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, auto

Activity recognition (AR) is a new interesting and challenging research area with many applications (e.g. healthcare, security, and event detection). Basically, activity recognition (e.g. identifying user’s physical activity) is more likely to be considered as a classification problem. In this paper, a combination of 7 classification methods is employed and experimented on accelerometer data collected via smartphones, and compared for best performance. The dataset is collected from 59 individuals who performed 6 different activities (i.e. walk, jog, sit, stand, upstairs, and downstairs). The total number of dataset instances is 5418 with 46 labeled features. The results show that the proposed method of ensemble boost-based classif

The artificial silk (Rayon) was produced from the fronds of date palms which was taken from date palm trees (type Al-Zahdi) from the Iraqi gardens. Two main parts of the frond, namely leaves and stalks were used in this study to produce rayon. The palm fronds were converted into a powder of 90-180 micrometers. Major steps were used to produce rayon; delignification, bleaching and finally dissolution. Modified organosolv method which uses organic solvent method was applied to remove high lignin content. Three variables were studied in the delignification process: temperature, the ratio of ethanol to water and digestion time. The results showed that the best percent of lignin removal was (97%) which occured at; digestion time (80 minutes), te

To make iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs), a simple chemical approach was used to combine iron chloride (FeCl₂+FeCl₃) salt with onion peel extract. According to the study, iron salts can be converted into IONPs by the biomolecules in onion peel extract. From FeCl₂+FeCl₃ to γ -Fe₂O₃, the approach changes iron oxide NPs' size, shape, purity and phases. In water treatment, γ -Fe₂O₃ NPs are critical for the removal of the color methylene blue (MB). X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), ultraviolet (UV-Vis) and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy were used to identify IONPs. Results from the XRD experiment showed crystals having a

Abstract: Colloidal gold nanoparticles (ringworm Palm or in the form of paper willow) have been prepared from HAuCl4 containing aqueous solution by hot chemical reduction method. The colloidal gold nanoparticles were characterized by SEM, EDX, and UV-VIS absorption spectroscopy. It was found that the variation of reduction time from boiling point affects the size of the nanoparticles and also in chemical reduction approach the size of nanoparticles can be controlled by varying the amount of variation the volume of reductant material with respect to the volume of HAuCL4.

This study was conducted on the effect of the sedimentary source (the sediments coming from both the Iraqi-Iranian borderline and the Tigris river) on the optical and textural features, especially sphericity and roundness of feldspar minerals (potassium and plagioclase types) in soils of the southern part of the alluvial plain. Eight pedons were selected to represent the study area, five of them represented sediments coming from the borderline, which included pedons of (Badra, Taj Al-Din, Al-Shihabi, Jassan, and Galati), while two of them represent the sediments of the Tigris River (Essaouira, Al-Dabouni), the pedon of Ali Al-Gharbi was represented the mixing area of sediments of all the floods coming from the borderline and the sediments o

4-chloro and 4- nitro substituted phenol and aniline incorporated to a carboxylic group of naproxen a well-known non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) to increase bulkiness were synthesized for evaluation as  a potential anti-inflammatory agents with expected COX-2 selectivity. In vivo acute anti-inflammatory activity of these compounds (I-IV) was evaluated in rats using egg-white induced edema model of inflammation in a dose equivalent to (2.5 mg/Kg) of naproxen. All tested compounds produced a significant reduction in paw edema with respect to the effect of propylene glycol 50% v/v (control group). Moreover, compounds I and IV might show higher effect comparable to that of naproxen and to that of compounds II & III whic

In this study, the effect of ceramic coating on the performance and gases emission on diesel engine was investigated. A four-stroke, direct injected, single cylinder, diesel engine was tested at constant speed and at different load conditions without coating. Then, the inlet and exhaust valves faces were coated by about 500µm with ceramic materials. Ceramic layers were made of YttriaStabilized Zirconia (YSZ), and NiCrAl as a bond coat. The coating technique adapted in this work is the flame spray method. The engine with valves ceramiccoated research was tested for the same operation conditions of the engine (without coating). The results indicate a reduction in both fuel consumption by about 7.6% and particulate emissions by about (13

Coating materials have an extraordinarily high use, for industrial or technical applications. This study compares the effect of short glass and polypropylene fibers on the hardness, water absorption and anti-bacterial activity of acrylic composites against Gram positive (Streptococcus sp.) and Gram negative bacteria (E.coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella sp.).To prepare acrylic polymer and acryliccomposites (glass fibers and polypropylene fiber) the weight fraction (20 %,) (v0= lama acrylic, v1= lama acrylic/ glass fiber, and v2= lama acrylic /poly propylene fiber), of chopped glass fibers and polypropylene were added to acrylic , the resultant solution was stirred by hand for 5 minutes, using the Hand-lay-up technique.
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