Abstract: A surgical instrument includes a housing, energizable member, first activation switch, cable assembly, and second activation switch. The housing is operatively associated with the energizable member. The first activation switch is coupled to the energizable member and is selectively transitionable from an open condition to a closed condition. The cable assembly is coupled to the housing at a first end and includes a plug at a second, opposite end, the plug housing a second activation switch selectively transitionable from an open condition to a closed condition. The plug is adapted to connect to the source of electrosurgical energy, wherein transitioning of the first activation switch from the open condition to the closed condition transitions the second activation switch from the open condition to the closed condition such that the second activation switch communicates with the source of electrosurgical energy to initiate the supply of energy to the energizable member.

Abstract: Disclosed herein are methods of producing hexoses from saccharides by enzymatic processes. The methods utilize fructose 6-phosphate and at least one enzymatic step to convert it to a hexose.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method for transmitting and/or submitting digital content such as feedback for an entity to a blockchain is disclosed. This may be, for example, the Bitcoin blockchain. The method, which is implemented at a first node, includes: submitting, to the blockchain, a first transaction for committing a first quantity of tokens to transfer to a second node associated with the entity, the first transaction having a first output; generating a first content for submission to the blockchain; and submitting, to the blockchain, a second transaction that returns a second quantity of the committed first quantity of tokens to an address associated with the first node, the second transaction having the first output of the first transaction as an input, wherein the first content is used to unlock the first output of the first transaction.

Abstract: Various hardware and software configurations are described herein which provide improved security and control over protected data. In some embodiments, a computer includes a main motherboard card coupled to all input/output devices connected to the computer, and a trusted operating system operates on the main motherboard which includes an access control module for controlling access to the protected data in accordance with rules. The trusted operating system stores the protected data in an unprotected form only on the memory devices on the main motherboard. The computer may also have a computer card coupled to the main motherboard via a PCI bus, on which is operating a guest operating system session for handling requests for data from software applications on the computer.

Abstract: A forceps is provided and includes a housing having a shaft. An end effector assembly operatively connects to a distal end of the shaft and includes a pair of first and second jaw members. One or both of the first and second jaw members is movable relative to the other jaw member from a clamping position to an open position. A resilient member operably couples to at least one of the first and second jaw members. The resilient member is configured to bias the first and second jaw members in the clamping position and provide a closure force on tissue disposed therebetween.

Abstract: A device having a reference transistor fabricated within the same semiconductor substrate as a primary transistor (e.g., configured for use in a radiofrequency amplifier or other active circuit) has a shared metallization area coupled to a current terminal of both transistors configured to shield a control terminal of the reference transistor from coupling of alternating current interference from alternating currents within the primary transistor.

Abstract: A pre-assembled decking panel and strut assembly for data center ceilings and roofs including a decking panel that is a sheet metal in a shape of a wave and an elongated strut member configured such that hanging systems can be attached to the elongated strut member. The peaks and valleys of the decking panel and the strut member extend in a first direction and are spaced in parallel in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction. A top wall of the strut member is affixed to a peak of the decking panel.

Abstract: Data storage devices configured to exploit generative-adversarial-networks (GANs) are described herein, including super-resolution GANs (SRGANs). In some examples, a GAN-based decoding (reconstruction) procedure is implemented within a data storage controller to replace or supplement an error correction coding (ECC) decoding procedure to permit a reduction in the number of parity bits used while storing the data. In other examples, soft bit information is exploited using GANs during decoding. A dissimilarity matrix may be generated to represent differences between an initial image and a GAN-reconstructed image, with matrix values mapped into low-density parity check (LDPC) codewords to facilitate LDPC decoding of data. In still other examples, confidence information obtained from a GAN is incorporated into image pixels. In some examples, GAN reconstruction of image data is limited to modifying valley bits. Multiple GANs may be used in parallel with their outcome aggregated.

Abstract: Data storage devices configured to exploit generative-adversarial-networks (GANs) are described herein, including super-resolution GANs (SRGANs). In some examples, a GAN-based decoding (reconstruction) procedure is implemented within a data storage controller to replace or supplement an error correction coding (ECC) decoding procedure to permit a reduction in the number of parity bits used while storing the data. In other examples, soft bit information is exploited using GANs during decoding. A dissimilarity matrix may be generated to represent differences between an initial image and a GAN-reconstructed image, with matrix values mapped into low-density parity check (LDPC) codewords to facilitate LDPC decoding of data. In still other examples, confidence information obtained from a GAN is incorporated into image pixels. In some examples, GAN reconstruction of data is limited to modifying valley bits. Multiple GANs may be used in parallel with their outcome aggregated. System and method examples are provided.

Abstract: Data storage devices configured to exploit generative-adversarial-networks (GANs) are described herein, including super-resolution GANs (SRGANs). In some examples, a GAN-based decoding (reconstruction) procedure is implemented within a data storage controller to replace or supplement an error correction coding (ECC) decoding procedure to permit a reduction in the number of parity bits used while storing the data. In other examples, soft bit information is exploited using GANs during decoding. A dissimilarity matrix may be generated to represent differences between an initial image and a GAN-reconstructed image, with matrix values mapped into low-density parity check (LDPC) codewords to facilitate LDPC decoding of data. In still other examples, confidence information obtained from a GAN is incorporated into image pixels. In some examples, GAN reconstruction of data is limited to modifying valley bits. Multiple GANs may be used in parallel with their outcome aggregated. System and method examples are provided.

Abstract: A method for producing hydrogen product having a low carbon intensity is provided. The method includes the steps of: (a) converting a hydrocarbon feedstock to a hydrogen product using a hydrocarbon reforming process; (b) providing at least some of the required energy for the hydrogen production process from a biomass power plant; and (c) processing one or more flue gas streams from the biomass power plant in a carbon capture unit to reduce CO2e emissions. The hydrogen product has a carbon intensity preferably less than about 1.0 kg CO2e/kg H2, more preferably less than 0.45 kg CO2e/kg H2, and most preferably less than 0.0 kg CO2e/kg H2.

Abstract: In one embodiment of an audio system, a transducer can be coupled to a passive acoustic directional amplifier to provide various benefits and improvements, including improvements to: speech intelligibility, signal-to-noise ratio, effective equivalent input noise, at-a-distance acoustic signal reception, and directional preference. In another embodiment, the shape of an interior surface of a passive acoustic directional amplifier is provided. In another embodiment, the material properties of an interior surface of a passive acoustic directional amplifier are provided.

Abstract: A deployment device for positioning a soft tissue repair prosthesis includes a self-expanding support body releasably attachable to the prosthesis. The support body may be removably insertable into a pocket of the prosthesis. A handle coupled to the support body facilitates positioning the patch and/or removal of the support body from the pocket. The support body may substantially occupy the pocket in an expanded configuration. The handle may be arranged to direct a pulling force to the outer peripheral edge of the support body and/or cause a portion thereof to be pulled downward and below the body during withdrawal of the deployment device from the prosthesis. The support body may include support segments pivotally coupled together and foldable to collapse the support body for insertion into and removal from the pocket. One or more resilient support members may be provided for collapsing and expanding the support body and the prosthesis.

Abstract: There is a region of interest of a synthetic image depicting an object from a class of objects. A trained neural image generator, having been trained to map embeddings from a latent space to photorealistic images of objects in the class, is accessed. A first embedding is computed from the latent space, the first embedding corresponding to an image which is similar to the region of interest while maintaining photorealistic appearance. A second embedding is computed from the latent space, the second embedding corresponding to an image which matches the synthetic image. Blending of the first embedding and the second embedding is done to form a blended embedding. At least one output image is generated from the blended embedding, the output image being more photorealistic than the synthetic image.

Abstract: Couplers for portable tracking devices. The couplers include a body and an interface member. The body has a planar shape. The interface member is coupled to the body and complementarily configured with a portable tracking device. The interface member is configured to selectively insert into a recess defined in the portable tracking device. In some examples, the body defines a mount for an object. In certain examples, the object is a memory card and the mount is complementarily configured with the memory card. In certain examples, the object is a key and the mount is complementarily configured with the key.

Abstract: Noise injection procedures implemented on the die of a non-volatile memory (NVM) array are disclosed. In one example, noise is injected into data by adjusting read voltages to induce bit flips while using feedback to achieve a target amount of information degradation. In another example, random data is iteratively combined with itself to achieve a target percentage of random 1s or 0s, then the random data is combined with data read from the NVM array. In other examples, pixels are randomly zeroed out to emulate dead charge coupled device (CCD) pixels. In still other examples, the timing, voltage, and/or current values used within circuits while transferring data to/from latches or bitlines are adjusted outside their specified margins to induce bit flips to inject noise into the data. The noise-injected data may be used, for example, for dataset augmentation or for the testing of deep neural networks (DNNs).

Abstract: The invention relates to preparation of food ingredients enriched with a low-glycemic sugar replacement through enzymatic conversion. Food ingredients may be enriched with, for example, D-tagatose, D-allulose, D-allose, D-mannose, D-talose, and/or inositol by enzymatically converting saccharides found in flour, meal, ground tuber, ground pulse, ground bark, starch, malted grain or malt extract, maltodextrin, cellulose, cellodextrin, any of their derivatives (e.g., amylose, amylopectin, dextrin, cellobiose, etc.), and/or sucrose into D-tagatose, D-allulose, D-allose, D-mannose, D-talose and/or inositol. The enriched material can be used as a food ingredient instead of the low-glycemic sugar being purified for use as a food ingredient.

Abstract: This specification describes a method performed by one or more data processing apparatus that includes: sampling a latent from a set of possible latents, selecting actions to be performed by an agent to interact with an environment over a sequence of time steps using an action selection neural network that is conditioned on the sampled latent, determining a respective reward received for each time step in the sequence of time steps using an ensemble of discriminator models, and training the action selection neural network based on the rewards using a reinforcement learning technique. Each discriminator model can process an observation to generate a respective prediction output that predicts which latent the action selection neural network was conditioned on to cause the environment to enter the state characterized by the observation.

Abstract: Disclosed are systems and methods for an interactive digital interface. The disclosed systems and methods provide functionality for generating a user interface (UI) based on data collected respective to a plurality of regions within a location. The UI is configured with segments or partitions that correspond to real-world and/or digital activities among the plurality of regions. The disclosed systems and methods enable multiple devices to simultaneously display the UI, and interact among themselves via data sharing, data editing and/or collaborative interactions among the devices, such that the UI is updated, in real-time, to reflect the interactions among the devices.