynode and second secondary particles from the second dynode, the entrance aperture maintained at a voltage, Vaperture; that is intermediate between the voltage, V1, and the voltage, V2. In some instances, the voltage, V3, may be equal to or approximately equal to the voltage, V0.

Abstract: A method includes receiving a sequence of input audio frames corresponding to an utterance captured by a user device, the utterance including a plurality of words. For each input audio frame, the method includes predicting, using a word boundary detection model configured receive the sequence of input audio frames as input, whether the input audio frame is a word boundary. The method includes batching the input audio frames into a plurality of batches based on the input audio frames predicted as word boundaries, wherein each batch includes a corresponding plurality of batched input audio frames. For each of the plurality of batches, the method includes processing, using a speech recognition model, the corresponding plurality of batched input audio frames in parallel to generate a speech recognition result.

Abstract: A guide assembly including a guide nose, a body supporting the guide nose, and a torque limiter having a configuration to connect the guide nose and the body to a separate structure. A method for negotiating a restriction in a borehole including running a guide assembly into the borehole, encountering a restriction with the guide nose, limiting torque on the guide nose while encountering the restriction, longitudinally unloading the guide nose, incrementing an incrementing feature of the guide assembly to thereby rotate the guide nose. A wellbore system including a borehole in a subsurface formation, a string in the borehole, a guide assembly disposed within or as a part of the string.

Abstract: A system including one or more processors and one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computing instructions that, when executed on the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform certain acts. The acts can include generating, based on a trained machine learning model, one or more time-slot capacities for one or more pickup time slots at a physical store for a time period that has not yet occurred. The acts also can include, after the time period has occurred, determining when actual demand exceeded the one or more time-slot capacities to tune the trained machine learning model. Other embodiments are described.

Abstract: A system that provides neuroprotection or neuroregeneration to biological tissue includes a pulsed energy having energy parameters including a wavelength or frequency, a duty cycle and a pulse train duration. A delivery device applies the pulsed energy to neural elements of the target tissue having a chronic progressive disease or at risk of having a chronic progressive disease. The delivery device applies the pulsed energy for a predetermined total pulse train duration such that the target tissue temperature is raised sufficiently to provide neuroprotection or neuroregeneration to the neural elements of the target tissue, while maintaining the average temperature rise of the target tissue at or below a predetermined level so as not to permanently damage the target tissue.

Abstract: Forming features in the surface of a bicycle component involves depositing a substance onto a substrate in a geometric pattern to form a transfer medium. Forming features may also involve positioning the transfer medium relative to an unformed bicycle component, and forming a negative of the geometric pattern in the bicycle component through the application of heat and/or pressure to the transfer medium and the unformed bicycle component. The transfer medium may be configured for use in the molding of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (“CFRP”) bicycle components and may include a substrate formed of a flexible material, and a geometric pattern formed of a hard material, the hard material different than the flexible material.

Abstract: A method and apparatus may be provided for signaling auxiliary media including pre-roll media content and mid-roll media content in a main media stream including receiving main media presentation descriptions (MPD) comprising one or more main media segments and at least one auxiliary descriptor referencing one or more auxiliary MPDs. The auxiliary MPD may include one or more auxiliary media segments that are independent of the one or more main media segments. The method may include retrieving the one or more auxiliary MPDs referenced in the one or more main MPD using the at least one auxiliary descriptor, the auxiliary MPD of the one or more auxiliary MPDs comprising the one or more auxiliary media segments and an auxiliary media presentation duration. The one or more auxiliary media segments and the one or more main media segments may be appended to a media source extension (MSE) source buffer and dispatched.

Abstract: A method includes receiving audio features and generating a latent speech representation based on the audio features. The method also includes generating a target quantized vector token and a target token index for a corresponding latent speech representation. The method also includes generating a contrastive context vector for a corresponding unmasked or masked latent speech representation and deriving a contrastive self-supervised loss based on the corresponding contrastive context vector and the corresponding target quantized vector token. The method also include generating a high-level context vector based on the contrastive context vector and, for each high-level context vector, learning to predict the target token index at the corresponding time step using a cross-entropy loss based on the target token index.

Abstract: A method and an apparatus for signaling workflow modifications in a network based media processing (NBMP) workflow. The method includes obtaining a NBMP workflow, generating a modified NBMP workflow by adding tasks configured to perform predetermined functions to a work description of the NBMP workflow, wherein the tasks do not change an output of the NBMP workflow, and signaling the tasks of the modified NBMP workflow based on a task group object. Tasks are included in a task group and are determined based on a group identification, a task identification, a group mode, and a net-zero flag of the task group object. Based on a status of the net-zero flag, the one or more tasks in the task group may be removed from the modified NBMP workflow without effecting the output of the NBMP workflow. Multiple task groups may be included in the modified NBMP workflow and removed independently.

Abstract: Systems and methods for wastewater treatment are described. In some embodiments, a wastewater treatment system may include a container configured to receive and store at least a portion of incoming wastewater during a digestion process that generates biogas and a biogas burner. The biogas burner may be arranged to receive and burn at least a portion of the biogas generated by the digestion process. The system may be configured to heat solids separated from the wastewater such that: (i) the solids separated from the wastewater are maintained at a temperature of at least 70° C. for at least 30 minutes; and/or (ii) a water content of the solids separated from the wastewater is less than 15% by mass.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for continuously treating acid gases including recovering absorbent chemicals by introducing streams leaving a regenerator and/or leaving an absorber into a static mixing zone wherein supplemental washing water is added to recover absorbent chemicals. Improvements to the prior art methods are provided where one or more absorbent chemical recovery units are included to increase the amount of recovered absorbent chemicals exiting the regenerator and/or exiting the absorber are increased and/or maximized. Absorbent chemical recovery units can include mixing units where liquid is added to the stream of sour gas and absorbent chemical to mix with and absorb the absorbent chemical from the stream.

Abstract: A seawater distillation system for distilling seawater and brine and removing salt. The seawater distillation system includes an apparatus having at least a vessel, a separation assembly, and at least one mist eliminator. The vessel may be adapted to hold a volume of seawater comprising a volume of salt, wherein vessel is one of externally heated and internally heated to evaporate the volume of seawater to a volume of steam and to precipitate the volume of salt. The separation assembly may be operably engaged with the vessel, wherein the separation assembly is configured to separate the volume of salt from the volume of seawater inside of the vessel. The at least one mist eliminator may be operably engaged with the vessel and positioned vertically above the separation assembly, wherein the at least one mist eliminator is configured to eliminate water droplets and salt from the volume of steam.

Abstract: Aerosol containment apparatus and methods of use are provided herein. The apparatus provides for creating an interior rest space for a person. The apparatus includes a self-sealable cover which is configurable to seal the interior rest space for use in dental care, cosmetic care or other procedures. Access to the person is provided by arm ports located on the apparatus. These arm ports are flexible and allow for vertical, horizontal and angular arm movement procedures. The apparatus includes a partially or substantially transparent cover for visual access to the client and an internal utility tray for tool storage. The apparatus, also includes, an air filtration port equipped with a replaceable air filter.

Abstract: Coded information of a coding unit (CU) is received. The CU is partitioned into a first partition and a second partition based on a partition index. The partition index indicates a geometric partition mode (GPM) in which the CU is partitioned into the first partition and the second partition by a straight partition line. Based on a location of the straight partition line in the CU, (i) whether a first prediction mode of the first partition of the CU is one of an intra mode and an inter mode and (ii) whether a second prediction mode of the second partition of the CU is one of the intra mode and the inter mode are determined. The first partition of the CU is reconstructed based on the determined first prediction mode and the second partition of the CU is reconstructed based on the determined second prediction mode.

Abstract: The present invention relates to a non-invasive Capacitance Level Detector useful for continuous detection of the level and/or mass of a non-conductive or weakly-conductive bulk material in a vessel, and methods of using the detector.

Abstract: Described are methods and systems are for generating dynamic conversational queries. For example, as opposed to being a simply reactive system, the methods and systems herein provide means for actively determining a user's intent and generating a dynamic query based on the determined user intent. Moreover, these methods and systems generate these queries in a conversational environment.

Abstract: The present disclosure provides compositions and methods related to tobacco plants with altered total alkaloid and nicotine levels and commercially acceptable leaf grade, their development via breeding or transgenic approaches, and production of tobacco products from these tobacco plants.