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.
Background: Apexification is a method to induce a calcified barrier in a root with an open apex or the continued apical development of an incomplete root in teeth with necrotic pulp. MTA apexification has several advantages such as it neither gets resorbed, nor weakens the root canal dentin, and also sets in the wet environment. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the use of MTA in apexification and periapical healing of teeth with incomplete root formation and periapical infection. Materials and method: Apexification was carried out on fourteen permanent immature teeth of eleven children aged 7-12 years attended the teaching hospital of College of Dentistry, Baghdad University using mineral trioxide aggregate followed
... Show MoreIndustrial wastewater containing nickel, lead, and copper can be produced by many industries. The reverse osmosis (RO) membrane technologies are very efficient for the treatment of industrial wastewater containing nickel, lead, and copper ions to reduce water consumption and preserving the environment. Synthetic industrial wastewater samples containing Ni(II), Pb(II), and Cu(II) ions at various concentrations (50 to 200 ppm), pressures (1 to 4 bar), temperatures (10 to 40 oC), pH (2 to 5.5), and flow rates (10 to 40 L/hr), were prepared and subjected to treatment by RO system in the laboratory. The results showed that high removal efficiency of the heavy metals could be achieved by RO process (98.5%, 97.5% and 96% for Ni(II),
... Show MoreOrthophoto provides a significant alternative capability for the presentation of architectural or archaeological applications. Although orthophoto production from airphotography of high or lower altitudes is considered to be typical, the close range applications for the large-scale survey of statue or art masterpiece or any kind of monuments still contain a lot of interesting issues to be investigated.
In this paper a test was carried out for the production of large scale orthophoto of highly curved surface, using a statue constructed of some kind of stones. In this test we use stereo photographs to produce the orthophoto in stead of single photo and DTM, by applying the DLT mathematical relationship as base formula in differenti
... Show MoreThis research deals with the use of a number of statistical methods, such as the kernel method, watershed, histogram, and cubic spline, to improve the contrast of digital images. The results obtained according to the RSME and NCC standards have proven that the spline method is the most accurate in the results compared to other statistical methods.
This study employed the biosynthetic technique for creating vanadium nanoparticles (VNPs), which are affordable and user-friendly; VNPs was synthesized using vanadium sulfate (VOSO4.H2O) and a plant extract derived from Fumaria Strumii Opiz (E2) at a NaOH concentration of 0.1 M. This study aims to investigate the potential applications of utilizing an adsorbent for metal ions to achieve environmentally friendly production and assess its antibacterial activity and cytotoxicity. The reaction was conducted in an alkaline environment with a pH range of 8–12. The resulting product was subjected to various characterization techniques, including Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, x-ray diffraction (XRD), t
... Show MoreTwo types of adsorbents were used to treat oily wastewater, activated carbon and zeolite. The removal efficiencies of these materials were compared to each other. The results showed that activated carbon performed some better properties in removal of oil. The experimental methods which were employed in this investigation included batch and column studies. The former was used to evaluate the rate and equilibrium of carbon and zeolie adsorption, while the latter was used to determine treatment efficiencies and performance characteristics. Expanded bed adsorber was constructed in the column studies. In this study, the adsorption behavior of vegetable oil (corn oil) onto activated carbon and zeolite was examined as a function of the concentr
... Show MoreModified asphalt is considered one of the alternatives to address the problems of deficiencies in traditional asphalt concrete, as modified asphalt addresses many of the issues that appear on the pavement layers in asphalt concrete, resulting from heavy traffic and vehicles loaded with loads that exceed the design loads and the large fluctuations in the daily and seasonal temperatures of asphalt concrete. The current study examined the role of polyphosphoric acid (PPA) as a modified material for virgin asphalt when it was added in different proportions (1%, 2%, 3%, 4%) of the asphalt weight. The experimental program includes the volumetric characteristics associated with the Marshall test, the physical properties, and th
... Show MoreThe experimental and numerical analysis was performed on pipes suffering large plastic deformation through expanding them using rigid conical shaped mandrels, with three different cone angles (15◦, 25◦, 35◦) and diameters (15, 17, 20) mm. The experimental test for the strain results investigated the expanded areas. A numerical solution of the pipes expansion process was also investigated using the commercial finite element software ANSYS. The strains were measured for each case experimentally by stamping the mesh on the pipe after expanding, then compared with Ansys results. No cracks were generated during the process with the selected angles. It can be concluded that the strain decreased with greater angles of con
... Show MoreRandom throwing of industrial waste has a significant impact on the environment unless it takes into account the conditions of engineered destroying and/or re-used. Taking the advantage of re-using waste materials in engineering projects represents a well-planned project in order to resolve a lot of engineering problems for some difficult soils. The objective of this study was to evaluate the capability and effects of Rubber Shreds (RS) from scrap torn belts towards improving the shear strength of soft clay. A direct shear tests were conducted on soft clay-RS mixture. The following parameters were investigated to study the influence of RS content, water content, normal stress, and dilation ratio. From experimental test results it was fou
... Show MoreEx-situ bioremediation of 2,4-D herbicide-contaminated soil was studied using a slurry bioreactor operate at aerobic conditions. The performance of the slurry bioreactor was tested for three types of soil (sand, sandy loam and clay) contaminated with different concentration of 2,4-D, 200,300and500mg/kg soil. Sewage sludge was used as an inexpensive source of microorganisms which is available in large quantities in wastewater treatment plants. The results show that all biodegradation experiments demonstrated a significant decreases in 2,4-D concentration in the tested soils. The degradation efficiency in the slurry bioreactor decreases as the initial concentration of 2,4-D in the soils increases.A 100 % removal was achieved at initial con
... Show More