The Stationary Phase Approximation, Time-Frequency Decomposition and Auditory Processing

The principle of stationary phase (PSP) is re-examined in the context of linear time-frequency (TF) decomposition using Gaussian, gammatone and gammachirp filters at uniform, logarithmic and cochlear spacings in frequency. This necessitates consideration of the use the PSP on non-asymptotic integrals and leads to the introduction of a test for phase rate dominance. Regions of the TF plane that pass the test and don't contain stationary phase points contribute little or nothing to the final output. Analysis values that lie in these regions can thus be set to zero, i.e. sparsity. In regions of the TF plane that fail the test or are in the vicinity of stationary phase points, synthesis is performed in the usual way. A new interpretation of the location parameters associated with the synthesis filters leads to: (i) a new method for locating stationary phase points in the TF plane; (ii) a test for phase rate dominance in that plane. Together this is a TF stationary phase approximation (TFSFA) for both analysis and synthesis. The stationary phase regions of several elementary signals are identified theoretically and examples of reconstruction given. An analysis of the TF phase rate characteristics for the case of two simultaneous tones predicts and quantifies a form of simultaneous masking similar to that which characterizes the auditory system.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Trans Signal Processing 14th Aug 201

Foreign prisoners in Europe: an analysis of the 2012 Council of Europe Recommendation and its implications for international penal policy

The issue of migration is attracting significant media and political attention in Europe. Migration has been one of the causes of the rapid rise in the number and proportion of foreigners in national prisons. In response to this problem, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers in 2012 adopted a recommendation concerning the treatment of foreign prisoners. This article analyses the penological and human rights implications of this recommendation in relation to its objectives to reduce the number of foreigners in custody, improve the regime experienced by foreign offenders and enhance the prospects for their successful reintegration. While the 2012 Recommendation makes important contributions to regional penal policy, it also contains notable gaps and limitations. The paper discusses the significance of omissions in relation to the (potential) role of consular representatives, dealing with nationals detained abroad and the use of inter-state transfers. Despite these criticisms and political resistance to some proposals in this field, there appears to be wide spread support for the Recommendation at a practitioner level. It may also have significance beyond domestic policy. There is a new and growing sub-category of foreign prisoner in Europe: the international prisoners convicted by international criminal courts that are serving their sentences in the prison systems of cooperating States. The paper concludes with a discussion of the potential influence regional penal policy can have on the implementation of international custodial sanctions

Corrective Feedback Timing in Kanji Writing Instruction Apps

The focus of this research paper is to determine the correct time to provide corrective feedback to people who are learning how to write Japanese kanji. To do this, we developed a system that is able to recognize Japanese kanji that is handwritten onto an iPad screen and check for errors such as wrong stroke order. Previous research has achieved success in developing similar systems, but this project is unique because the research question involves the timing of corrective feedback. In particular, we are looking at whether immediate or delayed corrective feedback results in better learning

On adaptive filter structure and performance

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D75686/87 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Adaptive Bayesian decision feedback equalizer for dispersive mobile radio channels

The paper investigates adaptive equalization of time dispersive mobile ratio fading channels and develops a robust high performance Bayesian decision feedback equalizer (DFE). The characteristics and implementation aspects of this Bayesian DFE are analyzed, and its performance is compared with those of the conventional symbol or fractional spaced DFE and the maximum likelihood sequence estimator (MLSE). In terms of computational complexity, the adaptive Bayesian DFE is slightly more complex than the conventional DFE but is much simpler than the adaptive MLSE. In terms of error rate in symbol detection, the adaptive Bayesian DFE outperforms the conventional DFE dramatically. Moreover, for severely fading multipath channels, the adaptive MLSE exhibits significant degradation from the theoretical optimal performance and becomes inferior to the adaptive Bayesian DFE

Report on consent in international prisoner transfers

This report, presented to the Council of Europe's Council for Penological Cooperation (PC-CP)(66th Meeting, 8-10 December 2010), outlines the different approaches adopted by the various treaties governing prisoner transfers in relation to consent, and analyses the human rights implications of these approaches

Releasing international prisoners

This book chapter analyses the rules and procedures that govern the release of international prisoners (persons convicted for the commission of international crimes by international criminal courts) at the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Mechanism for the International Criminal Tribunals (MICT). It begins by setting out the legal framework governing release decisions at the MICT and ICC and proceeds with discussions of key elements of this framework, namely, eligibility for release, the procedure used to make release decisions and the criteria that judges have to consider in reaching their decision. It also analyses the subtle yet strong potential influence that states can have on the exercise of judicial discretion in the international criminal justice system

Second Thoughts

This music clip is from the CD entitled At Dusk. The band was directed by Dr. Robert Washut.https://scholarworks.uni.edu/jazzband/1104/thumbnail.jp