Abstract: A method for fabricating semiconductor device includes the steps of: forming fin-shaped structures on a substrate; using isopropyl alcohol (IPA) to perform a rinse process; performing a baking process; and forming a gate oxide layer on the fin-shaped structures. Preferably, a duration of the rinse process is between 15 seconds to 60 seconds, a temperature of the baking process is between 50° C. to 100° C., and a duration of the baking process is between 5 seconds to 120 seconds.

Abstract: Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a device that has a processing system including a processor; and a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of operations, including downsampling a full point cloud to obtain a downsampled point cloud, wherein the downsampling reduces a data size of the full point cloud; and using a machine-learning model to assign labels for segmentation and object identification to points in the downsampled point cloud, wherein the machine-learning model is trained on the full point cloud. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Abstract: The described technology is generally directed towards a transport protocol for latency sensitive applications. The disclosed transport protocol is “semi-reliable” in that it allows for specification of an importance of data being transmitted, thereby allowing important data to be sent reliably, while other data can be dropped if necessary, e.g., under bad network conditions. A deadline can be specified for such other data, and if the other data cannot be sent prior to the deadline, it can be dropped. Furthermore, the disclosed transport protocol can allow for early discovery of network jitter. A client device can send regular acknowledgments which identify most recently received data packets as well as a number of “heartbeat transmissions” received at the client device. A server device can use the acknowledgments to discover and respond to jitter.

Abstract: A photonic integrated circuit (PIC) includes a first microresonator that generates a two-mode squeezed vacuum using spontaneous four-wave mixing. Specifically, the first microresonator uses a nonlinear optical medium to convert two pump photons into a pair of entangled signal and idler photons. Due to imperfect conversion efficiency, some of the pump light may co-propagate with the signal light and idler light. To remove this “unconverted” pump light, the PIC includes a second microresonator that is tuned to resonate with only the pump light. The second microresonator is located after the first microresonator and couples the unconverted pump light into a waveguide that guide the light off the PIC. Thus, the second microresonator acts as a notch filter. Integrating this pump filter onto the PIC adds negligibly to the path length of the squeezed light, and therefore saves the propagation losses incurred when using a much larger off-chip filter.

Abstract: A backlight module including a circuit substrate, a plurality of light-emitting devices, a first cholesteric liquid-crystal layer, and a second cholesteric liquid-crystal layer is provided. The light-emitting devices are disposed on the circuit substrate and electrically connected to the circuit substrate. The first cholesteric liquid-crystal layer is disposed on the light-emitting devices and overlapped with a light-emitting surface of each of the light-emitting devices. The second cholesteric liquid-crystal layer is disposed on the first cholesteric liquid-crystal layer and overlapped with the first cholesteric liquid-crystal layer. The first cholesteric liquid-crystal layer and the second cholesteric liquid-crystal layer respectively have a first chiral direction and a second chiral direction. A display apparatus adopting the backlight module is also provided.

Abstract: A slewing bearing for vertical structural support, including a first bearing ring, a second bearing ring and at least one row of rolling elements arranged between the first and second bearing rings. The first or second bearing ring is provided with a gear for receiving the drive of an input torque, and the gear is provided axially thereunder with a lubricant collecting member for keeping the lubricant. A rotary support device is provided for supporting in a vertical structure. The device provides a first member that supports substantially in a vertical direction, a second member that is substantially supported by the first member in the vertical direction, and the slewing bearing acting as a rotary support between the first and second members. The first member is fixedly connected to the first bearing ring and the second member is fixedly connected to the second bearing ring.

Abstract: Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, transmitting viewpoint information associated with a first portion of a three-dimensional (3D)/volumetric video to a device, wherein the viewpoint information comprises a first coordinate in 3D space associated with a first viewing direction in a playback of the first portion and a first timestamp associated with the first portion, receiving, from the device, a multiplane image (MPI) representation of a second portion of the 3D video responsive to the transmitting of the viewpoint information, and providing an image of the MPI representation to a display device. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Abstract: Systems, computer-readable media, and methods are disclosed for parallel data processing for service function chains with network functions spanning multiple servers. An example system includes a first server hosting a first network function of a service function chain, a second server hosting a second network function of the service function chain, a mirror function deployed in a first switch to replicate a plurality of packets received by the system and to send respective copies of the plurality of packets to the first network function and to at least one of the second network function and a third network function of the service function chain, and a merge function deployed in a second switch to merge respective outputs of the first network function and the at least one of the second network function and the third network function.

Abstract: A method for preparing a three-dimensional chitosan/silver composite scaffold includes mixing an acidic aqueous chitosan solution including protonated chitosan and a deposition accelerating agent being a soluble silver salt, spacedly disposing a cathode and an anode in the resultant suspension, and applying an electric field to the cathode and the anode so that the suspension undergoes electrodeposition. The suspension has a protonated chitosan concentration ranging from 0.7 to 2.8 w/v %, and a molarity of silver ions ranging from 4 to 60 mM. The composite scaffold prepared has columnar through-holes extending in a same extension direction and each having opposite first and second openings with the latter not less in width.

Abstract: The technical solutions of this application provide a video playing method and a device, so that in a multi-view mode, during video playback, audio corresponding to an image in a plurality of views may be selected and played based on an operation performed on a play control. In response to a user input, a video playing interface is displayed on the electronic device. The video playing interface includes a first video, a second video, a first play control, and a second play control. In response to an operation performed on the second play control, the first video and the second video are played. Audio of a video corresponding to a location of the first play control is played. The video corresponding to the location of the first play control is the first video.

Abstract: In one example, a processing system including at least one processor may obtain a predicted viewport of a mobile computing device for an immersive visual stream, identify a first plurality of blocks of a frame of the immersive visual stream that are associated with the predicted viewport, encode the first plurality of blocks at a first encoding quality level, and encode a second plurality of blocks of the frame at a second encoding quality level, where the second encoding quality level is associated with a lesser visual quality as compared to the first encoding quality level and where the second plurality of blocks are outside of the predicted viewport. The processing system may then transmit the frame having the first plurality of blocks encoded at the first encoding quality level and the second plurality of blocks encoded at the second encoding quality level to the mobile computing device.

Abstract: Provided is a diagnostic system for identifying target microorganisms and/or resistance genes in a sample, including a cell lysis unit, a target nucleic acid enriching unit, a sequencing unit, and a sequence analyzing unit, wherein the cell lysis unit is configured to lyse non-target cells in the sample, the target nucleic acid enriching unit equipped with an immobilized adsorption device is configured to deplete nucleic acids of the non-target cells and to enrich nucleic acids of the target microorganisms, and the sequencing unit and the sequence analyzing unit are configured to produce identification results of the microbial species and/or resistance genes from the sequences of the enriched nucleic acids. Also provided is a method for enriching target nucleic acids in a sample and a method for identifying target microorganisms and/or resistance genes by sequencing the enriched nucleic acids of the target microorganisms.

Abstract: Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a device, that includes a processing system including a processor and a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of operations including receiving a manifest for a point cloud, wherein the point cloud is partitioned into a plurality of cells; determining an occlusion level for a cell of the plurality of cells with respect to a predicted viewport; reducing a point density for the cell provided in the manifest based on the occlusion level, thereby determining a reduced point density; and requesting delivery of points in the cell, based on the reduced point density. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Abstract: Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, embodiments for selecting a first camera from one or more cameras communicatively coupled to a computing device. Further embodiments include adjusting a first hardware controller on the first camera in response to detecting a network condition of a communication network resulting in an adjusted first camera. Additional embodiments include capturing first video content with the adjusted first camera. Also, embodiments include transmitting the first video content to a video content server over the communication network. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Abstract: The described technology is generally directed towards a transport protocol for latency sensitive applications. The disclosed transport protocol is “semi-reliable” in that it allows for specification of an importance of data being transmitted, thereby allowing important data to be sent reliably, while other data can be dropped if necessary, e.g., under bad network conditions. A deadline can be specified for such other data, and if the other data cannot be sent prior to the deadline, it can be dropped. Furthermore, the disclosed transport protocol can allow for early discovery of network jitter. A client device can send regular acknowledgments which identify most recently received data packets as well as a number of “heartbeat transmissions” received at the client device. A server device can use the acknowledgments to discover and respond to jitter.

Abstract: Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a device that has a processing system including a processor; and a memory that stores executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system, facilitate performance of operations, including downsampling a full point cloud to obtain a downsampled point cloud, wherein the downsampling reduces a data size of the full point cloud; and using a machine-learning model to assign labels for segmentation and object identification to points in the downsampled point cloud, wherein the machine-learning model is trained on the full point cloud. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Abstract: A backlight module including a circuit substrate, a plurality of light-emitting devices, a first cholesteric liquid-crystal layer, and a second cholesteric liquid-crystal layer is provided. The light-emitting devices are disposed on the circuit substrate and electrically connected to the circuit substrate. The first cholesteric liquid-crystal layer is disposed on the light-emitting devices and overlapped with a light-emitting surface of each of the light-emitting devices. The second cholesteric liquid-crystal layer is disposed on the first cholesteric liquid-crystal layer and overlapped with the first cholesteric liquid-crystal layer. The first cholesteric liquid-crystal layer and the second cholesteric liquid-crystal layer respectively have a first chiral direction and a second chiral direction. A display apparatus adopting the backlight module is also provided.

Abstract: Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, embodiments include obtaining video content, the video content comprises a plurality of frames, monitoring, by an image sensor, a facial feature of a user to determine a visual focus of the user in relation to the video content, and detecting from a group of frames of the plurality of frames at least a reduction in movements of objects in the group of frames. Further embodiments include determining, according to the monitoring and the detecting, a measure of attention of the user within a region of the group of frames, determining that the measure of attention of the user within the region of the group of frames satisfies a threshold, and embedding in at least a portion of subsequent frames of the plurality of frames a visual advertisement in the region via a communication device. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Abstract: Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, a method including providing a video presentation to user devices. A latency related to the video presentation is determined for each device; a high-latency user device is identified having greater latency than other, low-latency devices. Field of view information is analyzed for each of the low-latency devices; based on the analyzing, a field of view of the high-latency user device is predicted. In accordance with the predicting, a predicted viewing map for the high-latency user device is generated. The video presentation for the high-latency user device is adjusted based on the predicted viewing map. Other embodiments are disclosed.

Abstract: Aspects of the subject disclosure may include, for example, embodiments for obtaining video content from a video content server, determining a quality parameter for each of the plurality of adjusted video content, and adjusting the video content to generate the plurality of adjusted video content. Each of the plurality of adjusted video content comprises a different point cloud density according to the quality parameter. Further embodiments can include receiving a request for the video content from a video content application on a communication device, and determining a distance from a viewpoint to a point-cloud object on the video content application of the communication device. Additional embodiments can include selecting an adjusted video content based on the distance from the viewpoint to the point-cloud object and the quality parameter of the adjusted video content, and providing the adjusted video content to the communication device for presentation. Other embodiments are disclosed.