Beyond the immediate content of speech, the voice can provide rich information about a speaker's demographics, including age and gender. Estimating a speaker's age and gender offers a wide range of applications, spanning from voice forensic analysis to personalized advertising, healthcare monitoring, and human-computer interaction. However, pinpointing precise age remains intricate due to age ambiguity. Specifically, utterances from individuals at adjacent ages are frequently indistinguishable. Addressing this, we propose a novel, end-to-end approach that deploys Mozilla's Common Voice dataset to transform raw audio into high-quality feature representations using Wav2Vec2.0 embeddings. These are then channeled into our self-attention-based convolutional neural network (CNN) model. To address age ambiguity, we evaluate the effects of different loss functions such as focal loss and Kullback-Leibler (KL) divergence loss. Additionally, we evaluate the accuracy of the estimation at different durations of speech. Experimental results from the Common Voice dataset underscore the efficacy of our approach, showcasing an accuracy of 87% for male speakers, 91% for female speakers and 89% overall accuracy, and an accuracy of 99.1% for gender prediction.
Melanoma, a highly malignant form of skin cancer, affects individuals of all genders and is associated with high mortality rates, especially in advanced stages. The use of tele-dermatology has emerged as a proficient diagnostic approach for skin lesions and is particularly beneficial in rural areas with limited access to dermatologists. However, accurately, and efficiently segmenting melanoma remains a challenging task due to the significant diversity observed in the morphology, pigmentation, and dimensions of cutaneous nevi. To address this challenge, we propose a novel approach called DenseUNet-169 with a dilated convolution encoder-decoder for automatic segmentation of RGB dermascopic images. By incorporating dilated convolution,
... Show MoreGeneral propositions have dealt with various indicators and features that frame and describe basic architectural concepts, and from those concepts, the concept of identity will be presented here, which represents the nerve of intellectual vision of the state of architecture development, transformation and change. Due to its deep intellectual basis, it was necessary to study multiple features, especially the achievement feature that was considered a major stage describing the nature of change and shift related to the achievement of concept and its role in the development of the architectural field . &nb
... Show MoreAmong the different passive techniques heat pipe heat exchanger (HPHE) seems to be the most effective one for energy saving in heating ventilation and air conditioning system (HVAC). The applications for nanofluids with high conductivity are favorable to increase the thermal performance in HPHE. Even though the nanofluid has the higher heat conduction coefficient that dispels more heat theoretically but the higher concentration will make clustering .Clustering is a problem that must be solved before nanofluids can be considered for long-term practical uses. Results showed that the maximum value of relative power is 0.13 mW at nanofluid compared with other concentrations due to the low density of nanofluid at this concentration. For highe
... Show MoreGroundwater is an important resource that can be used for various purposes. Various factors can change the chemistry of the GW, such as the chemical composition of an aquifer as well as the leaching of human waste into groundwater. The study area is a barren land covered by some sabkhas, in addition to some agricultural fields. The study aims to assess groundwater quality for drinking purposes using the Water Quality Index. The groundwater is chemically heterogeneous and has a wide quality range from very poor to excellent. Evaporation appears to be the controlling factor among the other shallow waters, while relatively deep water is related to rock-soil dominance. Rocks, land use and land cover have helped control the groundwater q
... Show MoreIn this work laser detection and tracking system (LDTS) is designed and implemented using a fuzzy logic controller (FLC). A 5 mW He-Ne laser system and an array of nine PN photodiodes are used in the detection system. The FLC is simulated using MATLAB package and the result is stored in a lock up table to use it in the real time operation of the system. The results give a good system response in the target detection and tracking in the real time operation.
This piece of research deals with assimilation as one of the phonological processes in the language. It is a trial to give more attention to this important process in English language with deep explanation to its counterpart in Arabic. in addition, this study sheds light on the points of similarities and differences concerning this process in the two languages. Assimilation in English means two sounds are involved, and one becomes more like the other.
The assimilating phoneme picks up one or more of the features of another nearby phoneme. The English phoneme /n/ has t
... Show MoreThe increase in the Iraqi population put pressure on urban cities as there were no new cities built since the 1980s due to the wars and the economic blockade imposed in 1991 and the deteriorating security situation after 2003, where the population in 2018 reached about forty million people. Iraq also suffered during the past decades from problems and challenges in many respects that affected the local environment, and the constructed buildings had a role in increasing these impacts, so the Ministry of Housing worked to issue the Iraqi Green Architecture Code in 2019 to reduce damage to the environment and use resources more efficiently. And because the constructed buildings were not constructed according to green standards, including Bas
... Show MoreSpeech is the ability of communication or expression of thoughts among people in spoken words. Human communication via speech is essential since any impairment in this process may have serious social and occupational consequences. Malocclusion is a possible cause of speech impairment in addition to many other etiological factors like hearing loss, neurological disorders, physical disorders, and drug abuse. This article throws light upon the association between speech disorders and malocclusion.