Abstract: The present subject matter is directed to a system and method for producing carbon and syngas from carbon dioxide (CO2). The system includes a first reactor (7) for producing solid carbon (15) from a feed including CO2 and a volatile organic compound such as methane (1), and a second reactor (20) for producing syngas. Reactions in the first reactor (7) are conducted in a limited oxygen atmosphere. The second reactor (20) can use dry reforming, steam reforming, and/or partial oxidation reforming to produce the syngas (22).

Abstract: New formulation for pyrite scale removal from oil and gas wells and a method of pyrite scale removal are disclosed. The chemical formulation is composed of K2B4O7-4H2O, in a concentration of about 9-20 wt. % of the composition, preferably about 14 wt. % of the composition. The new formulation has the ability to dissolve pyrite without generation of the toxic H2S. Furthermore, the new formulation is cheaper and has very low corrosion rate compare to 15 wt. % HCl with corrosion inhibitor. The disclose method uses the disclosed new formulation to dissolve iron sulphide scale, performed at about 100-150° C. and about 500-2000 psi.

Abstract: The present disclosure provides new and innovative systems and methods for filtering encrypted messages. In an example, a computer-implemented method includes obtaining a message, determining sender profiling features of the message, determining enterprise graph features of the message, determining header features of the message, determining a message flag based on the sender profiling features, the enterprise graph features, and the header features, and processing the message based on the message flag.

Abstract: The main objective of Certificate Transparency (CT) is to detect mis-issued certificates or rouge certificate authorities. It has been observed that phishing sites have been increasingly acquiring certificates to look more legitimate and reach more victims, thus providing an opportunity to predict phishing domains early. The present disclosure provides systems and methods for early detection of phishing and benign domain traces in CT logs. The provided system may predict phishing domains early even before content is available via time-, issuer-, and certificate-based characteristics that are used to identify sets of CT-based inexpensive and novel features. The CT-features are augmented with other features including passive DNS (pDNS) and domain-based lexical features.

Abstract: Data storage methods and systems for use with multiple cloud storage systems. The methods and systems use passive metadata files which are stored on cloud storage systems to eliminate the risk of a data conflict when data is being written to the multi-cloud storage system. The methods and systems enable a multi-cloud storage system to function safely without data corruption or loss due to potential conflicts. The methods and systems achieve this without the need for a central control server and without the need for the cloud storage systems or the clients to communicate with one another.

Abstract: The present disclosure provides an uplink multiple access scheme and technique to enhance the overall spectral efficiency of wireless systems. The scheme and technique exploits an index modulation concept in orthogonal multiple access systems. A first subblock of transmitted data for a user is conventionally modulated, while a second subblock of the data determines the index of the active channel that will be used to communicate the modulated symbol. The scheme and technique enables all available orthogonal resources to be used for an arbitrary number of users as an extra source of information that is used to enhance the overall spectral efficiency in terms of error efficiency and energy efficiency.

Abstract: The present disclosure provides a new and innovative system for sport design, tracking, and sharing. The system includes a set of wireless components in communication with a computing system. The computing system may include a graphical user interface, and at least in some instances, communicates over a network with an external system such as a social media platform. Through the graphical interface, a user may program rules to a sport into the wireless components. The user or users may perform the sport with the programmed wireless components, which analyze the actions performed according to the programmed rules. The analysis and other data collected by the wireless components may be reviewed by the users after playing the sport. Furthermore, the data collected and the rules programmed into the wireless components may be shared online to the external system for rating and ranking by an online community.

Abstract: A shape-memory alloy actuated switch (SMAAS) is provided that enables the stable switching of two separate circuits. The presently disclosed SMAAS includes a substrate, one or more electrical contacts attached to the substrate for connecting to load circuits, and one or more electrically conductive elements for selectively connecting the one or more electrical contacts. The disclosed SMAAS also includes one or more shape-memory alloy actuators attached to the substrate. The one or more shape-memory alloy actuators are configured to move the one or more electrically conductive elements. The shape-memory alloy actuators are self-heated by passing current through the shape-memory alloy material. The disclosed SMAAS may also include electrical contacts to connect an external control current to the shape-memory alloy material. In some examples, the provided SMAAS includes one or more retention mechanisms to prevent movement of the electrically conductive elements after actuation.

Abstract: A method for identifying aircraft faults, comprising: receiving a dataset comprising a plurality of low priority messages and a plurality of high priority messages, each low priority message identifying a minor aircraft fault and each high priority message identifying a major aircraft fault; for each low priority message, generating an embedding vector which maps the low priority message in an embedding space; for each high priority message, generating an embedding vector which maps the high priority message in the embedding space; providing, to a machine learning unit, the embedding vector for each low priority message of the plurality of low priority messages and the embedding vector for each high priority message of the plurality of high priority messages; and obtaining, from the machine learning unit, a probability of a target high priority message occurring based on each low priority message of the plurality of low priority messages.

Abstract: This disclosure relates to a method for the treatment of fluids and provides a nanomaterial for treating fluids. The nanomaterial disclosed can be a halloysite nanotube modified with Fe2O3. The nanomaterial can be designed to have a selective affinity toward ions such as phosphate and can be used to treat water. The disclosure further includes a method for preparing a material by, for example, modifying a halloysite nanotube with Fe2O3.

Abstract: The acid gas removal system for removing acidic gases from gaseous hydrocarbons (10) removes sour gases, such as hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and carbon dioxide (CO2), from an input gaseous stream. The system (10) includes a contactor (12) for contacting the input gaseous stream with an absorption liquid solvent (ALS), and a stripper (24) for recycling the absorption liquid solvent (ALS) and removing acidic gases (AG) therefrom, but with the addition of a pair of plate-plate heat exchangers (22, 26). The first heat exchanger (22) heats the used absorption liquid solvent (UALS) output from the contactor (12) prior to injection into the stripper (24). The used absorption liquid solvent (UALS) is heated via heat exchange with the acidic gases (AG) output from the stripper (24). The second heat exchanger (26) cools the recycled absorption liquid solvent (RALS) before injection back into the contactor (12).

Abstract: A CMOS analog sensor interface circuit embedded in a passive RFID platform can provide accurate data conversion from analog signals to their digital representations. This interface can also utilize the RFID platform to achieve wireless data transmission. The disclosed sensor interface circuit includes signal filtering, signal amplification, as well as signal digitization. These circuits are all designed under the constraints of low-power operation on a noisy silicon substrate. By using the disclosed circuit design, fully passive wireless sensing network that can integrate with heterogeneous sensors (resistance, voltage, current types) can be designed. The advantages of low-cost, small feature size, and the ability to interface with analog sensors can enable large-scale deployment of such kind of RFIDs, both for consumer electronics like in-door monitoring and industrial sensing applications like the grid, electric vehicle, motor, and other critical infrastructures.

Abstract: Systems and methods for determining the position of a device or vehicle by using celestial information captured by an imaging apparatus. The systems and methods identify a star set in the celestial information, generate a star set fingerprint and compare the star set fingerprint with reference celestial information. Once a comparison is made, the location of the device or vehicle can be determined and used within a celestial navigation system.

Abstract: Disclosed are methods or processes of synthesizing building blocks and feedstocks for producing a broader range of polymers, including renewable polymers, from renewable resources such as CO2. In a process of manufacturing a renewable feedstock for polymer production, a CO2 derived lactone is prepared and processed to form the renewable feedstock. The process may include alkoxycarbonylation of the CO2 derived lactone to form a diester and hydrogenation of the diester.

Abstract: The present disclosure provides for generating multiphase flow properties of porous media based on one or more input parameters. For instance, the multiphase flow properties may be a capillary pressure-saturation relationship for the porous media. The one or more input parameters include an interfacial tension along an interface between a wetting fluid and a non-wetting fluid, a contact angle between the interface and a pore wall of the porous media, and a pore throat size. The pore throat size is based on subparameters including a saturation of the wetting fluid, a saturation of the non-wetting fluid, a porosity of the porous media, and an orientation angle between a representative pore body size and a representative pore throat size.

Abstract: The present disclosure generally relates to a cost-based optimizer for efficiently processing data through the use of multiple different data processing platforms. The cost-based optimizer may receive an input plan for processing data that includes a number of base operators. The cost-based optimizer may then determine execution operators for each base operator, where each execution operator corresponds to a different data processing platform. From the execution operators, the cost-based optimizer may determine possible subplans for executing the input plan on one or more data processing platforms. The cost-based optimizer may determine the cost of executing each possible subplan and choose the subplan with the lowest cost.

Abstract: The combined acid gas removal and water filtration system (10) removes sour gases, such as hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and carbon dioxide (CO2), from an input gaseous hydrocarbon stream (FG), as well as producing purified water (TW). The acid gas removal system (10) has a contactor (12) for contacting the input gaseous stream (FG) with an absorption liquid solvent (ALS), and a stripper (24) for recycling the absorption liquid solvent (ALS) and removing acidic gases (AG) therefrom. A first heat exchanger (22) heats used absorption liquid solvent (UALS) output from the contactor (12) prior to injection into the stripper (24). A second heat exchanger (26) cools recycled absorption liquid solvent (RALS) using a refrigerant (R) before injection back into the contactor (12). The refrigerant (R) is coupled with an absorber (84), which receives a dilute ethanolic draw solution (DDS) from a forward osmosis filtration system (72), producing purified water (TW).

Abstract: The present disclosure provides systems and methods for enhanced wireless communication security. The preambles used for the identification of an upcoming wireless communication may be periodically changed (e.g., dynamic), on a time basis, based on a secret key function shared between the communicating parties. In this way, only the intended parties are able to recognize the start of an ongoing communication, synchronize with the transmitters, and access the information contained therein. An attacker, being unaware of the specific preamble sequence used for the synchronization, will not recognize the pattern of the communication, and thus will be unable to recognize when communications are ongoing. Additional authentication measures may also be implemented with the transmissions.

Abstract: The typical service to deliver multimedia content is evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (eMBMS). However, the eMBMS is a service-oriented network architecture requiring a pre-defined and pre-established user service to stream a live video. The content provider must be a multicast service provider to use the eMBMS services, which many typical content providers are not. Accordingly, the present disclosure provides a live video streaming network architecture that enhances the eMBMS architecture to enable service-less multicast delivery. The provided system includes a virtual network function service running on an application server (AS) that identifies potential multicast scenarios based on user requests for a live video stream within a confined area.