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.
Internal curing is a method that has been advised to decrease the primary age cracking, mainly of concrete mixes using low (water to cementitious materials - w/cm) ratios corresponding to the self-compacting concrete-(SCC). This research aims to study the effect of the internal curing using saturated lightweight aggregate- (LWA) on the steel reinforcing corrosion in SCC. In this research, crushed bricks or thermostone were partially replaced by (20%) by the weight of sand and volumetrically measured. The results showed that the steel reinforcement of internally cured concrete showed a slight increase in corrosion up to 300 days of exposure to the saline solution (containing 3.5% NaCl). The ability of using the crushed bricks or thermostone
... Show MoreInternal curing is a method that has been advised to decrease the primary age cracking, mainly of concrete mixes using low (water to cementitious materials - w/cm) ratios corresponding to the self-compacting concrete-(SCC). This research aims to study the effect of the internal curing using saturated lightweight aggregate- (LWA) on the steel reinforcing corrosion in SCC. In this research, crushed bricks or thermostone were partially replaced by (20%) by the weight of sand and volumetrically measured. The results showed that the steel reinforcement of internally cured concrete showed a slight increase in corrosion up to 300 days of exposure to the saline solution (containing 3.5% NaCl). The ability of using the crushed bricks or thermostone
... Show MoreWhen the digital technologies entered the world of cinema production, they boosted the ability of the cinematographic medium to implement various subjects with great accuracy, as the development included all the joints and stages of the cinematic film production whether it is a feature film or an animation. Therefore, the process of film manufacturing by the digital technologies reflects the spirit of the age and the development that humanity has attained. What motivated the researcher to determine the topic of the research, which combines between the sound effects and the animated films under the title (aesthetics of employing digital sound effects in animated films), is the work of the digital technologies. The researcher divide
... Show MoreModify Multi-Connect Architecture (MMCA) associative memory
Recently new trends of mosques’ architecture have appeared. These trends differed from those of traditional ones in charictaristics which include two and three dimentional level. The traditional mosques' architecture are affected by several factors, so the research problem is (lack of knoweledge about factors forming traditional mosques' architecture and its effect on contemporary trends of mosques' architecture).The hypotheses of research is (the functional, aesthetic and symbolic religious factors of style are the most active factors in forming contemporary trends of mosques' architecture than religious and environmental factor).The research conclusion is that the symbolic functional factor is most effective factor i
... Show MoreThe primary aim of this research was to study visual spatial attention and its impact on the accuracy of the diagonal spike in volleyball. A total of 20 volleyball players of Baghdad participated in this study. The sample was homogeneous in terms of height, weight and age of the players. The tests used in the present study were: 1) Visual Spatial Attention Test. 2) Volleyball Spike Test. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher concluded that visual spatial attention has a significant impact on the accuracy of the diagonal spike in volleyball.
Shadow removal is crucial for robot and machine vision as the accuracy of object detection is greatly influenced by the uncertainty and ambiguity of the visual scene. In this paper, we introduce a new algorithm for shadow detection and removal based on different shapes, orientations, and spatial extents of Gaussian equations. Here, the contrast information of the visual scene is utilized for shadow detection and removal through five consecutive processing stages. In the first stage, contrast filtering is performed to obtain the contrast information of the image. The second stage involves a normalization process that suppresses noise and generates a balanced intensity at a specific position compared to the neighboring intensit
... Show MoreIn this publication, several six coordinate bridged-polymeric metal complexes are reported. The reaction of 4,4`-dipyridine with ethyl chloroacetate in mole ratio of 1:2 gave the multidentate carboxylate ligand bis(N-carboxylatomethyl)-4,4`-dipyridinium). The reaction of the ligand with metal chloride and sodium azide resulted in the formation of the required polymeric complexes. Upon complex formation, the carboxylato ligand behaves as a neutral multidantate species. The mode of bonding and overall geometry of the complexes were determined through physicochemical and spectroscopic methods. These studies revealed octahedral geometry about metal centres and complexes of the general formula [Cr2(L)(N3)4]Cl2.H2O, Na2[Ag2(L)(N3)4].H2O and [M2(L
... Show MoreThe research aimed at designing teaching sessions using the self-scheduling strategy with a competitive style in learning handball as well as identifying differences between pre and post tests in both groups in learning short and long passes in handball. The researchers used the experimental method on 2nd-grade secondary school students. The researchers concluded using the self-scheduling strategy due to its positive effect on learning short and long handball passes in handball. Finally, the researchers recommended applying strategies and styles in teaching different school levels as well as making similar studies using teaching strategies and styles for learning handball skills in students.