Band-pass filtering of the time sequences of spectral parameters for robust wireless speech recognition

In this paper we address the problem of automatic speech recognition when wireless speech communication systems are involved. In this context, three main sources of distortion should be considered: acoustic environment, speech coding and transmission errors. Whilst the first one has already received a lot of attention, the last two deserve further investigation in our opinion. We have found out that band-pass filtering of the recognition features improves ASR performance when distortions due to these particular communication systems are present. Furthermore, we have evaluated two alternative configurations at different bit error rates (BER) typical of these channels: band-pass filtering the LP-MFCC parameters or a modification of the RASTA-PLP using a sharper low-pass section perform consistently better than LP-MFCC and RASTA-PLP, respectively.Publicad

Agreement morphology errors and null subjects in young (non-)CLIL learners

Abstract: There is a wealth of studies on L2 English acquisition in CLIL contexts in Spain,but most have underexplored the potential impact of CLIL in the longer run on themorphosyntax of earlier starters from monolingual regions. This paper fills this gap by exploring agreement morphology errors and subject omission in the oral production of Primary Education English learners from the Spanish monolingual community of Cantabria.The sample investigated consists of the individual narration of a story by learners in two age-matched (11-12 year-olds) groups, one CLIL (n=28) and one non- CLIL (n=35). The results show no statistically significant differences between both groups for the provision of specific linguistic features at a younger age, though some evidence also points to a subtle effect of additional CLIL exposure. Both groups show moderately low rates of null subjects; they omit affixal morphology (*he eat ) significantly more frequently than suppletive inflection (*he _ eating) and they seldom produce commission errors (*they eats). Interestingly, non-CLIL learners show far greater rates of omission with auxiliary be than copula be and frequently use the placeholder is (*he is eat), which evinces an earlier stage of acquisition than that of CLIL learners.Resumen: En estudios previos sobre la adquisición de inglés como L2 en contextos AICLE en España no se ha explorado en profundidad el impacto potencial de AICLE en la morfosintaxis en estudiantes con una exposición temprana y prolongada a la lengua meta y en regiones monolingües. Nuestra investigación contribuye a esta línea de investigación explorando los errores de morfología flexiva y la omisión del sujeto en la producción oral de aprendices de inglés de Educación Primaria de la comunidad española monolingüe de Cantabria. La muestra investigada consiste en la narración individual de una historia por aprendices de edades similares de un grupo CLIL (n=28) y uno no CLIL (n=35). Los resultados no muestran diferencias significativas entre ambos grupos en lo que respecta a la provisión de rasgos lingüísticos específicos a edades tempranas, aunque sí evidencian un ligero efecto de la exposición adicional a AICLE. Ambos grupos muestran tasas relativamente bajas de sujetos nulos; omiten la morfología afijal (*he eat ) con una frecuencia significativamente mayor que la supletiva (*he _ eating) y raramente emplean morfemas flexivos de forma errónea (*they eats). Sin embargo, los estudiantes de programas tradicionales omiten más el auxiliar be que la cópula be y utilizan más frecuentemente el ?comodín? is (*he is eat), lo que evidencia una etapa de adquisición más temprana que la de los estudiantes en programas AICLE

Drought indices validation: Improving monitoring knowledge on different systems in Spain and the United States

This PhD Thesis focuses in the evaluation of different drought indices on multiple systems and the spatio-temporal response of agriculture, forests and streamflow to drought conditions in two heterogeneous regions, the United States and Spain from the sixties to nowadays. Knowing the importance of selecting appropriate tools for monitoring drought, the performance of seven of the most commonly used drought indices and their ability to capture impacts on vulnerable systems were validated. For this purpose, three multi-scalar drought indices (the SPI, the SPEI and the SPDI) and four uni-scalar Palmer family drought indices (the PDSI, the PHDI, the Z-index and the PMDI) were quantitatively compared. The results obtained from the different analysis conducted demonstrated the superior performance of the SPEI, the SPI and the SPDI in comparison to the PDSIs. Independently on the type of crop, tree species, river basin and the temporal scale considered, drought indices calculated at different time scales have a superior capacity to reflect the different impacts of drought over diverse systems with a wide range of temporal responses to drought associated to specific characteristics that difficult even more this identification. The varying responses of crops to drought indices time-scales observed in crop yields from US and Spain were mainly determined by the resilience of plants to develop strategies to deal with soil moisture depletion and by the resistance of the different types of crops during the sensitive vegetative stages of growth. Similarly, findings from forest sensitivity to drought in forests in Spain showed variations among species and climatic regions highlighting the role of resilience mechanisms to handle with extreme climatic conditions. In addition, seasonal variations predetermined the response of tree species to drought. In general, results suggested a lagged response to drought depending on the part of the tree decay cycle affected, thus secondary growth was found especially sensitive to humid conditions during summer months while photosynthetic activity was affected by drought conditions occurring during spring months. From the propagation of climatic drought to streamflow drought analysis, results suggested a primary response to drought at short-time scales in most of the near-natural basins analysed in the US and Spain. However, seasonal patterns and local differences in the response of streamflow demonstrated the influence of catchment properties (e.g. vegetation cover, land-use, climatic conditions or topographic characteristics such as elevation) on streamflow response to climatic drought. This PhD Thesis provided quantitative evidences about the effectiveness of drought indices for quantification and monitoring purposes, and also improved the knowledge on the sensitivity and spatio-temporal response of different natural systems to the most hazardous and tricky climate phenomenon

Introducción a la optimización infinito dimensional

El objetivo de este trabajo es obtener un resultado general acerca de la existencia de solución de problemas de minimización en espacios infinito dimensionales. El teorema correspondiente extiende el resultado clásico de Weierstrass que establece que una función continua en un compacto siempre alcanza mínimo y máximo global. Estas hipótesis son muy restrictivas en el caso de espacios de dimensión infinita. Los resultados obtenidos a lo largo del trabajo se aplican a la existencia de solución para problemas del Cálculo de Variaciones. Para llevar a cabo estos objetivos necesitamos algunas nociones de Análisis Funcional, un estudio de los espacios de Sobolev en dimensión uno y algunos resultados elementales acerca de la teoría de derivación en espacios normados.The goal of this work is to obtain a general result about the existence of solution of minimization problems in infinite dimensional spaces. The corresponding theorem extends the classic Weierstrass result which establishes that a continuous function in a compact set always reaches its global maximum and its global minimum. These hypotheses are very restrictive in the case of infinite dimensional spaces. The results proved in this work are applied to the study of the existence of solution for problems of Calculus Variations. To achieve these objectives we need some notions of functional analysis, a study of Sobolev spaces in dimension one and some elementary results about the theory of derivation in normed spaces.Universidad de Sevilla. Grado en Matemática

Analysis of energy management and financial planning in the implementation of photovoltaic systems

This paper presents the analysis of energy management and financial planning that is carried out in the design and implementation of photovoltaic systems in urban areas of the city of Barranquilla, Colombia. A questionnaire with a Likert scale and 36 items was designed, which was answered by subjects with managerial functions of the 16 companies dedicated to the implementation of photovoltaic (PV) projects in Barranquilla. The instrument was validated by expert judgment with a reliability of 0.84 with Cronbach’s Alpha. For the analysis of results, techniques of central tendency and variability were used. The results show that energy management in the implementation of PV projects is moderate, indicating that there is no predominant presence of indicators of improvement and energy performance in these projects. Financial planning has a moderate significance, indicating that the financial analysis methods that are being used in these PV systems projects have a basic analysis

An image processing‐based method to assess the monthly energetic complementarity of solar and wind energy in Colombia

Solar and wind energy systems, without storage, cannot satisfy variable load demands, but their combined use can help to solve the problem of the balance between generation and consumption. Energetic complementarity studies are useful to evaluate the viability of the use of two or more renewable energy sources with high variability in a specific interval of time in a determined region. In this paper, the monthly energetic complementarity study of solar and wind resources of Colombia is carried out. A novel approach to conduct the study is proposed. A dataset with the average monthly solar radiation and wind speed values is obtained from high‐resolution images of renewable resources maps, using image processing algorithms. Then, the dataset is used to calculate the energetic complementarity of the sources employing the negative of the Pearson correlation coefficient. The obtained values are transformed to energetic complementarity maps, previously eliminating the protected areas. The obtained results show that there is a good energetic complementarity in the north and northeastern regions of the country throughout the year. The results indicate that projects related to the joint use of solar and wind generation systems could be developed in these regions

Effect of Cultivar on Chlorophyll Meter and Canopy Reflectance Measurements in Cucumber

Optical sensors can be used to assess crop N status to assist with N fertilizer management. Differences between cultivars may affect optical sensor measurement. Cultivar effects on measurements made with the SPAD-502 (Soil Plant Analysis Development) meter and the MC-100 (Chlorophyll Concentration Meter), and of several vegetation indices measured with the Crop Circle ACS470 canopy reflectance sensor, were assessed. A cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) crop was grown in a greenhouse, with three cultivars. Each cultivar received three N treatments, of increasing N concentration, being deficient (N1), sufficient (N2) and excessive (N3). There were significant differences between cultivars in the measurements made with both chlorophyll meters, particularly when N supply was sufficient and excessive (N2 and N3 treatments, respectively). There were no consistent differences between cultivars in vegetation indices. Optical sensor measurements were strongly linearly related to leaf N content in each of the three cultivars. The lack of a consistent effect of cultivar on the relationship with leaf N content suggests that a unique equation to estimate leaf N content from vegetation indices can be applied to all three cultivars. Results of chlorophyll meter measurements suggest that care should be taken when using sufficiency values, determined for a particular cultiva

Relación entre el compromiso deportivo, la resiliencia, la inteligencia emocional y la agresividad de los deportistas en función de las horas de entrenamiento, la modalidad deportiva, la edad y el sexo

El deporte representa una forma de enfrentarse a retos, una oportunidad de colaboración en equipo, una competición con uno mismo o una forma de relajación. Pero si el objetivo es la competición, las exigencias de rendimiento se multiplican y se hace aún más necesaria una preparación, no solo física y técnico-táctica, sino emocional. Esta investigación tiene como objetivo principal conocer la relación existente entre el compromiso deportivo, la resiliencia, la agresividad y la inteligencia emocional con las horas de práctica deportiva semanal de deportistas practicantes de diferentes modalidades. A nivel más práctico, aportará otra perspectiva para entender las relaciones intrapersonales e interpersonales en el deporte. Para ello se han llevado a cabo dos investigaciones. Una instrumental, para la revalidación de cuestionarios utilizados en la recogida de datos; y otra empírica, en la que se ha estudiado la relación entre las variables independientes, sexo, edad y modalidad deportiva y las variables resultantes de las cuatro escalas de inteligencia emocional, resiliencia, agresividad y compromiso deportivo. El estudio se ha desarrollado con una muestra de 472 deportistas (235 varones y 237 mujeres) a los que se aplicaron un test con cuestionarios sobre inteligencia emocional, resiliencia, compromiso deportivo y agresividad desarrollado a partir de los cuestionarios AQ, CIED v.2.0, Escala de Compromiso Deportivo de Orlick y CD-RISK. Los datos recogidos se han analizado estadísticamente mediante los programas SPSS.22, FACTOR 10.3 y M-PLUS.7. Los resultados encontrados muestran que tanto la resiliencia como la inteligencia emocional son predictores del compromiso deportivo. En función del sexo los varones mostraron una puntuación mayor tanto en agresividad como en aplicación y valoración de las emociones. Los sujetos que más horas dedican a practicar deporte se mostraron más comprometidos con la práctica deportiva en el futuro que los que dedican menos horas.Sports represent a way to face challenges, an opportunity for team collaboration, a competition with oneself or a form of relaxation. But if the objective is the competition, the demand of performance multiplies and preparation becomes even more necessary, not only physical and technical-tactical, but also emotional. The main objective of the research presented is to know the relationship between sports commitment, resilience, aggressiveness and emotional intelligence in comparison to the amount of weekly sport practice hours of the athletes participating in this study. At a more practical level, sports will provide another perspective to understand intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships.For this reason, two investigations have been carried out. An instrumental one, for the validation of questionnaires used in the collection of data; and an empirical one, in which the relationship between the independent variables, sex, age and sports modality and the variables resulting from the four scales of emotional intelligence, resilience, aggression and sports commitment have been studied. The study has been developed with a sample of 472 athletes (235 males and 237 females) who were tested with questionnaires on emotional intelligence, resilience, sports commitment and aggression developed from the AQ, CIED v.2.0 questionnaires, Orlick Sports Commitment Scale and CD-RISK. The data collected were statistically analyzed through the SPSS.22, FACTOR 10.3 and M-PLUS.7 programs. The results show that both resilience and emotional intelligence are predictors of sports commitment. In terms of sex, males showed a higher score in both aggression and in the application and assessment of emotions. Subjects spending more hours practicing sports were more committed to continue that practice in the future than those spending less time

The Use of Chlorophyll Meters to Assess Crop N Status and Derivation of Sufficiency Values for Sweet Pepper

Chlorophyll meters are promising tools for improving the nitrogen (N) management of vegetable crops. To facilitate on-farm use of these meters, sufficiency values that identify deficient and sufficient crop N status are required. This work evaluated the ability of three chlorophyll meters (SPAD-502, atLEAF+, and MC-100) to assess crop N status in sweet pepper. It also determined sufficiency values for optimal N nutrition for each meter for pepper. The experimental work was conducted in a greenhouse, in Almería, Spain, very similar to those used for commercial production, in three different crops grown with fertigation. In each crop, there were five treatments of different N concentration in the nutrient solution, applied in each irrigation, ranging from a very deficient to very excessive N supply. In general, chlorophyll meter measurements were strongly related to crop N status in all phenological stages of the three crops, indicating that these measurements are good indicators of the crop N status of pepper. Sufficiency values determined for each meter for the four major phenological stages were consistent between the three crops. This demonstrated the potential for using these meters with sufficiency values to improve the N management of commercial sweet pepper crops