Abstract: Provided are a newly designed HIV-1 Env trimer protein, and an HIV-1 pseudovirus and virus expressing the Env trimer protein, and the use thereof for the prevention and/or treatment of HIV infection.

Abstract: A method for making a middle-of-line interconnect structure in a semiconductor device includes forming, near a surface of a first interconnect structure comprised of a first metal, a region of varied composition including the first metal and a second element. The method further includes forming a recess within the region of varied composition. The recess laterally extends a first distance along the surface and vertically extends a second distance below the first surface. The method further includes filling the recess with a second metal to form a second interconnect structure that contacts the first interconnect structure.

Abstract: A contact lens includes a lens body, an electronic component, and a circuit structure. The lens body includes an optical portion and an annular wearing portion that surrounds the optical portion. The annular wearing portion has a layout region having a C-shape and a lower eyelid region that is arranged between two ends of the layout region. The electronic component is embedded in the lower eyelid region. The circuit structure is embedded in the annular wearing portion. The circuit structure includes a carrier and a circuit that is formed on the carrier and that is connected to the electronic component. The carrier has a C-shaped segment embedded in the layout region. The C-shaped segment has at least one thru-hole having an area that is within a range from 1% to 85% of an area surrounded by an outer contour of the C-shaped segment.

Abstract: A contact lens includes a lens body and an embedded module. The lens body has an optical portion and an annular wearing portion that surrounds the optical portion. The embedded module includes a pre-mold body being made of an eye-friendly material and a circuit structure that is embedded in the pre-mold body. The pre-mold body is entirely embedded in the annular wearing portion of the lens body, and the pre-mold body is ring-shaped and surrounds an outside of the optical portion. The pre-mold body and the lens body are gaplessly connected to each other so as to jointly form a connection interface therebetween that is spaced apart from a rear surface and a front surface of the lens body. Surfaces of the circuit structure are partially flush with an outer surface of the pre-mold body, and are connected to the annular wearing portion.

Abstract: A contact lens includes a lens body, an electronic component, and a circuit structure. The lens body includes an optical portion and an annular wearing portion that surrounds the optical portion. The annular wearing portion has a layout region having a C-shape and a lower eyelid region that is arranged between two ends of the layout region. The electronic component is embedded in the lower eyelid region. The circuit structure is embedded in the annular wearing portion. The annular wearing portion has a plurality of positioning slots recessed from a surface thereof toward the circuit structure, and a bottom side of each of the positioning slots contains a part of the circuit structure. An area sum of openings of the positioning slots is equal to or less than 1% of a sum of surface areas of the lens body.

Abstract: A contact lens includes a lens body and an embedded module. The lens body has an optical portion and an annular wearing portion surrounding the optical portion. The embedded module is embedded in the annular wearing portion, and includes a front supporting ring, a rear supporting ring, and a circuit structure that is sandwiched between the front supporting ring and the rear supporting ring. Each of the front supporting ring and the rear supporting ring is made of an eye-friendly material and surrounds the optical portion. A front curved surface of the front supporting ring is flush with a front surface of the lens body. A rear curved surface of the rear supporting ring is flush with a rear surface of the lens body so as to be jointly configured for being worn on an eye.

Abstract: A machine learning (ML)/artificial intelligence (AI) based distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) system and method providing detection and localization of gunshot events. In addition to the ML/AI DFOS, a signal processing pipeline that compresses an audible distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) waveform data into a small set of features that protects privacy of individuals while preserving the utility of acoustic events to detect the gunshot events and discriminate same from other events. A data-driven deep learning approach automatically predicts acoustic event types with higher accuracy that realized by prior art methods.

Abstract: A contact lens is provided and includes a lens body and an embedded structure embedded in the lens body. The lens body includes a cornea portion and a sclera portion surrounding the cornea portion, and a connection boundary between the cornea portion and the sclera portion has an inner diameter within a range from 11.5 mm to 12.3 mm. The cornea portion defines a layout boundary spaced apart from the connection boundary by a distance within a range from 3.8 mm to 4.2 mm. The embedded structure is arranged outside of the layout boundary, and has a three-dimensional (3D) carrier. The 3D carrier has at least one oxygen permeable channel having a central angle of 360 degrees. Along a top-down direction, at most 70% of an area of an annular layout region between the layout boundary and the connection boundary is shielded by the embedded structure.

Abstract: A contact lens includes a lens body, an electronic component, and a circuit structure. The lens body includes an optical portion and an annular wearing portion that surrounds the optical portion. The annular wearing portion has a layout region having a C-shape and a lower eyelid region that is arranged between two ends of the layout region. A front surface of the lens body has a viewable surface corresponding in position to the optical portion and a free curved surface that corresponds in position to the annular wearing portion. The viewable surface has a first curvature that is different from a second curvature of the free curved surface, so that a thickness of the annular wearing portion gradually increases in a direction toward the lower eyelid region. The electronic component is embedded in the lower eyelid region. The circuit structure is embedded in the annular wearing portion.

Abstract: A method for making a middle-of-line interconnect structure in a semiconductor device includes forming, near a surface of a first interconnect structure comprised of a first metal, a region of varied composition including the first metal and a second element. The method further includes forming a recess within the region of varied composition. The recess laterally extends a first distance along the surface and vertically extends a second distance below the first surface. The method further includes filling the recess with a second metal to form a second interconnect structure that contacts the first interconnect structure.

Abstract: A distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) system including a smart-mat that: 1) identifies indoor locations of moving persons/objects; 2) provides a 2D visual mapping; and 3) covers any blind spots with supplemental technologies including LiDAR, RF radar, etc. The DFOS system with smart-mat may be deployed virtually anywhere indoors and may even be constructed to replace carpeting. When our inventive DFOS system and smart-mat is deployed throughout an entire building, building safety and security is greatly improved by providing up-to-date localization information of building occupants while eliminating blind zones and reducing maintenance costs.

Abstract: A distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) system and method employing a fiber optic sensor cable that autonomously collects DFOS data and employs artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) to distinguish sections of the fiber optic sensor cable that are above ground (aerial), below ground (buried), and buried but occasionally above ground, in addition to any change(s) that occur with respect to the fiber optic sensor cable at such sections.

Abstract: A semiconductor structure includes: a U-metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (UMOS) structure; and a trench junction barrier Schottky (TJBS) diode, wherein an insulating layer of a sidewall of the TJBS diode does not have a side gate.

Abstract: A control valve assembly includes a valve body defining an inlet, an outlet and a fluid flow pathway therebetween. A ball valve is positioned within the fluid flow pathway and includes a rotatable ball having an inlet opening, an outlet opening and a flow pathway therebetween, an upstream seat ring positioned at an inlet side of the ball, and a downstream seat ring positioned at a downstream side of the ball, the seat rings being configured to substantially seal off fluid flow between upstream and downstream sides of the ball except through the ball fluid flow pathway. At least one of the upstream and downstream seat rings is a dynamic sealing seat ring. A retainer ring is positioned between the dynamic sealing seat ring and a portion of the rotatable ball to substantially prevent deformation of a portion of the dynamic sealing seat ring in a direction toward the ball.

Abstract: The present disclosure discloses the use of gene encoding gibberellin 3?-hydroxylase of G. max, GmGA3ox1. The use of gibberellin 3?-hydroxylase gene of G. max, GmGA3ox1, set forth in SEQ ID NO:1, in genetic engineering of seed weight of Arabidopsis thaliana and Glycine max. In A. thaliana, overexpression of GmGA3ox1 can complement the low seed weight phenotype of atga3ox1 mutant. In G. max, overexpression of the excellent haplotype of the gene can significantly improve the seed weight of G. max.

Abstract: A video signal processing method which includes: performing luminance mapping and color gamut conversion after color space conversion and non-linear space-to-linear space conversion are performed on a to-be-processed video signal, performing linear space-to-non-linear space conversion and color space conversion on the color gamut-converted signal, and then performing saturation mapping on the converted signal, to obtain a video signal that matches a format supported by a display device, so that the to-be-processed video signal can be correctly displayed on the display device.

Abstract: A semiconductor structure includes a Schottky diode structure, which includes: a first trench extending through a first N-type semiconductor layer and being disposed in the first N-type semiconductor layer; a first insulating layer disposed in the first trench; two polysilicon layers or metal silicide layers disposed in the first trench, wherein an upper one and a lower one of the polysilicon layers or metal silicide layers are disposed in parallel; a first P-type protective layer, which is grounded and disposed on a bottom of the first trench, and contacts the first insulating layer and a bottom surface of the lower one of the polysilicon layers or metal silicide layers; a metal layer respectively disposed as a top surface and a lower bottom surface of the semiconductor structure to form a source and a drain as electrodes for the semiconductor structure to be connected to an external device.

Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe an unsupervised context encoder-based fiber sensing method that detects anomalous vibrations proximate to a sensor fiber that is part of a distributed fiber optic sensing system (DFOS) such that damage to the sensor fiber by activities producing and anomalous vibrations are preventable. Advantageously, our method requires only normal data streams and a machine learning based operation is utilized to analyze the sensing data and report abnormal events related to construction or other fiber-threatening activities in real-time. Our machine learning algorithm is based on waterfall image inpainting by context encoder and is self-trained in an end-to-end manner and extended every time the DFOS sensor fiber is optically connected to a new route. Accordingly, our inventive method and system it is much easier to deploy as compared to supervised methods of the prior art.

Abstract: Methods and systems for training a neural network include generate an image of a mask. A copy of an image is generated from an original set of training data. The copy is altered to add the image of a mask to a face detected within the copy. An augmented set of training data is generated that includes the original set of training data and the altered copy. A neural network model is trained to recognize masked faces using the augmented set of training data.

Abstract: A light guide plate has a light-incident end and a bottom surface. The bottom surface has a near-light source region and a visible region. The near-light source region is closer to the light-incident end than the visible region. The near-light source region includes a plurality of first microstructures, and at least part of the first microstructures is recessed on the bottom surface and has an inner concave surface. The inner concave surface has a plurality of annular structures concave or convex with respect to the inner concave surface. The annular structures are distributed at interval on the inner concave surface along a concave direction of the first microstructure.