Abstract: A concentric CRR sensor is claimed that is used as a form of currency verification in order to combat counterfeiting currency. The system comprises applying sets of concentric CRR printed with transparent conductive ink. In one embodiment, using the CRR as a passive RFID tag, changing the ring's radii, inner or outer, and in turn, created more encryption, and thereby prevents currency counterfeiting. In one or more embodiments, the serial number of the currency bill is used as a guideline to a selection algorithm to determine the size of the radii.

Abstract: This invention is a novel method to thermally process wet WWTP sludges, including biosolids, so that they can be classified. Wet biosolids or other WWTP sludges are passed through the heating zones of one or more solar thermal systems so that the sludges are heated to a target temperature to meet the requirements for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classification. Various catalysts are provided before the sludges enter the heating zone and within the heating zone to optimize the treatment of the sludges.

Abstract: The current invention is a novel high performance asphalt mixture using optimum dosages of fiber and tire-rubber. Specifically, this invention provides a process for developing high performance asphalt composite by augmenting the conventional mixtures with the optimum dosages of microfiber and recycled tire-rubber particles (RuFiAC mixtures).

Abstract: Disclosed herein are systems and methods for sliding mode control enabled hybrid energy storage. In a specific embodiment, the system can include: a photovoltaic power generation unit; a hybrid energy storage system, where the hybrid storage system can include a battery, a supercapacitor, where the supercapacitor provides excess power demand based on different loading conditions, and a rate limiter; a sliding mode controller, where the slide mode controller controls a current in a hybrid energy storage system; a supercapacitor charging control; and a proportional integral controller. In a specific embodiment, the method can include: decoupling an average and transient hybrid energy storage system current with a single rate limiter, where the decoupling includes a battery discharge rate; regulating a battery current with a first sliding mode controller; and regulating a supercapacitor current with a second sliding mode controller, where a supercapacitor provides excess power demand.

Abstract: This invention presents a novel corrosion inhibitor. In the preferred embodiment, the inventive corrosion inhibitor comprises extracellular polymeric substances (EPS). In one embodiment, the invention presents a novel EPS corrosion inhibitor using waste activated sludge (WAS). In this embodiment, WAS is heated to release EPS from the microbial mixture.

Abstract: Disclosed herein are optical swell meters and methods for using them to measure fine-scale variations in the swelling behavior of shale specimens. In an embodiment, the optical swell meters can include: a glass imbibition chamber containing a specimen, where an imbibition fluid is located within the glass inhibition chamber and at least partially covering the specimen; a digital camera set a distance away from the chamber and facing the chamber; and a light source, where the light source illuminates the specimen. The method of using the optical swell meter can provide a swelling strain profile of the shale specimens during its interaction with the imbibition fluid.

Abstract: Disclosed herein is a low-cost finite state machine-based low-discrepancy bit-stream generator that support generation of any number of independent low-discrepancy bit-streams. Here, the order of bit selection by the FSM of the bit-stream generator is determined based on the distribution of numbers in the Sobol sequences. An independent LD bit-stream is generated by setting up the FSM using a different Sobol sequence. The proposed generator reduces the hardware costs by more than 80 percent compared to the low-discrepancy bit-stream generators known in the art. The available space can then be used to improve fault tolerance.

Abstract: Herein disclosed is a method for automatically extracting signatures for malware. The method takes advantage of a fundamental economic requirement of malware authors: they must reuse code to manage the time investment. The method disclosed finds shared code between malware and generates signatures from the code. A method is also disclosed for separating code that is found predominantly, if not exceptionally, in malware from code that may be found in benign program.

Abstract: The present invention covers a novel method for creating an adsorbent and the resulting novel adsorbent. The method may be used to remove pollutants/unwanted chemicals from water, air, other gases, biological fluids (such as blood, urine, lipids, protein fluids), and other fluids (such as fuel). The adsorbent may be used to remove heavy metals (for example, lead), organic pollutants, inorganic non-meal pollutants (for example, nitrates and bromates). Accordingly, the current invention has many applications including but not limited to water treatment, wastewater treatment, biomedical fluid treatments, gas cleanup, and fuel (oil, gas) cleanup.

Abstract: An architecture for semantic search over encrypted data that improves upon existing encrypted data search techniques by providing a solution that is space-efficient on both the cloud and client sides, considers the semantic meaning of the user's query, and returns a list of documents accurately ranked by their similarity to the query. Different search schemes are presented based on S3C architecture (namely, FKSS, SKSS, and KSWF) that are fine-tuned for different types of datasets. The system requires only a single plaintext query to be entered and is easily portable to thin-clients, making it simple and quick for users to use. The system is also shown to be secure and resistant to attacks.

Abstract: This invention is a novel method of manufacture for hand-sanitizing lotions that retains the added benefits of prolonged effectiveness while avoiding demulsification as well as the resulting product. The invention presents a novel, more simplified process comprising a lower cooking temperature and an optimized ingredient addition protocol, designed for product stability and ingredient integrity.

Abstract: The inventive biorefinery system and method accepts municipal solid waste, sewage sludges, and/or ag-wastes and processes it through three primary conversion unit operations to produce a variety of value-added products. In a preferred embodiment, the three primary conversion units are gasification, thermal depolymerization or torrefaction/pyrolysis, and biotreatment.

Abstract: Cloud-based computing systems, although claimed to have virtually unlimited resources, could get oversubscribed due to budget constraints of cloud users. The disclosed invention proposes a mechanism to identify various types of “mergeable” tasks. The system also determines when it is appropriate to aggregate tasks and how to allocate them so that the QoS of other tasks is not affected. Experimental results under real-world workload settings show that the disclosed system can improve robustness of the system in the face of oversubscription and also saves the overall time of using cloud services by more than 14%.

Abstract: Certain embodiments of the present invention are configured to facilitate analyzing computer code more efficiently. For example, by conducting a first level abstraction (e.g., symbolic interpretation and algebraic simplification) and a second level abstraction (e.g., generalization) of the computer code, the analysis may more accurately account for variations in the code that may occur as a result of register renaming, instruction reordering, choice of instructions, etc. while minimizing the cost of computations required to perform the analysis.

Abstract: The multiplication method disclosed herein benefits from the complementary advantages of both Stochastic Computing (SC) and memristive In-Memory Computation (IMC) to enable energy-efficient and low-latency multiplication of data. In summary, the following method are disclosed. (a) Performing deterministic and accurate bit-stream-based multiplication in memory. To this end, the invention disclosed herein uses memristive crossbar memory arrays and Memory-Aided Logic (MAGIC). (b) Using an efficient in-memory method for generating deterministic bit-streams from binary data, which takes advantage of inherent properties of memristive memories. (c) Improving the speed and reducing the memory usage as compared to the State-of-the-Art (SoA) limited-precision in-memory binary multipliers. (d) Reducing latency and energy consumption compared to the SoA accurate off-memory SC multiplication techniques.

Abstract: Disclosed is a method for task pruning that can be utilized in existing resource allocation systems to improve the systems' robustness without requiring changing to existing mapping heuristics. The pruning mechanism leverages a probability model, which calculates the probability of a task competing before its deadline in the presence of task dropping, and only schedules tasks that are likely to succeed. Pruning tasks whose chance of success is low improves the chance of success for other tasks. Tasks that are unlikely to succeed are either deferred from current scheduling event or are preemptively dropped from the system. The pruning method can benefit service providers by allowing them to utilize their resources more efficiently and use them only for tasks that can meet their deadlines. The pruning method further helps end users by making the system more robust in allowing more tasks to complete on time.

Abstract: The method for creating integrated circuits (IC) protects the design of a manufactured IC from being copied or counterfeited. This method protects the design of an IC chip from deliberate copying and counterfeiting by reverse engineering to gain access to the critical points in the IC chip and to siphon its functions and design. The method makes the copying, counterfeiting, and controlling by addition of Trojan circuits during manufacturing almost impossible task. It also allows chip designers to outsource the final bonding of the tiers without any fears that their design may get compromised.

Abstract: Hardware failures are undesired, but a common problem in circuits. Such failures are inherently due to the aging of circuitry or variation in circumstances. In critical systems, customers demand that the system never fail. Several self-healing and fault tolerance techniques have been proposed in the literature for recovering a circuitry from a fault. Such techniques are helpful when a fault has already occurred, but they are typically uninformed about the possibility of an impending failure (i.e., fault prediction), which can be used as a pre-stage to fault tolerance and self-healing. Presented herein is a method for early prediction of circuit faults. Using Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT), Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), circuit faults can be predicted at a transistor level.

Abstract: Disclosed herein is a method for making embryonic bio-inspired hardware efficient against faults through self-healing, fault prediction, and fault-prediction assisted self-healing. The disclosed self-healing recovers a faulty embryonic cell through innovative usage of healthy cells. Through experimentations, it is observed that self-healing is effective, but it takes a considerable amount of time for the hardware to recover from a fault that occurs suddenly without forewarning. To get over this problem of delay, novel deep learning-based formulations are utilized for fault predictions. The self-healing technique is then deployed along with the disclosed fault prediction methods to gauge the accuracy and delay of embryonic hardware.

Abstract: The Cascaded Wind Turbine is a new concept of wind turbine design featuring multiple hubs in succession, each hub segment adds another tier that create a cascading blade configuration. Each blade set is connected to a separate rotor via a telescopic shaft.