Voice Activity Detection (VAD) is considered as an important pre-processing step in speech processing systems such as speech enhancement, speech recognition, gender and age identification. VAD helps in reducing the time required to process speech data and to improve final system accuracy by focusing the work on the voiced part of the speech. An automatic technique for VAD using Fuzzy-Neuro technique (FN-AVAD) is presented in this paper. The aim of this work is to alleviate the problem of choosing the best threshold value in traditional VAD methods and achieves automaticity by combining fuzzy clustering and machine learning techniques. Four features are extracted from each speech segment, which are short term energy, zero-crossing rate, autocorrelation, and log energy. A modified version of fuzzy C-Means is then used to cluster speech segments into three clusters; two clusters for voice and one for unvoiced. After that, three feed forward neural networks are trained to adjust their weights, in which each network represents one cluster. To make the final decision regarding the class type of a given speech segment, the membership degrees of this segment in all clusters along with neural networks' decisions are given to a defuzzification step which finally gives the class type of that segment. The proposed FN-AVAD is tested on the public multimodal emotion database, Surrey AudioVisual Expressed Emotion (SAVEE), and the error rate was 2.08%. The achieved results are comparable to the results achieved by the current published works in the literature.
This paper provides the result of an investigation to use of crushed clay brick as
aggregates in producing concrete. Eight different crushed clay brick aggregate concretes were
used in this investigation. Compressive strength, splitting tensile strength and pulse velocity of
crushed clay brick aggregates concrete were determined and compare to natural aggregate
concrete. The compressive strength of crushed clay brick aggregates concretes were always
lower than the compressive strength of natural aggregates concrete regardless the age of
concrete, but the crushed clay brick aggregates concrete showed better performance as the age of
concrete increases and average reduction in compressive strength were 33.5% at the age
The art of preventing the detection of hidden information messages is the way that steganography work. Several algorithms have been proposed for steganographic techniques. A major portion of these algorithms is specified for image steganography because the image has a high level of redundancy. This paper proposed an image steganography technique using a dynamic threshold produced by the discrete cosine coefficient. After dividing the green and blue channel of the cover image into 1*3-pixel blocks, check if any bits of green channel block less or equal to threshold then start to store the secret bits in blue channel block, and to increase the security not all bits in the chosen block used to store the secret bits. Firstly, store in the cente
... Show MoreApplications of remote sensing are important in improving potato production through the broader adoption of precision agriculture. This technology could be useful in decreasing the potential contamination of soil and water due to the over-fertilization of agriculture crops. The objective of this study was to assess the utility of active sensors (Crop Circle™, Holland Scientific, Inc., Lincoln, NE, USA and GreenSeeker™, Trimble Navigation Limited, Sunnyvale, CA, USA) and passive sensors (multispectral imaging with Unmanned Arial Vehicles (UAVs)) to predict total potato yield and phosphorus (P) uptake. The experimental design was a randomized complete block with four replications and six P treatments, ranging from 0 to 280 kg P ha−1, as
... Show MoreOne of the most important problems in concrete production in Iraq and other country is the high sulfate content in sand that led to damage of concrete and hence reduces its compressive strength and may leads to cracking due to internal sulfate attack and delay ettringite formation. The magnetic water treatment process is adopted in this study. Many samples with different SO3 content are treated with magnetic water (12, 8, 4 and 2)L that needed for each 1kg of sand with the magnetic intensity (9000 and 5000) Gaus. The magnetic water needed is reduced with less SO3 content in sand. The ACI 211.1-91 concrete mix design was used in this research with slump range (75- 100) mm and the specified compressive strength (35MPa). The compressive streng
... Show MoreThe multiple linear regression model is an important regression model that has attracted many researchers in different fields including applied mathematics, business, medicine, and social sciences , Linear regression models involving a large number of independent variables are poorly performing due to large variation and lead to inaccurate conclusions , One of the most important problems in the regression analysis is the multicollinearity Problem, which is considered one of the most important problems that has become known to many researchers , As well as their effects on the multiple linear regression model, In addition to multicollinearity, the problem of outliers in data is one of the difficulties in constructing the reg
... Show MoreThis study investigated the treatment of dairy wastewater using the electrocoagulation method with iron filings as electrodes. The study dealt with real samples collected from local factory for dairy products in Baghdad. The Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was used to optimize five experimental variables at six levels for each variable, for estimating chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal efficiency. These variables were the distance between electrodes, detention time, dosage of NaCl as electrolyte, initial COD concentration, and current density. RSM was investigated the direct and complex interaction effects between parameters to estimate the optimum values. The respective optimum value was 1 cm for the distance between electrodes, (6
... Show MoreTThe property of 134−140Neodymium nuclei have been studied in framework Interacting Boson Model (IBM) and a new method called New Empirical Formula (NEF). The energy positive parity bands of 134−140Nd have been calculated using (IBM) and (NEF) while the negative parity bands of 134−140Nd have been calculated using (NEF) only. The E-GOS curve as a function of the spin (I) has been drawn to determine the property of the positive parity yrast band. The parameters of the best fit to the measured data are determined. The reduced transition probabilities of these nuclei was calculated. The critical point has been determined for 140Nd isotope. The potential energy surfaces (PESs) to the IBM Hamiltonian have been obtained using the intrin
... Show MoreVibration analysis plays a vital role in understanding and analyzing the behavior of the structure. Where, it can be utilized from this analysis in the design process of the structures in different engineering applications, check the quality and safety of the structure under different working conditions. This work presents experimental measurements and numerical solutions to an out of plane vibration of a rectangular plate with a circular hole. Free edges rectangular plates with different circular holes diameters were studied. The effects of hole location on the plate natural frequencies were also investigated. A finite element modeling (using ANSYS Software) has been used to analyze the vibration characteristics of the plates. A good agree
... Show MoreRapid population growth and the development of industries result in an increase in solid waste. Glass, which represents a large proportion of solid waste, can be used in construction applications. The utilization of recycled glass waste in the asphalt mixture is considered an environmentally-friendly application. In this laboratory study, glass bottles were recycled by crushing, grinding, and sieving them into particles that pass through sieve No. 200 to be used as a partial replacement for the filler in the hot mixture asphalt of wearing course Type-A. The ratios (4, 4.3, 4.6, 4.9, 5.2,5.5) were used to determine the optimum asphalt content (OAC), and three ratios (30, 60, and 90) were used for the replacement of limestone powder filler to
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