Abstract: This invention relates to products of aqueous and other chemical synthetic routes for encapsulation of a core material with an inorganic shell and finished compositions of a core-shell particulate material for application in thermoplastic, thermoset, and coatings resins prior to compounding or application or subsequent thermal processing steps. Disclosed is a composition of particles containing a shell of inorganic oxides or mixed-metal inorganic oxides and a core material of complex inorganic colored pigment, laser direct structuring additives, laser marking, or other beneficial metal oxides, metal compounds, or mixed-metal oxide materials, wherein the shell material is comprised of any single oxide or combination of oxides is taught. Preferred elements of composition for the shell are oxides and silicates of B, Ni, Zn, Al, Zr, Si, Sn, Bi, W, Mo, Cr, Mg, Mn, Ce, Ti, and Ba (or mixtures thereof).

Abstract: A method for encoding multi-channel HOA audio signals for noise reduction comprises steps of decorrelating the channels using an inverse adaptive DSHT, the inverse adaptive DSHT comprising a rotation operation and an inverse DSHT, with the rotation operation rotating the spatial sampling grid of the iDSHT, perceptually encoding each of the decorrelated channels, encoding rotation information, the rotation information comprising parameters defining said rotation operation, and transmitting or storing the perceptually encoded audio channels and the encoded rotation information.

Abstract: Higher Order Ambisonics (HOA) represents a complete sound field in the vicinity of a sweet spot, independent of loudspeaker set-up. The high spatial resolution requires a high number of HOA coefficients. In the invention, dominant sound directions are estimated and the HOA signal representation is decomposed into dominant directional signals in time domain and related direction information, and an ambient component in HOA domain, followed by compression of the ambient component by reducing its order. The reduced-order ambient component is transformed to the spatial domain, and is perceptually coded together with the directional signals. At receiver side, the encoded directional signals and the order-reduced encoded ambient component are perceptually decompressed, the perceptually decompressed ambient signals are transformed to an HOA domain representation of reduced order, followed by order extension.

Abstract: Spherical microphone arrays capture a three-dimensional sound field (P(?c, t)) for generating an Ambisonics representation (Anm(t)), where the pressure distribution on the surface of the sphere is sampled by the capsules of the array. The impact of the microphones on the captured sound field is removed using the inverse microphone transfer function. The equalisation of the transfer function of the microphone array is a big problem because the reciprocal of the transfer function causes high gains for small values in the transfer function and these small values are affected by transducer noise.

Abstract: Spherical microphone arrays capture a three-dimensional sound field for generating an Ambisonics representation, where the pressure distribution on the surface of the sphere is sampled by the capsules of the array. The impact of the microphones on the captured sound field is removed using the inverse microphone transfer function. The equalisation of the transfer function of the microphone array is a big problem because the reciprocal of the transfer function causes high gains for small values in the transfer function and these small values are affected by transducer noise. The invention minimises that noise by using a Wiener filter processing in the frequency domain, which processing is automatically controlled per wave number by the signal-to-noise ratio of the microphone array.

Abstract: A retractable wall system for a structure such as a building includes a torque tube and a kinetic wall member that is secured to the torque tube. A shaft that is at least partially positioned within the torque tube is secured to the structure so that rotation with respect to the structure is precluded. A drive mechanism that is at least partially positioned within the torque tube is constructed and arranged to selectively change a rotational position of the shaft with respect to the torque tube so that the wall member may be moved with respect to the structure. An electronic control system may be provided for monitoring and controlling movement of the kinetic wall member with respect to the structure. The electronic control system may be integrated with other control systems of the structure, such as the electronic control system of the structure's HVAC system.