Speech is the essential way to interact between humans or between human and machine. However, it is always contaminated with different types of environment noise. Therefore, speech enhancement algorithms (SEA) have appeared as a significant approach in speech processing filed to suppress background noise and return back the original speech signal. In this paper, a new efficient two-stage SEA with low distortion is proposed based on minimum mean square error sense. The estimation of clean signal is performed by taking the advantages of Laplacian speech and noise modeling based on orthogonal transform (Discrete Krawtchouk-Tchebichef transform) coefficients distribution. The Discrete Krawtchouk-Tchebichef transform (DKTT) has a high energy compaction and provides a high matching between Laplacian density and its coefficients distribution that affects positively on reducing residual noise without sacrificing speech components. Moreover, a cascade combination of hybrid speech estimator is proposed by using two stages filters (non-linear and linear) based on DKTT domain to lessen the residual noise effectively without distorting the speech signal. The linear estimator is considered as a post processing filter that reinforces the suppression of noise by regenerate speech components. To this end, the output results have been compared with existing work in terms of different quality and intelligibility measures. The comparative evaluation confirms the superior achievements of the proposed SEA in various noisy environments. The improvement ratio of the presented algorithm in terms of PESQ measure are 5.8% and 1.8% for white and babble noise environments, respectively. In addition, the improvement ratio of the presented algorithm in terms of OVL measure are 15.7% and 9.8% for white and babble noise environments, respectively.
In this study, the flow and heat transfer characteristics of Al2O3-water nanofluids for a range of the Reynolds number of 3000, 4500, 6000 and 7500 with a range of volume concentration of 1%, 2%, 3% and 4% are studied numerically. The test rig consists of cold liquid loop, hot liquid loop and the test section which is counter flow double pipe heat exchanger with 1m length. The inner tube is made of smooth copper with diameter of 15mm. The outer tube is made of smooth copper with diameter of 50mm. The hot liquid flows through the outer tube and the cold liquid (or nanofluid) flow through the inner tube. The boundary condition of this study is thermally insulated the outer wall with uniform velocity a
... Show MoreBackground: Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) is a promising implant material due to its superior biomechanical strength. However, due to its hydrophobic nature and lack of cellular adhesion properties, it has poor integration with bone tissue. Methods: A fractional CO2 laser was used with various parameters for surface texturing of PEEK substrate to enhance its surface properties. An optical microscope and field-emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) were used to examine the surface morphology of untextured and laser-textured samples. Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) was performed to determine the effect of the laser on the microstructure of PEEK. Surface microroughness, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and wettability were invest
... Show MoreIn IRAQ, the air conditioners are the principal cause of high electrical demand. In summer, the outer temperature sometimes exceeds 500C which significantly effects on the A/C system performance and power consumed. In the present work, the improvement in mechanical and electrical performance of split A/C system is investigated experimentally and analytically. In this paper, performance and energy saving enhancement of a split-A/C system was experimentally investigated to be efficiently compatible with elevated temperature weathers. This improvement is accomplished via Smart Control System integrate with Proportional-Integral- Differential PID algorithm. The PIC16F877A micro-controller has been programmed with the PID and PWM c
... Show MoreUltrasound has been used as a diagnostic modality for many intraocular diseases, due its safety, low cost, real time and wide availability. Unfortunately, ultrasound images suffer from speckle artifact that are tissue dependent. In this work, we will offer a method to reduce speckle noise and improve ultrasound image to raise the human diagnostic performance. This method combined undecimated wavelet transform with a wavelet coefficient mapping function: where UDWT used to eliminate the noise and a wavelet coefficient mapping function used to enhance the contrast of denoised images obtained from the first component. This methods can be used not only as a means for improving visual quality of medical images but also as a preprocessing
... Show MoreImproving the environment is a mission that should be conducted by three associates; public authorities, environmentalists and the community. The ignorance of environmental education in Iraq has resulted to an almost environmentally illiterate community, demanding well planned programs to raise their environmental; awareness and education. On the other hand, the decision makers should be well informed about the citizens' environmental preferences to be able to set their priorities for the civil services. Merging the Iraqi citizens in listing their environmental priorities is one of many other approaches for "Environment Education" programs. Globally, such methods have proven to be effective and resulted to widespread understandin
... Show MoreAtorvastatin (ATR) is a poorly water-soluble anti-hyperlipidemic drug. The drug belongs to the class II group according to the biopharmaceutical classification system (BCS) with low bioavailability due to its low solubility. Solid dispersion is an effective technique for enhancing the solubility and dissolution of drugs. Phospholipid solid dispersion (PSD) using phosphatidylcholine (PC) as a carrier with or without adsorbent (magnesium aluminum silicate, silicon dioxide 15nm, silicon dioxide 30nm, calcium silicate) was used to prepare ATR PSD using different drug: PC: adsorbent ratios by solvent evaporation method. The resulted PSD was evaluated for its percentage yield, drug content, solubility, dissolution rate, Fourier transforma
... Show MoreThe spectral response of the Si solar cell does not coincidence with the sun irradiance spectrum, so the efficiency of the Si solar cell is not high. To improve the Si solar cell one try to make use of most region of the sun spectrum by using dyes which absorb un useful wavelengths and radiate at useful region of spectrum (by stock shift). Fluorescence's dye is used as luminescent concentrator to increase the efficiency of the solar cell. The results show that the performance efficiency and out power for crystalline silicon solar cells are improved.
This research presents an experimental investigation of the rehabilitation efficiency of the damaged hybrid reinforced concrete beams with openings in the shear region. The study investigates the difference in retrofitting ability of hybrid beams compared to traditional beams and the effect of two openings compared with one opening equalized to two holes in the area. Five RC beams classified into two groups, A and B, were primarily tested to full-failure under two-point loads. The first group (A) contained beams with normal weight concrete. The second group (hybrid) included beams with lightweight concrete for web and bottom flange, whereas the top flange was made from normal concrete. Two types of openings were considered in this s
... Show MoreCloud computing provides huge amount of area for storage of the data, but with an increase of number of users and size of their data, cloud storage environment faces earnest problem such as saving storage space, managing this large data, security and privacy of data. To save space in cloud storage one of the important methods is data deduplication, it is one of the compression technique that allows only one copy of the data to be saved and eliminate the extra copies. To offer security and privacy of the sensitive data while supporting the deduplication, In this work attacks that exploit the hybrid cloud deduplication have been identified, allowing an attacker to gain access to the files of other users based on very small hash signatures of
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