Shouted speech detection using hidden markov model with rahmonic and mel-frequency cepstrum coefficients

In recent years, crime prevention systems have been developed to detect various hazardous situations. In general, the systems utilize the image information recorded by a camera to monitor the situations. It is however difficult to detect them in the blind area. To address the problem, it is required to utilize not only image information but also acoustic information occurred in such situations. Our previous study showed that two acoustic features including rahmonic and mel-frequency cepstrum coefficients (MFCCs) are effective for detecting the shouted speech. Rahmonic shows a subharmonic of fundamental frequency in the cepstrum domain, and MFCCs represent coefficients that collectively make up mel-frequency cepstrum. In this method, a shouted speech model is constructed from these features by using a gaussian mixture model (GMM). However, the previous method with GMM has difficulty in representing temporal changes of the speech features. In this study, we further expand the previous method using hidden Markov model (HMM) which has state transition to represent the temporal changes. Through objective experiments, the proposed method using HMM could achieve higher detection performance of the shouted speech than the conventional method using GMM

Dealkylation of alkyl polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon over silica monolayer solid acid catalyst

Dealkylation of alkylnaphthalene, as a model of alkyl polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon compounds in heavy oils, proceeded selectively on a silica monolayer solid acid catalyst. The activity was generated by the deposition of silica on alumina with generation of Brønsted acidity. The activity and Brønsted acid amount showed the maximum where the monolayer covered the surface, indicating that the Brønsted acid site generated on the silica monolayer was the active species. The activity and selectivity on the silica monolayer were high compared to other aluminosilicate catalysts, and high activity was observed even after calcination at 973–1173K

ボランティアセンターの創設と活動の現状

Sendai College in Miyagi, Japan established the Volunteer Center in April 2003. The purposes for starting this rogram are for university students to enrich their social experiences, to develop their leadership skills and to help deepen their understanding of human experiences. It is the universitys hope that the center serves a role expected by the community as well. The students volunteers acquire curricular units after one year of their participation. One year after opening the center, out of 1,797 total student population, 42 acquired the units. The author conducted a survey to examine students\u27 participation and their activities at the volunteer center and to analyze the results for improving the program. The result indicated that there are several problems including publicity and giving information about the program

Mild and Chemoselective Thioacylation of Amines Enabled by the Nucleophilic Activation of Elemental Sulfur

A mild and chemoselective method for the thioacylation of amines using α-keto acids and elemental sulfur has been developed. The key to the success of this transformation is the nucleophilic activation of elemental sulfur by thiols such as 1-dodecanethiol. A variety of functional groups, including unprotected hydroxyl, carboxyl, amide, sulfide, and tertiary amine moieties, are tolerated under the applied reaction conditions. To demonstrate the advantages of this method compared with conventional O–S exchange reactions using Lawesson’s reagent or P2S5, thioamide moieties were introduced site-specifically into biologically active compounds