Acoustic Analysis of Nigerian English Vowels Based on Accents

Accent has been widely acclaimed to be a major source of automatic speech recognition (ASR) performance degradation. Most ASR applications were developed with native English speaker speech samples not minding the fact that the majority of its potential users speaks English as a second language with a marked accent. Nigeria like most nations colonized by Britain, speaks English as official language despite being a multi-ethnic nation. This work explores the acoustic features of energy, fundamental frequency and the first three formats of the three major ethnic groups of Nigerian based on features extracted from five pure vowels of English obtained from subjects who are Nigerians. This research aimed at determining the differences or otherwise between the pronunciations of the three major ethnic nationalities in Nigeria to aid the development of ASR that is robust to NE accent. The results show that there exist significant differences between the mean values of the pure English vowels based on the pronunciation of the three major ethnics: Hausa, Ibo, and Yoruba. The differences can be explored to enhance the performance of ASR in recognition of NE

Holographic Screening Length in a Hot Plasma of Two Sphere

We study the screening length of a quark-antiquark pair moving in a hot plasma living in two sphere $S^2$ manifold using AdS/CFT correspondence where the background metric is four dimensional Schwarzschild-AdS black hole. The geodesic solution of the string ends at the boundary is given by a stationary motion in the equatorial plane as such the separation length $L$ of quark-antiquark pair is parallel to the angular velocity $\omega$. The screening length and the bound energy are computed numerically using Mathematica. We find that the plots are bounded from below by some functions related to the momentum transfer $P_c$ of the drag force configuration. We compare the result by computing the screening length in the quark-antiquark reference frame where the gravity dual are "Boost-AdS" and Kerr-AdS black holes. Finding relations of the parameters of both black holes, we argue that the relation between mass parameters $M_{Sch}$ of the Schwarzschild-AdS black hole and $M_{Kerr}$ of the Kerr-AdS black hole in high temperature is given by $M_{Kerr}=M_{Sch}(1-a^2l^2)^{3/2}$, where $a$ is the angular momentum parameter.Comment: Major revision: title changed, adding authors, 13 pages, 8 figures, etc. Accepted for publication in European Physical Journal

A training monitoring system for cyclist based on wireless sensor networks

This paper presents a training monitoring system for cyclist that is based on the technology of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). A stable and reliable wireless cyclist monitoring system is vital to establish a smart and efficient sports management program. A training monitoring system has been developed and tested in a real cyclist training environment in a velodrome. The system is designed is such a way that the packet loss rate is minimum. Using TelG mote as the basis, customized sensor nodes that function as a forwarder node and the relay nodes are developed to form the WSN. This WSN is linked to the cloud network on the Internet. The cloud network is then established and end users application for data accessing is designed. Several experiments have been conducted in a real scenario in a velodrome to measure the reliability of the system architecture. It is shown from the experiments that the proposed system is reliable even when the cyclist is moving at a high speed. The packet loss is less than 2% which does not give a huge impact to the data transmission

A novel approach of multimedia instruction applications in engineering education

Effective use of educational technology depends on knowledge of why and how to utilize technology to solve teaching and learning problems. The present study first conducts a systematic literature review of the limited studies undertaken on multimedia instruction applications for engineering education to critique the current status of knowledge in this area. The conventional qualitative content analysis method was employed for data analysis. The results highlighted the incompatibility of three basic educational elements i.e. engineering curriculum, educational resources and engineering students’ learning characteristics all of which posed major challenges in teaching and learning engineering courses. Multimedia instruction enhances engineering students’ understanding of engineering concepts, procedures, problems and solutions through direct visualization. Furthermore, it could indirectly assist students in achieving higher order learning levels and skills through enhancing or supporting educational resources and increasing students’ motivation. Mobile multimedia instruction and a student-generated multimedia learning approach to improve engineering education are suggested for future research. © 2005-2016 JATIT & LLS. All rights reserve

NPK detection spectroscopy on non-agriculture soil

Soil is a medium for plant roots to grow, absorb water and necessary solutes for growth. Soil macronutrient testing is helpful for determining the nutrients content in soil before applying fertilizer for quality and process controls of agricultural produce and soil fertility. Spectroscopy is an emerging technology which is rapid and simple has been widely used in agricultural and food analysis processes. The capability of spectroscopy to characterize material from the transmission or absorbance has been used in this paper to measure nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) content in non-agriculture soil. The paper details preliminary characterization of soil spectroscopy with a Deuterium-Halogen light source and Ocean Optic spectrometer to measure the absorbance level of the macronutrients. The extracted nutrients were mixed with the colour reagent and specific colored solution was developed. Two soil samples have been employed for the experimental characterization, which are mud flood and kaolin. The result shows that high absorbance level of N at 450 nm in wavelength, P at 750 nm for both samples. The absorbance level of K was measured high at 500nm for mud flood and 450nm for kaolin. In addition, the tested macronutrients give similar wavelength of peak absorbance level at 970 nm for both samples. For future works, the optical measurements will be implemented using visible and near infrared LED and the photodetector in order to replace the spectrometer usage for soil spectroscopy. This would lead to achieve the primary objective of this research in developing a simple and low cost spectroscopy uses light-emitting diode (LED)

A study of frequency and pulses for stepper motor controller system by using programmable logic controller

The stepper motor movement process produced different frequency and pulses. This research explained about the frequency and pulses for the stepper motor movement by using Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) as research method. The study was done to find the suitable frequency and pulses for stepper motor movement by developing a prototype stepper motor controller system. The pulse frequency used did not affected the distance of moving load in the stepper motor operations. The increasing number of pulse frequency only will affect the time taken for the stepper motor to complete its operations. The result showed that number of pulse frequency at high operation was 5000 Hz. Pulse number reacted as a manipulated variable that affected both factor which is time taken of stepper motor operation and the distance of moving load

A novel approach of multimedia instruction applications in engineering education

Effective use of educational technology depends on knowledge of why and how to utilize technology to solve teaching and learning problems. The present study first conducts a systematic literature review of the limited studies undertaken on multimedia instruction applications for engineering education to critique the current status of knowledge in this area. The conventional qualitative content analysis method was employed for data analysis. The results highlighted the incompatibility of three basic educational elements i.e. engineering curriculum, educational resources and engineering students’ learning characteristics all of which posed major challenges in teaching and learning engineering courses. Multimedia instruction enhances engineering students’ understanding of engineering concepts, procedures, problems and solutions through direct visualization. Furthermore, it could indirectly assist students in achieving higher order learning levels and skills through enhancing or supporting educational resources and increasing students’ motivation. Mobile multimedia instruction and a student-generated multimedia learning approach to improve engineering education are suggested for future research

Breakfast omission reduces subsequent resistance exercise performance

Although much research has examined the influence of morning carbohydrate intake (i.e., breakfast) on endurance performance, little is known about its effects on performance in resistance-type exercise. Sixteen resistance-trained men (age 23 ± 4 years, body mass 77.56 ± 7.13 kg, and height 1.75 ± 0.04 m) who regularly (≥3 day/wk) consumed breakfast completed this study. After assessment of 10 repetition maximum (10RM) and familiarization process, subjects completed 2 randomized trials. After an overnight fast, subjects consumed either a typical breakfast meal (containing 1.5 g of carbohydrate/kg; breakfast consumption [BC]) or a water-only breakfast (breakfast omission [BO]). Two hours later, subjects performed 4 sets to failure of back squat and bench press at 90% of their 10RM. Sensations of hunger, fullness, desire to eat, and prospective food consumption were collected before, as well as immediately, 1 hour and 2 hours after BC/BO using 100-mm visual analogue scales. Total repetitions completed were lower during BO for both back squat (BO: 58 ± 11 repetitions; BC: 68 ± 14 repetitions; effect size [ES] = 0.98; p < 0.001) and bench press (BO: 38 ± 5 repetitions; BC: 40 ± 5 repetitions; ES = 1.06; p < 0.001). Fullness was greater, whereas hunger, desire to eat, and prospective food consumption were lower after a meal for BC compared with BO (p < 0.001). The results of this study demonstrate that omission of a pre-exercise breakfast might impair resistance exercise performance in habitual breakfast consumers. Therefore, consumption of a high-carbohydrate meal before resistance exercise might be a prudent strategy to help maximize performanc