Estimation of Severity of Speech Disability through Speech Envelope

In this paper, envelope detection of speech is discussed to distinguish the pathological cases of speech disabled children. The speech signal samples of children of age between five to eight years are considered for the present study. These speech signals are digitized and are used to determine the speech envelope. The envelope is subjected to ratio mean analysis to estimate the disability. This analysis is conducted on ten speech signal samples which are related to both place of articulation and manner of articulation. Overall speech disability of a pathological subject is estimated based on the results of above analysis.Comment: 8 pages,4 Figures,Signal & Image Processing Journal AIRC

Equity in distribution of benefits from water harvesting and groundwater recharge: an economic study in Sujala Watershed Project in Karnataka

The paper looks at the impact of water harvesting programs in ground water recharge through the case of the Sujala watershed in Karnataka. On comparison with areas of non sujala watershed and non watershed cases in one normal rainfall and one drought year, it was revealed that Sujala has been successful in recharging groundwater, improving farmers’ incomes and increasing crop production. Further the program is inclusive and the benefits were accrued even to the small and marginal farmers. In fact the net return for small and marginal farmers was higher that that for large and medium farmers. The study concluded that there is potential for expansion of Sujala pattern of watershed development program in other parts of Karnataka and India.Length: pp.720-746Water harvestingGroundwater rechargeWatershedsDevelopment projectsGroundwater irrigationWellsEconomic impact

Discrete quaternion Fourier transform in signal processing systems.

We define n th root of unity in quaternion space and then we define discrete quaternion Fourier transform. We use first order quaternion filter for implementing fourth order real co-efficient filter

Hyperbolic discounting in analyzing investment in groundwater irrigation in India

Researchers are often confronted with the choice of discount rate as well as the method of discounting for estimating the amortized cost of long-term investment in agriculture including groundwater irrigation. The obvious choice is to use the opportunity cost of capital, which is the prevailing interest rate of around 9 percent (compounded – exponential basis), charged on longterm agriculture loans. However, using the ‘exponential’ basis does not provide a realistic amortized cost of irrigation as it over estimates the value of investment due to ‘exponential’ basis as demonstrated above. In order to obtain an empirical estimate of this interest rate, using field data from farmers three dry agro-climatic zones of Karnataka (Shamsundar (1996), Sripadmini (2001), Chaitra (2002), Rajendra (2003)) nominal investment per irrigation well is considered (Table 3). The nominal investments were deflated using the index number of wholesale prices (1993-94 base year). Considering nominal and real growth in investment per irrigation well between the 1980’s and 2000’s in the three agro-climatic zones of Karnataka, using the exponential discounting, the nominal investment per well is found to be increasing between 3.7 and 5.7 percent. This shows that the amortization of groundwater investment cannot exceed say six percent. The real (exponential rate of) interest is computed by deflating the initial year investment and the terminal year investment per irrigation well using the 1993-94 as base all India wholesale price index numbers. It is found that in real terms the investment per well is falling between –2.5 percent and –0.17 percent.(Table 3). The fall in real investment is due to increased competition by rig owners in offering almost uniform rate of drilling over the years in several aquifers of Karnataka. For instance the price of drilling has been between Rs. 35 and Rs. 50 per feet between 1985 and 2005 for shallow bore wells. The phenomenon may not be very different in other states of peninsular India. A comparison of nominal investment in terminal year and the estimated cost of well in 2005 indicates that in EASTREN DRY ZONE the nominal interest rate is 3.7 percent, the real interest rate is –0.17 percent and the investment per well in 2002 (terminal year) being Rs. 53,478 and in 2005 (current year) being Rs. 59578 are comparable. But in CENTRAL DRY ZONE, while the nominal investment per well in 2000 is Rs. 45,000, the estimated investment in 2005 is Rs. 59,193, which is an unrealistically high exponential growth obtained by compounding the initial investment of Rs. 18,480 from 1984 to 2005. Similarly in EASTREN DRY ZONE, while the actual investment per well in 2000 is Rs. 75,095, the estimated investment per well in 2005 works to Rs. 97,702, which is again unrealistic. As the real interest rate is negative in irrigation wells, this could be one of the reasons for mushrooming of irrigation wells in Karnataka, since this makes investment affordable across different classes of farmers. Thus this analysis has two messages. One, that the nominal interest rate which has to be considered for amortizing investment on irrigation well can be around 3 to 6 percent, and that the real investment per well is falling.hyperbolic discounting, groundwater, exponential, Environmental Economics and Policy, Institutional and Behavioral Economics, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, D9, Q25, M4,

Key-lock pair mechanism for access control using tribes of Farey fractions.

We propose a new single key-lock mechanism based on the concept of an access control matrix. In this system, each file is given a lock and each user is given a key and through simple operations on keys and locks the user access privilege can be revealed. We use Chinese Remainder theorem and tribes of Farey fractions in this method instead of the method based on Euler’s Theorem of Number Theory used by Chang [2]. An advantage of our method is the ease with which coding can be done for the locking mechanism and for the much larger number of users and files

Ferrographic analysis of wear particles from sliding elastohydrodynamic experiments

The Ferrograph was used to analyze wear debris generated in a sliding elastohydrodynamic contact. The amount of wear debris correlates well with the ratio of film thickness to composite surface roughness (A ratio). The general wear level parameter and the wear severity index yielded similar correlations with average A ratios. Essentially all the generated wear particles were of the normal rubbing wear type. The Ferrograph was more sensitive in detecting the wear debris than was the commonly used emission spectrograph

Ferrographic analysis of wear debris generated in a sliding elastohydrodynamic contact

The ferrograph was used to analyze wear debris generated in a sliding elastohydrodynamic contact. The amount of wear debris correlates well with the ratio of film thickness to composite surface roughness. Essentially all of the generated wear particles were of the normal rubbing wear type

Pre- and post-processing for Cosmic/NASTRAN on personal computers and mainframes

An interface between Cosmic/NASTRAN and GIFTS has recently been released, combining the powerful pre- and post-processing capabilities of GIFTS with Cosmic/NASTRAN's analysis capabilities. The interface operates on a wide range of computers, even linking Cosmic/NASTRAN and GIFTS when the two are on different computers. GIFTS offers a wide range of elements for use in model construction, each translated by the interface into the nearest Cosmic/NASTRAN equivalent; and the options of automatic or interactive modelling and loading in GIFTS make pre-processing easy and effective. The interface itself includes the programs GFTCOS, which creates the Cosmic/NASTRAN input deck (and, if desired, control deck) from the GIFTS Unified Data Base, COSGFT, which translates the displacements from the Cosmic/NASTRAN analysis back into GIFTS; and HOSTR, which handles stress computations for a few higher-order elements available in the interface, but not supported by the GIFTS processor STRESS. Finally, the versatile display options in GIFTS post-processing allow the user to examine the analysis results through an especially wide range of capabilities, including such possibilities as creating composite loading cases, plotting in color and animating the analysis

A randomized prospective comparative study of efficacy of asenapine, iloperidone and zotepine in patients with psychosis

Background: Antipsychotic drugs constitute the mainstay in the treatment of schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. For these medications to be maximally beneficial, they must be efficacious, with an acceptable side effect profile and be taken as prescribed. The objective of the study was to compare the efficacy of iloperidone, asenapine and zotepinein subjects with psychotic disorders.Methods: Randomized prospective study was conducted in the Department of Psychiatry of a tertiary care hospital, at Mysore, India. Sixty Patients who met the criteria for acute psychosis and schizophrenia according to ICD 10 were recruited. Atypical antipsychotics-asenapine, iloperidone and zotepine were administered and their efficacy was monitored by brief psychiatric rating scale (BPRS), which was administered on day one, week 1, week 3 and week 6.Results: Out of 60 recruited subjects 31 (51.7%) completed all four visits of the study. Iloperidone and asenapine showed significant improvement in efficacy than zotepine at week 6. Among the total dropouts 55.2% subjects didn’t come for follow-up and 44.8% were dropped due to development of side effects.Conclusions: In patients with acute psychosis and schizophrenia, iloperidone appears more effective and tolerated than the other two. Asenapine was effective but less tolerated and zotepine was less efficacious and produced poor response. Asenapine and zotepine have more dropouts and showed few uncommon extrapyramidal side effects

A global–local approach for progressive damage analysis of fiber-reinforced composite laminates

The present work applies the global–local technique to the progressive damage analysis of fiber-reinforced composite laminates. A one-way, loosely-coupled global–local approach is developed as a combination of a low-fidelity linear global analysis and a high-fidelity local nonlinear analysis of specific regions within the structure, where damage is expected to occur. The local model is based on higher-order structural theories derived using the Carrera Unified Formulation (CUF), and specifically, Lagrange polynomials are used to model each ply through its thickness, leading to a layer-wise model. Composite damage is described using the CODAM2 material model, which is based on continuum damage mechanics. Initial assessments compare the relative performance of 3D finite elements (FE), 1D-CUF, and the proposed global–local approach via the freeedge stress analysis of a stiffened composite plate. The proposed technique is then used to predict the tensile strength of an open-hole specimen. The last assessment simulates damage progression within an over-height compact tension specimen using the global–local approach. Verification and validation of results are carried out via refined models and experiments from literature. The results demonstrate the accurate evaluation of 3D stress fields and composite laminates’ mechanical response in the progressive damage regime. A multi-fold improvement in the computational cost is shown when compared to full-scale CUF analyses and indicates this technique’s strong potential towards the computationally-efficient high-fidelity analysis of complex and large-scale composite structures