Abstract: The present disclosure provides a process for cleaning raw product gas. The process includes contacting the raw product gas with a flow of catalyst to reform organic contaminants and inorganic contaminants in the raw product gas and to remove particulates. Further, the process includes cooling the resulting product gas via heat exchange with a heat exchange medium in the presence of char or a solid adsorbent medium to condense remaining organic contaminants and inorganic contaminants on the char or solid adsorbent medium and to filter out fine particulates.

Abstract: An access point that provides video streaming performs a bottleneck QoE maximization solution utilizing the latest media transport technology developed by MPEG known as MPEG Media Transport (MMT). The access point includes a transceiver configured to transmit one or more video sequences. The access point also includes one or more processors configured to perform bottleneck coordination by utilizing MMT to transmit, via the transceiver, the one or more video sequences.

Abstract: An article with a body having spaced channels created at a surface of the body and extending into the body, wherein the channels are located at controlled spaced locations. The channeled or microchanneled articles may be in the form of channeled or microchanneled membranes or otherwise. Methods of manufacturing channeled articles and uses of the channeled articles are described.

Abstract: Methods and systems for a multimedia queue management solution that maintaining graceful Quality of Experience (QoE) degradation are provided. The method selects a frame from all weighted queues based on a gradient function indicating a network performance rate change and a distortion rate caused by the frame and its related frames in the queue, and dropping the selected frame and all its related frames, and continues to drop similarly chosen frame until a network performance rate change caused by the dropping frame and its related frames meets a predetermined performance metric. A frame gradient is a distortion rate divided by a network performance rate change caused by the frame and its related frames, and a distortion rate is based on a sum of each individual frame distortion rate when the frame and its related frames are replaced by some other frames derived from remaining frames based on a replacement method.

Abstract: To improve feature selection accuracy during a visual search, interest points within a query image are two-way matched to features in an affine transformed image or otherwise transformed version of the query image. A user device implements a method for selecting local descriptors in the visual search. The method includes: detecting a first set of interest points for the original image; computing an affine transform matrix; computing a new image as a transformation of the original image using the affine transform matrix; detecting a second set of interest points from the and new image; performing a two-way matching between the first set of interest points and the second set of interest points; sorting matching pairs according to a specified self-matching score (SMS); assigning an infinite value to SMS of unmatched interest points from the original image; selecting the interest points based on SMS. Significant performance gains reduce false positive matches.

Abstract: A method for delivering content in a communication network includes receiving, by a cache, a request message requesting content to be served. The method includes storing multiple cache manifests corresponding to indicating content and capabilities of a plurality of caches. Each cache manifest indicates content and capabilities of a respective one of the caches and lists descriptions of the content stored in the respective cache. The method includes determining, based on information in the plurality of cache manifests, to serve the requested content, by selecting a cache from which to serve the requested content. The method includes in response to the determination, instructing the selected cache to transmit the requested content to a client device that generated the request message; and alternatively determining to not serve the requested content, based on the information in the plurality of cache manifests, and forwarding the request message to a higher level device.

Abstract: A method for providing media content in a computer network includes storing the media content, where the media content includes a segment having a group of frames. The method also includes determining a transmission rate for traffic to a client device. The method further includes selecting a subset of frames to drop from the group of frames based on (i) the transmission rate and (ii) a frame difference distortion (FDIFF) metric of each frame in the subset of frames. The method also includes shaping the segment by dropping the selected subset of frames from the group of frames, where the shaped segment has a lower bitrate than the segment. In addition, the method includes transmitting the shaped segment to the client device.

Abstract: A method of hydrotreatment is provided. The method includes providing a material that is suitable for undergoing hydrotreatment; mixing the material with a hydrogenation agent to form a feed stream; and heating the feed stream to break chemical bonds of the material in the presence of a catalyst. The feed stream is heated to at least a temperature at which the catalyst can provide activated hydrogen to react with the broken bonds within the material so as to minimize coke formed from the material. A system for conducting the method is also provided.

Abstract: A method of gasifying carbonaceous material is described. The method comprises a first step of pyrolysing and partially gasifying the carbonaceous material to produce volatiles and char. The volatiles and the char are then separated and, subsequently, the char is gasified and the volatiles are reformed. The raw product gas is then finally cleaned with char or char-supported catalysts or other catalysts.

Abstract: A system and a method for progressive queries, which are a sequence of queries for visual search of an image, sent from a sender to a receiver of a communication network, are disclosed. Queries based on a set of feature points and their associated locations of an image may be selected in sequence. A sender sends a first query to a receiver, wherein the first query comprises a number of feature points which is a subset of the set of feature points of the image invariant to rotation and scaling in creating the image. The sender receives a feedback from the receiver, wherein the feedback is generated by the receiver based on searching an image repository using information from the first query. The sender then decides whether there is a match of the image in the image repository based on the received feedback.

Abstract: A method and apparatus include extracting a global descriptor from a query image with a plurality of segments. The method also includes identifying segments with a desirable discriminating potential by analyzing data of the plurality of segments based on an available image database. The method also includes creating a bitmask where the identified segments are active. The method also includes masking any segment of the plurality of segments of the global descriptor that are inactive according to the bitmask A method includes extracting a global descriptor from a query image and identifying one or more reference global descriptors. The method also includes determining a distance between the global descriptor and each of the one or more reference global descriptors. In addition, the method includes, responsive to the distance satisfying a threshold, adding an image associated with each of the one or more reference global descriptors that satisfy the threshold to a list.

Abstract: A wireless communication device includes a processor configured to execute an image query. The image query utilizes cluster selection criteria for a cluster-aggregation based vectorization of a set of local features based on a quantity of top local features having the highest posteriori probability values. The cluster selection criterion is measured as the summation of the posteriori probability values of the top local features. The quantity of top local features is determined by a predetermined integer value greater than one.

Abstract: Global descriptors for images within an image repository accessible to a visual search server are compared based on order statistics processing including sorting (which is a non-linear transform) and heat kernel matching. Affinity scores are computed for Hamming distances between Fisher vector components corresponding to different clusters of global descriptors from a pair of images and normalized to [0, 1], with zero affinity scores assigned to non-active cluster pairs. Linear Discriminant Analysis is employed to determine a sorted vector of affinity scores to obtain a new global descriptor. The resulting global descriptors produce significantly more accurate matching.

Abstract: A method for obtaining content includes determining that a playout of one or more other pieces of content is dependent upon a playout of a first piece of content. The method also includes obtaining the first piece of content and identifying a forced content token associated with the first piece of content. The method further includes obtaining an access token using the forced content token. In addition, the method includes using the access token to obtain the one or more other pieces of content. The forced content token could be identified as a hash of the first piece of content or as a watermark extracted from the first piece of content. The forced content token could also be identified by creating a thumbnail for each of one or more frames in the first piece of content and calculating a differential trace signature for each of the one or more frames.

Abstract: To improve precision of visual search processing, SIFT points within a query image are forward matched to features in each of a plurality of repository images and SIFT points within each repository image are backward matched to features within the query image. Forward-only, backward-only and forward-and-backward matches may be weighted differently in determining an image match. Two way matching may be triggered by query image bit rate in excess of a threshold or by a sum of weighted distances between matching points exceeding a threshold. Significant performance gains in eliminating false positive matches are achieved.

Abstract: To improve feature selection accuracy during a visual search, interest points within a query image are two-way matched to features in an affine transformed image or otherwise transformed version of the query image. A user device implements a method for selecting local descriptors in the visual search. The method includes: detecting a first set of interest points for the original image; computing an affine transform matrix; computing a new image as a transformation of the original image using the affine transform matrix; detecting a second set of interest points from the and new image; performing a two-way matching between the first set of interest points and the second set of interest points; sorting matching pairs according to a specified self-matching score (SMS); assigning an infinite value to SMS of unmatched interest points from the original image; selecting the interest points based on SMS. Significant performance gains reduce false positive matches.

Abstract: A system (100) and method (200) for efficient video adaptation of an input video (102) is provided. The method can include segmenting (210) the input video into a plurality of video shots (142) using a video trace (111) to exploit a temporal structure of the input video, selecting (220) a subset of frames (144) for the video shots that minimizes a distortion of adapted video (152) using the video trace, and selecting transcoding parameters (122) for the subset of frames to produce an optimal video quality of the adapted video under constraints of frame rate, bit rate, and viewing time constraint. The video trace is a compact representation for temporal and spatial distortions for frames in the input video. A spatio-temporal rate-distortion model (320) provides selection of the transcoding parameters during adaptation.

Abstract: A method and an apparatus for processing an image generates, using a linear embedding operator, a second set of feature points from a first set of feature points of the image, so that a pair-wise nearest neighbor (NN) topological relationship among the first set of feature points is preserved in the second set of feature points. The linear embedding operator is determined by an affinity model comprising a first affinity parameter, a second affinity parameter, and an affinity matrix, wherein a sparsity of the affinity matrix is controlled by the first affinity parameter and the second affinity parameter.

Abstract: An embodiment of an apparatus to authenticate a sequence of video frames includes a process to choose intra-frames of the sequence and sample DC components thereof to produce a set of test fingerprints. To reduce a dimensionality of the test fingerprints, the DC components of the chosen intra-frames are multiplied by a projection matrix formed of eigenvectors associated with the larger eigenvalues of a covariance matrix for a library of frames. The projected test fingerprints are compared against a reference set of fingerprints for authentication. Time-stamp spacings of the chosen intra-frames are determined, and these spacings are employed to select candidate frames for authentication in the reference set of fingerprints.

Abstract: A method and an apparatus for processing an image generate a first vector of a first number dimension for the image from a first number of points of the image based on topological information of the first number of points, and the first vector for the image is invariant to rotation and scaling in creating the image. The first number of points may be locations of a set of rotation and scaling invariant feature points for the image, and the generated first vector may be a graph spectrum of a pair-wise distance matrix generated from the first number of points of the image.