Abstract: Disclosed is an article for use with apparatus for heating smokable material to volatilize at least one component of the smokable material. The article includes a sheet including smokable material, and heating material that is heatable by penetration with a varying magnetic field to heat the smokable material. The sheet may be a planar sheet or a rolled sheet. Also disclosed is a system including the article and apparatus for heating smokable material to volatilize at least one component of the smokable material. The apparatus includes a heating zone for receiving at least a portion of the article, and a magnetic field generator for generating a varying magnetic field to be used in heating the smokable material when the portion of the article is in the heating zone.

Abstract: An audio system includes a transducer assembly, an audio sensor, and a controller. The transducer assembly is coupled to a back of an auricle of an ear of the user. The transducer assembly vibrates the auricle over a frequency range to cause the auricle to create an acoustic pressure wave in accordance with vibration instructions. The acoustic sensor detects the acoustic pressure wave at an entrance of the ear of the user. The controller dynamically adjusts a frequency response model based in part on the detected acoustic pressure wave, updates the vibration instructions using the adjusted frequency response model, and provides the updated vibration instructions to the transducer assembly.

Abstract: Embodiments relate to cancelling crosstalk vibrations due to the use of multiple bone conduction transducers by modifying bone conduction signals sent to the bone conduction transducers. The bone conduction signals are modified using an adaptive filter with its coefficients adjusted based on the vibrations generated at a bone conduction transducer and crosstalk vibrations sensed at a vibration sensor assembly. The bone conduction transducer for generating the calibration vibrations and the vibration sensor assembly for detecting the crosstalk vibrations may be placed at opposite sides of the user's head.

Abstract: An audio system includes a transducer assembly, an audio sensor, and a controller. The transducer assembly is coupled to a back of an auricle of an ear of the user. The transducer assembly vibrates the auricle over a frequency range to cause the auricle to create an acoustic pressure wave in accordance with vibration instructions. The acoustic sensor detects the acoustic pressure wave at an entrance of the ear of the user. The controller dynamically adjusts a frequency response model based in part on the detected acoustic pressure wave, updates the vibration instructions using the adjusted frequency response model, and provides the updated vibration instructions to the transducer assembly.

Abstract: An ice merchandiser for storing bagged ice for purchase by a customer is provided. The ice merchandiser includes a payment system for facilitating a bagged ice product transaction at the ice merchandiser. The payment system includes a mass determination module structured to determine a mass of bagged ice product removed during the bagged ice product transaction and a transaction module structured to determine an amount of currency required for the bagged ice product transaction based on the determined mass of bagged ice product removed.

Abstract: The present disclosure features disclosed method of treating disorders such as COPD, bronchitis and/or asthma using disclosed compounds, optionally together with one or more additional active agents. Contemplated methods include administrating orally or by inhalation to a patient one or more disclosed compounds.

Abstract: A translationally maneuverable trailer jack track system includes a frame having dual opposing inwardly facing elongated slotted sides. The frame is adapted to mount to a trailer frame between a ball coupler and a trailer. A carriage is mounted inside the frame with opposing side elements, each opposing side element bears on and is movably disposed within one of the dual opposing elongated slotted side elements, where the carriage has a centrally located jack collar and at least one threaded receiving element. A drive screw traverses the frame lengthwise and is threaded through the carriage threaded receiving element, where the drive screw is constrained on one end by a fastening device and has a drive cap on the other end.

Abstract: A recycling kiosk for recycling and financial remuneration for submission of an electronic device such as a mobile phone is disclosed herein. The recycling kiosk includes electrical connectors and an inspection area with an upper chamber, a lower chamber, a transparent plate and at least one camera in order to perform a visual analysis and an electrical analysis of the electronic device for determination of a value of the electronic device. The recycling kiosk also includes a processor and a display for user interaction.

Abstract: A multi-mode ring scanner (MMRS) has a ring unit for wearing on a finger. The MMRS optionally has a wrist unit coupled to the ring unit, such as via a cable. The MMRS optionally communicates wirelessly with a computing device. The ring unit has one or more scanners (such as an optical scanner or an RFID tag reader). The ring unit optionally has two paddle switches for activation by inward pressure from fingers adjacent to the finger. The two switches enable specifying operation of the MMRS in a plurality of modes and/or to communicate a plurality of information codes to the computing device. The computing device is optionally enabled to assign a function to each combination of activation of the two switches. A scanning system including the MMRS optionally provides feedback to a user based on feedback from a host processor.

Abstract: Described herein are systems and methods for augmenting neural speech synthesis networks with low-dimensional trainable speaker embeddings in order to generate speech from different voices from a single model. As a starting point for multi-speaker experiments, improved single-speaker model embodiments, which may be referred to generally as Deep Voice 2 embodiments, were developed, as well as a post-processing neural vocoder for Tacotron (a neural character-to-spectrogram model). New techniques for multi-speaker speech synthesis were performed for both Deep Voice 2 and Tacotron embodiments on two multi-speaker TTS datasets—showing that neural text-to-speech systems can learn hundreds of unique voices from twenty-five minutes of audio per speaker.

Abstract: A catheter for insertion into vasculature of a patient to a target area in the vasculature includes a hollow inner shaft, a non-occluding self-expandable scaffold coupled to the distal end of the inner shaft and disposed at the distal end of the inner shaft, and a hollow outer shaft. The outer shaft is slidable over the inner shaft and scaffold such that the scaffold is in a non-expanded state when the outer shaft is around the scaffold. The outer shaft has a state where the distal end of the outer shaft remains near the target area without the inner shaft and the scaffold being within the outer shaft. The inner shaft and the scaffold are removable through the proximal end of the outer shaft while the distal end of the outer shaft remains near the target area.

Abstract: Disclosed is an article for use with apparatus for heating smokable material to volatilize at least one component of the smokable material. The article includes a mass of smokable material. An exterior of the article has a length (L), a width (W) perpendicular to the length (L), and a depth (D) perpendicular to each of the length (L) and the width (W). The length (L) is greater than or equal to the width (W), and the width (W) is greater than the depth (D).

Abstract: Disclosed is an article for use with apparatus for heating smokable material to volatilize at least one component of the smokable material, the article including: a malleable container defining a cavity; a mass of smokable material in the cavity; and heating material that is heatable by penetration with a varying magnetic field to heat the smokable material. Also disclosed is a system including: such an apparatus; and an article for use with the apparatus, the article including a container defining a cavity, and a mass of smokable material in the cavity; wherein the apparatus includes a heating zone for receiving at least a portion of the article, and a magnetic field generator for generating a varying magnetic field to be used in heating the smokable material when the portion of the article is in the heating zone.

Abstract: A method, a device, and a computer-readable storage medium is provided for performing the method for automating an assembling sequence operation for a workpiece using an one-up assembly process that uses adjacent hole clamping. The method can include obtaining an adjacency list from points for the workpiece to be assembled; controlling an assembly machine for assembling the workpiece using a sequence of assembly operations based on the adjacency list; identifying potential errors in the sequence of assembly operations; determining a revised sequence of assembly operations based on the potential errors that are identified; and controlling the assembly machine based on the revised sequence of assembly operations.

Abstract: A flow control device (40) for controlling the flow of a pressurized fluent substance is disclosed. The device (40) includes a housing (44, 48, 52) having an inlet portion (44) for receiving the fluent substance, an outlet portion (48) for discharging the fluent substance, and a platform (52). The device (40) further has a valve (56) located within the housing (44, 48, 52). The valve (56) is located between the platform (52) and the outlet portion (48). The valve (56) has a flexible, resilient valve head portion (160) that has confronting, openable portions (212, 216) movable from a closed configuration to an open configuration when the valve head portion (160) is subjected to a pressure differential acting across the valve head portion (160).

Abstract: Presented herein are systems and methods for question answering (QA). In embodiments, extractive question answering (QA) is cast as an iterative search problem through the document's structure: select the answer's sentence, start word, and end word. This representation reduces the space of each search step and allows computation to be conditionally allocated to promising search paths. In embodiments, globally normalizing the decision process and back-propagating through beam search makes this representation viable and learning efficient. Various model embodiments, referred to as Globally Normalized Readers (GNR), achieve excellent performance. Also introduced are embodiments of data-augmentation to produce semantically valid examples by aligning named entities to a knowledge base and performing swaps new entities of the same type. This methodology also improved the performance of GNR models and is of independent interest for a variety of natural language processing (NLP) tasks.

Abstract: Devices and methods for removing an obstruction from a blood vessel are described. The devices are deployed in a collapsed condition and are then expanded within the body. The devices are then manipulated to engage and remove the obstruction.

Abstract: A dishwasher with a tub at least partially defining a washing chamber, a liquid spraying system, a liquid recirculation system defining a recirculation flow path, and a liquid filtering system. The liquid filtering system includes a rotating filter disposed in the recirculation flow path to filter the liquid.