Abstract: An electrode and a lithium-ion battery employing the electrode are provided. The electrode includes an active layer, a conductive layer, and a non-conductive layer. The conductive layer is disposed on the top surface of the active layer. The conductive layer includes a first porous film and a conductive lithiophilic material, and the conductive lithiophilic material is within the first porous film and covers the inner surface of the first porous film. The non-conductive layer includes a second porous film and a non-conductive lithiophilic material, and the non-conductive lithiophilic material is within the second porous film and covers the inner surface of the second porous film. The conductive layer is disposed between the active layer and the non-conductive layer. The binding energy (?G) of the lithiophilic material with lithium is less than or equal to ?2.6 eV.

Abstract: Distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) systems and methods that automatically detect vibration signal patterns from waterfall data recorded by DFOS system operations in real- time and associate the detected vibration signal patterns to GPS location coordinates without human intervention or interpretation. When embodied as a computer vision-based operation according to aspects of the present disclosure, our inventive systems and method provide accurate, cost-efficient, and objective determination without relying on humans and their resulting bias' and inconsistencies.

Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe physical layer security in optical telecommunications networks wherein a filtering-based physical security is provided by a wavelength tunable distributed fiber optical sensing (DFOS) system operating simultaneously on the telecommunications network.

Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe systems, methods and structures providing wide-area traffic monitoring based on distributed fiber-optic sensing (DFOS) that employs deep neural network(s) for denoising noisy waterfall traces measured by the DFOS. Such systems, methods, and structures according to aspects of the present disclosure may advantageously monitor multiple highways/roadways using a single interrogator and optical fiber switch(es) which provides traffic information along every sensing point of existing, deployed, in-service optical telecommunications facilities.

Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) systems, methods, and structures that advantageously identify location(s) of construction—or other activities—taking place along fiber optic cable routes that can damage the fiber optic cables.

Abstract: Disclosed is a device for selective oxidation of macromolecular organic pollutants using free radicals produced in a heterogeneous Fenton reaction. The device includes a heterogeneous Fenton reaction unit and an electrochemical cell. The heterogeneous Fenton reaction unit includes a reactor and an anion exchange membrane. The anion exchange membrane is disposed in the reactor and separates the reactor into a first chamber and a second chamber. The first chamber is filled with a catalyst and the wastewater to be treated; and the second chamber is filled with a dielectric material. The electrochemical cell is configured to supply an electric field to the reactor, so that organic acids generated by a heterogeneous Fenton reaction move from the first chamber into the second chamber.

Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe systems, methods and structures providing bidirectional optical fiber communication and sensing using the same fiber transmission band and bidirectional WDM fiber sharing such that communications channels and optical fiber sensing channel(s) coexist on the same fiber. As a result, nonlinear interaction between communications channels and interrogating pulse(s) of sensing are much reduced or eliminated.

Abstract: A high-power resistor includes a substrate, a resistor layer, two edge electrodes, and a seed layer. The substrate has a first surface. The resistor layer is mounted on the first surface of the substrate. The two edge electrodes are mounted on the resistor layer. The seed layer is mounted between the resistor layer and the two edge electrodes. A contacting surface between one of the two edge electrodes and the resistor layer is bigger than contacting side surfaces of a printed resistor layer and printed conduction layers from a conventional chip resistor, creating less electrical resistance. When high-power electricity passes through the resistor layer, heat generated by a large passing current can be equally dissipated in all directions on the contact surface. With less electrical resistance and better heat dissipation, the contacting surface enables the high-power resistor to tolerate greater electric power.

Abstract: A method of in situ point spread function (PSF) retrieval is disclosed which includes encoding 3D location of molecules into PSFs, receiving molecule-generated images containing PSFs, segmenting the images into sub-PSFs, initializing template PSFs from a pupil function, determining a maximum normalized cross correlation (NCC) coefficient (NCCmax) between the sub- and template PSFs, associating each of the sub-PSFs with a template PSF based on the NCCmax and storing the sub-PSFs in associated bins, aligning and averaging the binned sub-PSFs, applying a phase retrieval algorithm to the averaged sub-PSFs to update the pupil function, regenerating the template PSFs, repeating until a difference between a new and a prior generation pupil function is below a predetermined threshold, generating in situ PSFs from the last pupil function, and applying a maximum likelihood estimation algorithm based on the in situ PSFs and the sub-PSFs to thereby generate lateral and axial locations of molecules.

Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) systems, methods, and structures that advantageously measure wind speed at utility poles that support fiber optic cables and—in many applications—electrical and/or other communications cables (i.e., cable television).

Abstract: Provided is an expression vector including a nucleotide sequence for encoding lysine decarboxylase CadA, and a sequence of a constitutive promoter for regulating the expression of the nucleotide sequence. Also provided is a recombinant microorganism including the expression vector and a method of producing 1,5-diaminopentane by using the recombinant microorganism.

Abstract: A combination control and check valve assembly for a wet piping system includes a control valve in the form of a ball valve and a one-way check valve mounted within the flow pathway of the ball valve. A valve actuation assembly is mounted to the valve assembly to selectively rotate the ball valve between the open and closed positions thereof. The valve actuation assembly is mounted to a first side of the valve assembly and rotationally fixed to the ball, whereby rotation of the valve actuation assembly rotates the ball between the open and closed positions. A side opening is formed in a second side of the valve assembly that is angularly spaced from the first side. The side opening is positioned to align with the fluid flow pathway of the ball valve in the closed position thereof to provide access to the check valve.

Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe DFOS systems, methods, and structures that advantageously extract road traffic from DFOS vibration patterns such that anomaly detection is possible. Sensed vibration data is represented accurately as a set of points, where each point is denoted as a tuple with elements indicating a time stamp, a location along a length of a DFOS optical sensing cable, and vibration strength detected at the location at the time. Traffic pattern detection is based on a progressive probabilistic Hough transform (PPHT) that exploits global information from an entire spatial-temporal data snapshot to assess a cause of detected vibrations.

Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) systems, methods, and structures that advantageously extend DFOS techniques to anomaly detection using optical magnetism switches (OMC) that are integrated into the DFOS system.

Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe optical fiber sensing systems, methods and structures disclosing a distributed optical fiber sensor network constructed on a switched optical fiber telecommunications infrastructure to detect temperatures, acoustic effects, and vehicle traffic—among others—demonstrated with a number of different network topologies.

Abstract: The disclosure provides a method for manufacturing a separator, comprising the steps of: providing a nonporous precursor substrate; coating a heat-resistant slurry on a surface of the nonporous precursor substrate to form a heat-resistant coating layer, wherein the heat-resistant slurry comprises a binder and a plurality of inorganic particles; and stretching the nonporous precursor substrate with the heat-resistant coating layer formed thereon to generate a separator comprising a porous substrate and a heat-resistant layer; wherein the heat-resistant layer is disposed on the surface of the porous substrate in the range of 10% to 90% of the total surface area of the porous substrate.

Abstract: A method and an apparatus for processing a high dynamic range (HDR) video including a subtitle, where the method includes: encapsulating HDR video data into a video data frame that matches a transmission interface; encapsulating subtitle information into a subtitle information frame that matches the transmission interface; and separately transmitting the video data frame and the subtitle information frame to a display device through the transmission interface, where the video data frame and the subtitle information frame are packets in two types of formats. According to the method provided in this application, content and subtitle information of a dynamic metadata HDR video are separately transmitted to the display device. In this way, the display device can obtain the separated video content and subtitle information, and then separately perform corresponding processing on the HDR video and a subtitle.

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: 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,