Abstract: A photoexcitable structure, comprising a lithiated nickel oxide (0.1-10% lithium) hole transport layer; a perovskite layer adjacent to the hole transport layer, configured, upon illumination, to generate photoexcited electrons and holes; an electron transport layer, and a buffer layer between the perovskite and ETL, configured to accept electrons from the buffer layer. The buffer layer is formed by atomic layer deposition, with a plurality of atomic layers of at least one resistive oxide having an aggregate thickness of less than 30 nm, configured to impede hole transfer from the perovskite to the electron transport layer, and impede ion migration and water diffusion. Beneath the HTL is a conductive layer or substrate. Above the ETL is an electrode. The entire structure is encapsulated. An alternate embodiment provides a buffer layer over the ETL.

Abstract: Described herein are X-ray-based CT systems, specifically those with a stationary X-ray source and a moving object of interest, and methods of using the same, that address limitations in current stationary-source CT, such as scatter contamination and limited scan trajectories. The described systems include a pre-object collimator to form a narrow beam. Scatter contamination is reduced to less than 5% of acquired projections, resulting in high-quality CT images with minimal artifacts, improving diagnostic accuracy and measurement precision. The described system also allows for nonplanar trajectories, providing complete sampling of an object along multiple degrees of freedom.

Abstract: A hybrid heat pump system comprising a heat pump loop integrated with a hydronic loop. The hybrid heat pump system offers multiple modes of operation to provide increased versatility and improved performance. Each of the loops can operate independently. In addition, the loops can operate in conjunction with each other in both heating and cooling modes. Still further, the hydronic loop can provide a reheat function when the heat pump loop is operating in the cooling mode to provide improved dehumidification of the air delivered to the conditioned space. The heat pump loop may include a hot gas bypass functionality for capacity control and/or freeze protection. The hydronic heat exchanger and the space heat exchanger of the heat pump loop may be combined in a compact single slab construction with a slit fin preventing cross-conduction between the heat exchanger sections.

Abstract: An embodiment of the instant disclosure comprises a reversible heat pump and water heating system for conditioning a space and heating water. The system comprises a refrigerant circuit that includes a compressor, a source heat exchanger, a space heat exchanger, and an expansion device. A 4-way reversing valve alternates between heating and cooling modes of operation. The system includes a heat exchanger for heating water in the water heating loop, and a 3-way valve that either actuates the refrigerant flow through the water heater heat exchanger or bypasses at least a portion of the refrigerant flow around the water heater heat exchanger. The heat pump system is operable in at least five modes—space heating only, space cooling only, water heating only, and either space heating or space cooling combined with water heating.

Abstract: An apparatus and method for detecting the angle of passive rotary knob partially located on a touch screen are described. In embodiments the apparatus includes a touch screen having an array of sensors and a dial that includes a base and a knob attached to the base and rotatable relative to the base. The knob includes a plurality of conductive elements, each positioned a distance from a center point of the knob. A controller is also included, coupled to the touch screen, and configured to receive signals generated by one or more sensors of the array in response to the sensors detecting one or more of the conductive elements. The controller can determine a rotational angle of the knob based on the signals generated by the one or more of the sensors in the array while a portion of the knob does not overlap the array of sensors.

Abstract: In one aspect, the present disclosure provides a formulation comprising a hyaluronidase enzyme and a therapeutically effective amount of an active ingredient. In another aspect, the present disclosure provides a method of administering a high volume of the formulation in a single administration to treat a disease or disorder in a subject.

Abstract: Exemplary embodiments relate to systems, methods, and apparatus to objectively assess binocular dysfunction for screening, diagnoses, and evaluation of vision/oculomotor function before, during, and after various forms of therapeutic interventions. Systems and methods diagnose and assess binocular dysfunction objectively and automatically, can render a visual stimulus on one or more displays, and can control accommodative and proximal vergence stimulation of a user's eyes.

Abstract: A method includes receiving a sequence of acoustic frames characterizing one or more utterances as input to a multilingual automated speech recognition (ASR) model. The method also includes generating a higher order feature representation for a corresponding acoustic frame. The method also includes generating a hidden representation based on a sequence of non-blank symbols output by a final softmax layer. The method also includes generating a probability distribution over possible speech recognition hypotheses based on the hidden representation generated by the prediction network at each of the plurality of output steps and the higher order feature representation generated by the encoder at each of the plurality of output steps. The method also includes predicting an end of utterance (EOU) token at an end of each utterance. The method also includes classifying each acoustic frame as either speech, initial silence, intermediate silence, or final silence.

Abstract: The present invention provides systems, methods, and articles for temperature conditioning a surface. An article is formed from a first layer having a plurality of openings and a second layer having a corresponding plurality of openings. At least one interior chamber constructed and configured to retain a fluid without leaking is defined between an interior surface of the first layer and an interior surface of the second layer. At least one flexible fluid supply line delivers the fluid to the at least one interior chamber. At least one flexible fluid return line removes the fluid from the at least one interior chamber. At least one control unit that is operable to selectively cool or heat the fluid is attached to the at least one flexible fluid supply line and the at least one flexible fluid return line.

Abstract: A method includes receiving a sequence of acoustic frames and generating, by a first encoder, a first higher order feature representation for a corresponding acoustic frame in the sequence of acoustic frames. The method also includes generating, by a first pass transducer decoder, a first pass speech recognition hypothesis for a corresponding first higher order feature representation and generating, by a text encoder, a text encoding for a corresponding first pass speech recognition hypothesis. The method also includes generating, by a second encoder, a second higher order feature representation for a corresponding first higher order feature representation. The method also includes generating, by a second pass transducer decoder, a second pass speech recognition hypothesis using a corresponding second higher order feature representation and a corresponding text encoding.

Abstract: Systems as described herein may include authorizing the sharing of data and sharing data between a variety of systems. A request to share data may be provided to a first system. The system may create sharing session data using smart contracts executed by a distributed network system. Sharing session data may be stored using a smart contract. A second system may obtain the sharing session data and verify the sharing session based on the execution of the smart contract. On verification of the sharing session, a variety of data may be shared between the systems identified in the sharing session data. The sharing session data may be established between two systems and/or a number of systems. Smart contracts may provide a variety of functions for authorizing the sharing of data between systems. Additionally, encrypted data may be stored and/or obtained using a smart contract.

Abstract: An HVAC system is disclosed, comprising: (a) a compressor, (b) a source heat exchanger for exchanging heat with a source fluid, (c) a first load heat exchanger operable for heating/cooling air in a space, (d) a second load heat exchanger for heating water, (e) first and second reversing valves, (f) first and second 3-way valves, (f) a bi-directional electronic expansion valve, (g) a first bi-directional valve, and (h) a second bi-directional valve to modulate exchange of heat in the first load heat exchanger when operating as an evaporator and to control flashing of the refrigerant entering the source heat exchanger when operating as an evaporator, (h) a source pump for circulating the source fluid through the first load heat exchanger, (i) a water pump for circulating water through the second load heat exchanger, and (j) a controller to control operation of the foregoing.

Abstract: A system and method are provided for creating magnetic resonance (MR) images with reduced motion artifacts from the MR data from which the images are produced. The method includes selecting a candidate image from a plurality of candidate images reconstructed from the MR data. The method also includes registering the candidate image to a reference image, comparing the candidate image to a consistency map, and, based on comparing the candidate image using the consistency map, selecting a blending algorithm. The method also includes generating a blended image using the blending algorithm and the candidate image and repeating these steps for each candidate image. The method also includes performing a Fourier aggregation to generate a combined image and displaying the combined image with reduced motion artifacts compared to the plurality of candidate images.

Abstract: A heat exchanger for receiving an airflow having an uneven intensity distribution across the heat exchanger and for flowing refrigerant within the heat exchanger. The heat exchanger includes sections of microchannel tubes for flowing refrigerant through at least one pass through the heat exchanger, wherein the sections are configured according to the airflow across the heat exchanger. The heat exchanger may be used in an HVAC system. A method may also be performed to manufacture the heat exchanger.

Abstract: Two-pass automatic speech recognition (ASR) models can be used to perform streaming on-device ASR to generate a text representation of an utterance captured in audio data. Various implementations include a first-pass portion of the ASR model used to generate streaming candidate recognition(s) of an utterance captured in audio data. For example, the first-pass portion can include a recurrent neural network transformer (RNN-T) decoder. Various implementations include a second-pass portion of the ASR model used to revise the streaming candidate recognition(s) of the utterance and generate a text representation of the utterance. For example, the second-pass portion can include a listen attend spell (LAS) decoder. Various implementations include a shared encoder shared between the RNN-T decoder and the LAS decoder.

Abstract: A method for performing speech recognition using sequence-to-sequence models includes receiving audio data for an utterance and providing features indicative of acoustic characteristics of the utterance as input to an encoder. The method also includes processing an output of the encoder using an attender to generate a context vector, generating speech recognition scores using the context vector and a decoder trained using a training process, and generating a transcription for the utterance using word elements selected based on the speech recognition scores. The transcription is provided as an output of the ASR system.

Abstract: A system and method is provided for enhancing an input image using a dual-stage image enhancement network. The method includes: generating locally-enhanced image data based on an input image using a local enhancement network as a part of a first stage, wherein the local enhancement network includes a local image encoder that generates local enhancement data that indicates one or more image enhancement techniques to apply to a local region of the input image; and generating globally-enhanced image data based on the locally-enhanced image data using a global enhancement network as a part of a second stage, wherein the global enhancement network includes a plurality of global feature subnetworks, and wherein each of the global feature subnetworks is configured to draw attention to a different aspect of the locally-enhanced image data.

Abstract: A method of three-dimensional reconstruction of human heads using a single photo in the form of polygonal mesh, with animation and realistic rendering capabilities for novel head poses is provided. The method includes encoding, by using a first convolutional neural network, a single source image into a neural texture; estimating, by a pre-trained detailed expression capture and animation (DECA) system, a face shape, a facial expression, and a head pose by using the single source image and a target image, and providing an initial mesh; providing a predicted mesh of a head mesh based on the initial mesh and the neural texture; rendering a human image by using the predicted mesh.

Abstract: Various embodiments of a successive choice game including methods and apparatus are described. Further embodiments are disclosed.

Abstract: An HVAC system is disclosed, comprising: (a) a compressor, (b) a source heat exchanger for exchanging heat with a source fluid, (c) a first load heat exchanger operable for heating/cooling air in a space, (d) a second load heat exchanger for heating water, (e) first and second reversing valves, (f) first and second 3-way valves, (f) a bi-directional electronic expansion valve, (g) a first bi-directional valve, and (h) a second bi-directional valve to modulate exchange of heat in the first load heat exchanger when operating as an evaporator and to control flashing of the refrigerant entering the source heat exchanger when operating as an evaporator, (h) a source pump for circulating the source fluid through the first load heat exchanger, (i) a water pump for circulating water through the second load heat exchanger, and (j) a controller to control operation of the foregoing.