Comparing Physiological Responses While Walking on a Standard Motorized Treadmill and Curve Treadmill

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New single-ended objective measure for non-intrusive speech quality evaluation

peer-reviewedThis article proposes a new output-based method for non-intrusive assessment of speech quality of voice communication systems and evaluates its performance. The method requires access to the processed (degraded) speech only, and is based on measuring perception-motivated objective auditory distances between the voiced parts of the output speech to appropriately matching references extracted from a pre-formulated codebook. The codebook is formed by optimally clustering a large number of parametric speech vectors extracted from a database of clean speech records. The auditory distances are then mapped into objective Mean Opinion listening quality scores. An efficient data-mining tool known as the self-organizing map (SOM) achieves the required clustering and mapping/reference matching processes. In order to obtain a perception-based, speaker-independent parametric representation of the speech, three domain transformation techniques have been investigated. The first technique is based on a perceptual linear prediction (PLP) model, the second utilises a bark spectrum (BS) analysis and the third utilises mel-frequency cepstrum coefficients (MFCC). Reported evaluation results show that the proposed method provides high correlation with subjective listening quality scores, yielding accuracy similar to that of the ITU-T P.563 while maintaining a relatively low computational complexity. Results also demonstrate that the method outperforms the PESQ in a number of distortion conditions, such as those of speech degraded by channel impairments.acceptedpeer-reviewe

An Integrated Coil Form Test Coil Design for High Current REBCO DC Solenoids

REBCO high-temperature superconductors (HTS) are being utilized to extend the limits of dc solenoidal magnetic fields to 32 T in a user magnet. It is reasonable to expect that these field limits will continue to be surpassed resulting in higher stored energy coils. These larger coils will require kilo-amp level currents to reduce their inductance to manageable levels. Lower inductance coils will be necessary to eliminate unacceptably long ramp times and expensive high voltage isolation hardware by reducing inductive charging and quench voltages. A novel high-current coil concept, using an integrated coil form (ICF), is described here. The coil concept is being developed in combination with a high-current flux pump at the University of Cambridge. The first test coil will be charged to 5.6 kA and will demonstrate the ICF coil winding technique, current lead connections, layer transitions, and coil terminations, as well as ramping and quench performance. The test coil design is described