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.
Cadmium is one of the heavy metal found in the wastewater of many industries. The electrocoagulation offers many advantages for the removal of cadmium over other methods. So the removal of cadmium from wastewater by using electrocoagulation was studied to investigate the effect of operating parameters on the removal efficiency. The studied parameters were the initial pH, initial concentration, and applied voltage. The study experiments were conducted in a batch reactor with with two pairs of aluminum electrodes with dimension and 2mm in thick with 1.5 cm space between them. The optimum removal was obtained at pH =7, initial concentration = 50 mg/L, and applied voltage = 20 V and it was 90%.
To maintain the security and integrity of data, with the growth of the Internet and the increasing prevalence of transmission channels, it is necessary to strengthen security and develop several algorithms. The substitution scheme is the Playfair cipher. The traditional Playfair scheme uses a small 5*5 matrix containing only uppercase letters, making it vulnerable to hackers and cryptanalysis. In this study, a new encryption and decryption approach is proposed to enhance the resistance of the Playfair cipher. For this purpose, the development of symmetric cryptography based on shared secrets is desired. The proposed Playfair method uses a 5*5 keyword matrix for English and a 6*6 keyword matrix for Arabic to encrypt the alphabets of
... Show MoreThe biosorption of Pb (II), Cd (II), and Hg (II) from simulated aqueous solutions using baker’s yeast biomass was investigated. Batch type experiments were carried out to find the equilibrium isotherm data for each component (single, binary, and ternary), and the adsorption rate constants. Kinetics pseudo-first and second order rate models applied to the adsorption data to estimate the rate constant for each solute, the results showed that the Cd (II), Pb (II), and Hg (II) uptake process followed the pseudo-second order rate model with (R2) 0.963, 0.979, and 0.960 respectively. The equilibrium isotherm data were fitted with five theoretical models. Langmuir model provides the best fitting for the experimental results with (R2) 0.992, 0
... Show MoreRecently, the development and application of the hydrological models based on Geographical Information System (GIS) has increased around the world. One of the most important applications of GIS is mapping the Curve Number (CN) of a catchment. In this research, three softwares, such as an ArcView GIS 9.3 with ArcInfo, Arc Hydro Tool and Geospatial Hydrologic Modeling Extension (Hec-GeoHMS) model for ArcView GIS 9.3, were used to calculate CN of (19210 ha) Salt Creek watershed (SC) which is located in Osage County, Oklahoma, USA. Multi layers were combined and examined using the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) ArcMap 2009. These layers are soil layer (Soil Survey Geographic SSURGO), 30 m x 30 m resolution of Digital Elevati
... Show MoreMost of the known cases of strong gravitational lensing involve multiple imaging of an active galactic nucleus. The properties of lensed active galactic nuclei make them promising systems for astrophysical applications of gravitational lensing. So we present a simple model for strong lensing in the gravitational lensed systems to calculate the age of four lensed galaxies, in the present work we take the freedman models with (k curvature index =0) Euclidian case, and the result show a good agreement with the other models.
The research problem arose from the researchers’ sense of the importance of Digital Intelligence (DI), as it is a basic requirement to help students engage in the digital world and be disciplined in using technology and digital techniques, as students’ ideas are sufficiently susceptible to influence at this stage in light of modern technology. The research aims to determine the level of DI among university students using Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques. To verify this, the researchers built a measure of DI. The measure in its final form consisted of (24) items distributed among (8) main skills, and the validity and reliability of the tool were confirmed. It was applied to a sample of 139 male and female students who were chosen
... Show MoreIn this paper, a method for hiding cipher text in an image file is introduced . The
proposed method is to hide the cipher text message in the frequency domain of the image.
This method contained two phases: the first is embedding phase and the second is extraction
phase. In the embedding phase the image is transformed from time domain to frequency
domain using discrete wavelet decomposition technique (Haar). The text message encrypted
using RSA algorithm; then Least Significant Bit (LSB) algorithm used to hide secret message
in high frequency. The proposed method is tested in different images and showed success in
hiding information according to the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) measure of the the
original ima
The assessment of the environmental impact of the cement industry using the Leopold Matrix is to determine the negative and positive impacts on the environment resulting from this industry, and what are the long-term and short-term effects, direct and indirect, and the amount of these effects and potential risks, and that this evaluation process is done through a number of methods, including Matrix method, including (Leopold).
The importance of the research because the cement occupies is of great importance in the world, especially in our country, Iraq, in the sector of construction and modernity, and the toxic emissions and solid waste produced by the production of this material. <
... Show MoreMany strains of lactic bacteria produce antimicrobial peptides of bacteriocins that are antibiotics used against pathogenic strains. The present work aimed to use a banana peels medium in the fermentation process to replace the commercial MRS medium for decreasing the cost of bacteriocins LAB production. Based on the result, banana peel was a cost-effective and viable alternative carbon source for the production and development of bacteriocin-producing Lactobacilli. The growth of lactobacilli in commercial MRS medium and Banana Peel medium showed no differences, therefore banana peel waste can be used to produce Lactobacilli bacteriocins. Lactobacillus strains grew exceptionally well at 37 C and pH 6.0.
Urban land uses of all kinds are the constituent elements of the urban spatial structure. Because of the influence of economic and social factors, cities in general are characterized by the dynamic state of their elements over time. Urban functions occur in a certain way with different spatial patterns. Hence, urban planners and the relevant urban management teams should understand the future spatial pattern of these changes by resorting to quantitative models in spatial planning. This is to ensure that future predictions are made with a high level of accuracy so that appropriate strategies can be used to address the problems arising from such changes. The Markov chain method is one of the quantitative models used in spatial planning to ana
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