Automatic speaker recognition may achieve remarkable performance in matched training and test conditions. Conversely, results drop significantly in incompatible noisy conditions. Furthermore, feature extraction significantly affects performance. Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients MFCCs are most commonly used in this field of study. The literature has reported that the conditions for training and testing are highly correlated. Taken together, these facts support strong recommendations for using MFCC features in similar environmental conditions (train/test) for speaker recognition. However, with noise and reverberation present, MFCC performance is not reliable. To address this, we propose a new feature 'entrocy' for accurate and robu

Government expenditure represents one of the controlling financial policies in the economic affairs and management of the economic cycle in order to achieve price stability, raise the rate of output growth and decrease the level of unemployment. The price stability represents one of the macroeconomic goals that all countries seek without exception, regardless of the economic philosophy adopted by each country; in addition to this is raising the productive capacity and reaching the actual output to the level of the expected output, that is, the level of output related to the natural unemployment rate or what is sometimes called the Non-inflationary unemployment rate. The restriction of government expenditure (G=T+∆B/iP+∆M/P) is

This thesis was aimed to study gas hydrates in terms of their equilibrium conditions in bulk and their effects on sedimentary rocks. The hydrate equilibrium measurements for different gas mixtures containing CH4, CO2 and N2 were determined experimentally using the PVT sapphire cell equipment. We imaged CO2 hydrate distribution in sandstone, and investigated the hydrate morphology and cluster characteristics via μCT. Moreover, the effect of hydrate formation on the P-wave velocities of sandstone was investigated experimentally.

Sustainable vegetative management plays a significant role in improving soil quality in degraded agricultural landscapes by enhancing soil microbial biomass. This study investigated the effects of grass buffers (GBs), biomass crops (BCs), grass waterways (GWWs), and agroforestry buffers (ABs) on soil microbial biomass and soil organic C (SOC) compared with continuous corn (Zea mays L.)–soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] rotation (row crop [RC]) on claypan soils. The RC, AB, GB, GWW, and BC treatments were established in 1991, 1997, 1997, 1997, and 2012, respectively, and are located at Greenley Memorial Research Center in Missouri. Soil samples were collected in May 2018 from the 0‐ to

Background: This study was conducted to assess the effects of various beverages on the shear bond strength of light-cured orthodontic composite used to bond stainless steel orthodontic brackets on human teeth and to determine the site of bonding failure of this material. Materials and Methods: Fifty extracted human premolars were selected and randomly divided into five equal groups each with 10 teeth according to the beverage type (Control, One Tiger, Milk, Green tea and Coffee). After bonding, the teeth were immersed in specific beverages for 5 minutes twice daily with equal intervening intervals then washed and stored in distilled water at 37º C for the reminder of the day. The process was carried out for 30 days. The samples were then