IMPACT OF MICROPHONE POSITIONAL ERRORS ON SPEECH INTELLIGIBILITY

The speech of a person speaking in a noisy environment can be enhanced through electronic beamforming using spatially distributed microphones. As this approach demands precise information about the microphone locations, its application is limited in places where microphones must be placed quickly or changed on a regular basis. Highly precise calibration or measurement process can be tedious and time consuming. In order to understand tolerable limits on the calibration process, the impact of microphone position error on the intelligibility is examined. Analytical expressions are derived by modeling the microphone position errors as a zero mean uniform distribution. Experiments and simulations were performed to show relationships between precision of the microphone location measurement and loss in intelligibility. A variety of microphone array configurations and distracting sources (other interfering speech and white noise) are considered. For speech near the threshold of intelligibility, the results show that microphone position errors with standard deviations less than 1.5cm can limit losses in intelligibility to within 10% of the maximum (perfect microphone placement) for all the microphone distributions examined. Of different array distributions experimented, the linear array tends to be more vulnerable whereas the non-uniform 3D array showed a robust performance to positional errors

EXTRACTION AND PREDICTION OF SYSTEM PROPERTIES USING VARIABLE-N-GRAM MODELING AND COMPRESSIVE HASHING

In modern computer systems, memory accesses and power management are the two major performance limiting factors. Accesses to main memory are very slow when compared to operations within a processor chip. Hardware write buffers, caches, out-of-order execution, and prefetch logic, are commonly used to reduce the time spent waiting for main memory accesses. Compiler loop interchange and data layout transformations also can help. Unfortunately, large data structures often have access patterns for which none of the standard approaches are useful. Using smaller data structures can significantly improve performance by allowing the data to reside in higher levels of the memory hierarchy. This dissertation proposes using lossy data compression technology called ’Compressive Hashing’ to create “surrogates”, that can augment original large data structures to yield faster typical data access. One way to optimize system performance for power consumption is to provide a predictive control of system-level energy use. This dissertation creates a novel instruction-level cost model called the variable-n-gram model, which is closely related to N-Gram analysis commonly used in computational linguistics. This model does not require direct knowledge of complex architectural details, and is capable of determining performance relationships between instructions from an execution trace. Experimental measurements are used to derive a context-sensitive model for performance of each type of instruction in the context of an N-instruction sequence. Dynamic runtime power prediction mechanisms often suffer from high overhead costs. To reduce the overhead, this dissertation encodes the static instruction-level predictions into a data structure and uses compressive hashing to provide on-demand runtime access to those predictions. Genetic programming is used to evolve compressive hash functions and performance analysis of applications shows that, runtime access overhead can be reduced by a factor of ~3x-9x

Processor Microarchitecture for Implementation of Ephemeral State Processing within Network Routers

The evolving concept of Ephemeral State Processing (ESP) is overviewed. ESP allows development of new scalable end-to-end network user services. An evolving macro-level language is being developed to support ESP at the network node level. Three approaches for implementing ESP services at network routers can be considered. One approach is to use the existing processing capability within commercially available network routers. Another approach is to add a small scale existing ASIC based general-purpose processor to an existing network router. This thesis research concentrates on a third approach of developing a special-purpose programmable Ephemeral State Processor (ESPR) Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) and implementing microarchitecture for deployment within each ESP-capable node to implement ESP service within that node. A unique architectural characteristic of the ESPR is its scalable and temporal Ephemeral State Store (ESS) associative memory, required by the ESP service for storage/retrieval of bounded (short) lifetime ephemeral (tag, value) pairs of application data. The ESPR will be implemented to Programmable Logic Device (PLD) technology within a network node. This offers advantages of reconfigurability, in-field upgrade capability and supports the evolving growth of ESP services. Correct functional and performance operation of the presented ESPR microarchitecture is validated via Hardware Description Language (HDL) post-implementation (virtual prototype) simulation testing. Suggestions of future research related to improving the performance of the ESPR rnicroarchitecture and experimental deployment of ESP are discussed

ChemEngine: harvesting 3D chemical structures of supplementary data from PDF files

Additional file 2. Recreated 3D geometry optimized structures of 29 molecules as visualized in the original program (Gauss View)

ChemTextMiner: An open source tool kit for mining medical literature abstracts

Text mining involves recognizing patterns from a wealth of information hidden latent in unstructured text and deducing explicit relationships among data entities by using data mining tools. Text mining of Biomedical literature is essential for building biological network connecting genes, proteins, drugs, therapeutic categories, side effects etc. related to diseases of interest. We present an approach for textmining biomedical literature mostly in terms of not so obvious hidden relationships and build biological network applied for the textmining of important human diseases like MTB, Malaria, Alzheimer and Diabetes. The methods, tools and data used for building biological networks using a distributed computing environment previously used for ChemXtreme[1] and ChemStar[2] applications are also described

Randomised controlled trial comparing rubber band ligation with stapled haemorrhoidopexy for Grade II circumferential haemorrhoids : Long-term results

Peer reviewedPostprin

First record of redneck goby Schismatogobius deraniyagalai (Teleostei: Gobiidae) from Seethanathi river, Karnataka, Southern India.

Schismatogobius deraniyagalai is recorded from the Seethanathi River of Karnataka state in the southern part of India. Previous records of these species were from the streams in Kerala of India and from freshwater habitats of Sri Lanka. Herein we report the occurrence of this species in Seethanathi River showing its distribution extended further north along the west coast of Peninsular India

First record of redneck goby Schismatogobius deraniyagalai (Teleostei: Gobiidae) from Seethanathi river, Karnataka, Southern India.

Schismatogobius deraniyagalai is recorded from the Seethanathi River of Karnataka state in the southern part of India. Previous records of these species were from the streams in Kerala of India and from freshwater habitats of Sri Lanka. Herein we report the occurrence of this species in Seethanathi River showing its distribution extended further north along the west coast of Peninsular India

Review on conductivity enhancement in n-ZnO/p-Si heterojunction diodes with the influence of Rare earth ions as donor impurities.

Nanoelectronics is an emerging field of nanotechnology where innumerable nanomaterials are used to fabricate electronic devices like LEDs, Photodiodes, Transistors, FETs, UJTs, SCRs, Laser diodes, etc.  The accomplishment of high-efficiency electronic devices at low cost tends to be the foremost challenging task in the field of nanoelectronics. The p-n heterojunction is a junction of two dissimilar p and n-type crystalline materials with different bandgap energies, work functions and electron affinities.The n-ZnO/p-Si heterojunction device tends to be cost-effective and also potential candidates for integration with microelectronic based photonic and optoelectronic devices. Th electrical properties of n-ZnO/p-Si heterojunction diode can be fine-tuned by the addition of dopants at different concentrations.This article presents a brief overview on the influence of different  rare earth dopants on chargecarrier enhancement and transport mechanism in n-ZnO/p-Si heterojunction diode. This review paper also presents an outline on heterojunction formation theories and applications of n-ZnO/p-Si heterojunction diod

Die genomische und transkriptomische Landschaft der klinischen Isolate von Escherichia coli und Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Large amounts of genomic data have been obtained due to the rapid advances in DNA sequencing technology. With efficient computational platforms, these data can provide many possibilities to improve our knowledge on species evolution and their genetic makeup. The general interest of this thesis is to facilitate studies on important biological questions by attaining the relevant information from transcriptomic and genomic data. The aims of my thesis were i) to develop the pan-genome based RNA-Seq data analysis pipeline in order to analyze ex vivo gene expression profiles of uro-pathogenic Escherichia coli isolates and ii) to create the consensus sequence of the Pseudomonas aeruginosa core genome in order to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) at high accuracy and to find the patho-adaptive mutations in P. aeruginosa clinical isolates. To address these aims I developed and used the pan-genome of E. coli in order to map and analyze the RNA-Seq reads that were associated with an acute urinary tract infection. Whereas the in vivo gene expression profiles of the majority of genes were conserved among the 21 E. coli strains, the specific gene expression profiles of the accessory genome were diverse and reflected phylogenetic relationships. In addition to that, whole genome sequencing data was used to gain insights into the genetic variations of 99 clinical P. aeruginosa isolates. I created the consensus sequence for every core gene based on the most frequent nucleotide. I used it as reference for the identification of SNPs across all clinical isolates. The identified SNPs were classified into clonal-specific, single and phylogenetically independent SNPs. The majority of the SNPs were clonal-dependent and single SNPs. However, I identified a large set of 2,252 genes which had one or more phylogenetically independent non-synonymous mutation. Moreover, the ratio of dN/dS on 3,814 genes revealed that the core genome is not under selection pressure. In summary, this thesis explores pan-genome-based as well as consensus sequence-based approaches on transcriptomic and genomic sequencing data of clinical isolates of E. coli and P. aeruginosa respectively. The results of the thesis contributed to understanding of sequence variations that are selected in the environment of the human host and lead to bacterial adaptation and pathogenicity. This is not only important for the basic scientific research, but also to understand the link between diversity and community structure and function.Aufgrund der schnellen Fortschritte in der DNA-Sequenzierungstechnologie wurden große Mengen genomischer Daten erhalten. Mit effizienten Rechenplattformen können diese Daten viele Möglichkeiten bieten, unser Wissen über die Evolution von Arten und ihren genetischen Aufbau zu verbessern. Das allgemeine Interesse dieser Arbeit ist es, Studien zu wichtigen biologischen Fragen zu ermöglichen, indem relevante Informationen aus transkriptomischen und genomischen Daten gewonnen werden. Ziel meiner Dissertation war es, i) die auf dem Pan-Genom basierende RNA-Seq Datenanalyse Pipeline zu entwickeln, um ex vivo-Genexpressionsprofile von uropathogenen Escherichia coli-Isolaten zu analysieren und ii) die Konsensussequenz des Pseudomonas aeruginosa-Kerns zu erstellen Genom, um einzelne Nukleotidpolymorphismen (SNPs) mit hoher Genauigkeit zu identifizieren und die pathoadaptiven Mutationen in klinischen P. aeruginosa-Isolaten zu finden. Um diese Ziele zu erreichen, entwickelte und verwendete ich das Pan-Genom von E. coli, um die RNA-Seq-Reads abzubilden und zu analysieren, die mit einer akuten Harnwegsinfektion assoziiert waren. Während die in vivo-Genexpressionsprofile der meisten Gene unter den 21 E. coli-Stämmen konserviert waren, waren die spezifischen Genexpressionsprofile des akzessorischen Genoms unterschiedlich und spiegelten phylogenetische Beziehungen wider. Darüber hinaus wurden Daten zur vollständigen Genomsequenzierung verwendet, um Einblicke in die genetischen Variationen von 99 klinischen P. aeruginosa-Isolaten zu erhalten. Ich erstellte die Konsensussequenz für jedes Kerngen basierend auf dem häufigsten Nukleotid. Ich habe es als Referenz für die Identifizierung von SNPs in allen klinischen Isolaten verwendet. Die identifizierten SNPs wurden in klonenspezifische, einzelne und phylogenetisch unabhängige SNPs eingeteilt. Die Mehrheit der SNPs waren klonabhängige und einzelne SNPs. Ich identifizierte jedoch eine große Menge von 2.252 Genen, die eine oder mehrere phylogenetisch unabhängige, nicht synonyme Mutationen aufwiesen. Darüber hinaus zeigte das Verhältnis von dN / dS bei 3.814 Genen, dass das Kerngenom nicht unter Selektionsdruck steht. Zusammenfassend werden in dieser Dissertation Pan-Genom-basierte sowie Consensus-Sequenz-basierte Ansätze zur Transkriptom- und Genom-Sequenzierung von klinischen Isolaten von E. coli bzw. P. aeruginosa untersucht. Die Ergebnisse der Dissertation trugen zum Verständnis von Sequenzvariationen bei, die in der Umgebung des menschlichen Wirts selektiert werden und zu einer bakteriellen Anpassung und Pathogenität führen. Dies ist nicht nur für die wissenschaftliche Grundlagenforschung wichtig, sondern auch, um den Zusammenhang zwischen Vielfalt und Struktur und Funktion der Gemeinschaft zu verstehen