Compressive speech enhancement using semi-soft thresholding and improved threshold estimation

Compressive speech enhancement is based on the compressive sensing (CS) sampling theory and utilizes the sparsity of the signal for its enhancement. To improve the performance of the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) basis-function based compressive speech enhancement algorithm, this study presents a semi-soft thresholding approach suggesting improved threshold estimation and threshold rescaling parameters. The semi-soft thresholding approach utilizes two thresholds, one threshold value is an improved universal threshold and the other is calculated based on the initial-silence-region of the signal. This study suggests that thresholding should be applied to both detail coefficients and approximation coefficients to remove noise effectively. The performances of the hard, soft, garrote and semi-soft thresholding approaches are compared based on objective quality and speech intelligibility measures. The normalized covariance measure is introduced as an effective intelligibility measure as it has a strong correlation with the intelligibility of the speech signal. A visual inspection of the output signal is used to verify the results. Experiments were conducted on the noisy speech corpus (NOIZEUS) speech database. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method of semi-soft thresholding using improved threshold estimation provides better enhancement compared to the other thresholding approaches

Comparative Analysis of Image Enhancement Techniques for Ultrasound Liver Image

Liver cancer is the sixth most common malignant tumour in the world and the third most common cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. To diagnose such liver diseases, In this paper comparison has been made for various image enhancement techniques that are applied to liver ultrasound image. Three types of liver ultrasound images used are normal, benign and malignant liver images. The techniques, which are compared on the basis of two evaluation parameters Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Mean Square Error (MSE) including, Contrast Stretching, Shock Filter, Histogram Equalization, Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization (CLAHE).Such a comparison would be helpful in determining the best suited method for clinical diagnosis. It also has been observed that the Shock filter gives the better performance than others for liver ultrasonic image analysis.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijece.v2i6.151

Study of Ethno-Medicinal Wild Edible Leafy Vegetables Used by Local Tribes in District Jashpur, Chhattisgarh.

The leaves of numerous cultivated and wild plants are used as vegetables in India. They are incredibly simple to grow and offer a very high preventive food value. The natural vegetation of Chhattisgarh plays a crucial role in the economy and way of life of the tribal and ethnic communities. In remote areas of Chhattisgarh, leafy vegetables are crucial to the nutritional needs of the native and tribal population. In addition to providing a substantial amount of food, leafy vegetables also significantly contribute to the population's nutrition all year long. An extensive survey of the leafy vegetables consumed by the tribal community in different parts of the Sanna district of Jashpur Chhattisgarh was conducted as part of the current investigation. According to this study, the state of Chhattisgarh uses roughly 36 species of plants as a source of leafy vegetables. There are 35 leafy plants used in ethnomedicine. they were dispersed across many life forms. They included 4 species of trees, 3 species of shrubs, 23 species of herbs, and 5 species of climbers, but it was astonishing to see during the survey that nearly 35 plant species were discovered to be employed in various parts of Sanna. Numerous vegetables are also used by the locals as a source of herbal treatments for ailments like arthritis, jaundice, colds and coughs, fever, headaches, bronchial asthma, ulcers, skin problems, and other

STUDY ON GEOTHERMAL REFRIGARATION

Geothermal heat can be used for different purposes, depending the operating temperature of thesource. Usually, incase of low and medium-enthalpy sources, geothermal energy is used directly, for space heating, domestic hot water, agricultural uses, etc. Conversely, in case of high-enthalpy geothermal resources, heat is more profitably converted in to electricity or in more complex cascade cycles. Low or medium temperature geothermal energy can be converted in to electric power only when innovative and expensive system layouts areconsidered. Unfortunately, at are as on able depth only low-enthalpy geothermal energy is usually available; only in some specific locations in the world, high-enthalpy geothermal resources are available even using low-depth wells

HYPERLOOP TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM

Hyperloop is a new mode of transport that seeks to change this paradigm by being bothfast and inexpensive for people and goods. It is new fantastic project represents the transport system consisting of moving on tubes with strongly rarefied air of aluminium capsules. It is the pneumatic capsule transportation. The main advantages of the pneumatic capsule transport are: the high speed, ecological safety and the possibility to fully automate the movement. This model is based on Newton’s second law of motion. The capsule passes by one of the ultrasonic detector and starts the timer. The timergoes off when thecapsule passes by the second detector. This paper describes the design of Hyperloop trains. Hyperloop consists of a low pressure tube with capsules that are transported at both low and high speeds throughout the length of the tube. The capsules are supported on a cushion of air, featuring pressurized air and aerodynamic lift

Local structure of amorphous Ag5In5Sb60Te30 and In3SbTe2 phase change materials revealed by X-ray photoelectron and Raman spectroscopic studies

Reversible switching between highly resistive (binary ``0'') amorphous phase and low resistive (binary ``1'') crystalline phase of chalcogenide-based Phase Change Materials is accredited for the development of next generation high-speed, non-volatile, data storage applications. The doped Sb-Te based materials have shown enhanced electrical/optical properties, compared to Ge-Sb-Te family for high-speed memory devices. We report here the local atomic structure of as-deposited amorphous Ag5In5Sb60Te30 (AIST) and In3SbTe2 (IST) phase change materials using X-ray photoelectron and Raman spectroscopic studies. Although AIST and IST materials show identical crystallization behavior, they differ distinctly in their crystallization temperatures. Our experimental results demonstrate that the local environment of In remains identical in the amorphous phase of both AIST and IST material, irrespective of its atomic fraction. In bonds with Sb (similar to 44%) and Te (similar to 56%), thereby forming the primary matrix in IST with a very few Sb-Te bonds. Sb2Te constructs the base matrix for AIST (similar to 63%) along with few Sb-Sb bonds. Furthermore, an interesting assimilation of the role of small-scale dopants such as Ag and In in AIST, reveals rare bonds between themselves, while showing selective substitution in the vicinity of Sb and Te. This results in increased electronegativity difference, and consequently, the bond strength is recognized as the factor rendering stability in amorphous AIST. Published by AIP Publishing

Stabilizing the B-site oxidation state in ABO perovskite nanoparticles

The stabilization of the B-site oxidation state in ABO3 perovskites using wet-chemical methods is a synthetic challenge, which is of fundamental and practical interest for energy storage and conversion devices. In this work, defect-controlled (Sr-deficiency and oxygen vacancies) strontium niobium(iv) oxide (Sr1-xNbO3-δ, SNO) metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs) were synthesized for the first time using a low-pressure wet-chemistry synthesis. The experiments were performed under reduced oxygen partial pressure to prevent by-product formation and with varying Sr/Nb molar ratio to favor the formation of Nb4+ pervoskites. At a critical Sr to Nb ratio (Sr/Nb = 1.3), a phase transition is observed forming an oxygen-deficient SrNbO3 phase. Structural refinement on the resultant diffraction pattern shows that the SNO NPs consists of a near equal mixture of SrNbO3 and Sr0.7NbO3-δ crystal phases. A combination of Rietveld refinement and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) confirmed the stabilization of the +4 oxidation state and the formation of oxygen vacancies. The Nb local site symmetry was extracted through Raman spectroscopy and modeled using DFT. As further confirmation, the particles demonstrate the expected absorption highlighting their restored optoelectronic properties. This low-pressure wet-chemical approach for stabilizing the oxidation state of a transition metal has the potential to be extended to other oxygen sensitive, low dimensional perovskite oxides with unique properties

In-depth analysis of the chemical composition, pharmacological effects, pharmacokinetics, and patent history of mangiferin

Introduction: Mangiferin (2-D-glucopyranosyl-1,3,6,7-tetrahydroxy-9H-xanthen-9-one) is extracted from different part of plants such seed, peel, and kernels of mango. Methods: In many studies mangiferin was studied for its antidiabetic, antioxidant, antibacterial, anticancer, immunomodulatory, and hypocholesterolaemia activity. It mainly works by altering the transcription process which further led to inhibition of peroxisome proliferator activated receptor. By preventing the expression of tumor necrosis factor, inducible nitric oxide synthase potential, proliferation, and apoptosis, mangiferin defends against a variety of human malignancies, such as breast, lung, brain, and colon tumours. It could defend against physiological hazards by preventing lipid peroxidation. Results: The present review focuses on an updated account of investigation related to mangiferin's chemo preventive activity, apoptosis induction in cancer cells, potential antioxidative activities, and patent mapping of additional therapeutic aspects. This review also highlights the different molecular targets of Mangiferin, as well as its potential as a polyphenol. Conclusion: From the finding of this review, it was concluded that Mangiferin has versatile pharmacological properties could serves as economic, safe and potential ailment in the treatment of diseases as well as dietary supplements