A target guided subband filter for acoustic event detection in noisy environments using wavelet packets

This paper deals with acoustic event detection (AED), such as screams, gunshots, and explosions, in noisy environments. The main aim is to improve the detection performance under adverse conditions with a very low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). A novel filtering method combined with an energy detector is presented. The wavelet packet transform (WPT) is first used for time-frequency representation of the acoustic signals. The proposed filter in the wavelet packet domain then uses a priori knowledge of the target event and an estimate of noise features to selectively suppress the background noise. It is in fact a content-aware band-pass filter which can automatically pass the frequency bands that are more significant in the target than in the noise. Theoretical analysis shows that the proposed filtering method is capable of enhancing the target content while suppressing the background noise for signals with a low SNR. A condition to increase the probability of correct detection is also obtained. Experiments have been carried out on a large dataset of acoustic events that are contaminated by different types of environmental noise and white noise with varying SNRs. Results show that the proposed method is more robust and better adapted to noise than ordinary energy detectors, and it can work even with an SNR as low as -15 dB. A practical system for real time processing and multi-target detection is also proposed in this work

Effect of terrains on the volatiles of Cabernet Sauvignon wines grown in Loess Plateau region of China

Volatile compounds of young Cabernet Sauvignon wines from the flat and slope lands grown in Loess Plateau region (China) were investigated in this research. Among the volatile compounds analyzed by headspace solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME) with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), a total of 43 and 45 volatile compounds were identified and quantified in the flat and slope lands wines, respectively. In the volatiles detected, higher alcohols formed the most abundant group in the aroma components of two wines, followed by esters and fatty acids. According to their odor active values (OAVs) and relative odor contribution (ROC), the aromatic profiles for two wines were similar, showing only quantitative but not qualitative differences. Ethyl octanoate, ethyl hexanoate and isoamyl acetate were found to jointly contribute to 98.8 and 99.2% of the global aroma of the flat and slope wines, respectively. These odorants are associated with “fruity’’ and ‘‘ripe fruit’’ odor descriptors. Wine from flat land with higher OAVs of ethyl octanoate and isoamyl acetate seems to have more intense fruity aromas (pineapple, pear and banana), with floral notes.Keywords: Cabernet Sauvignon wines, volatiles, terrains, Loess Plateau region, headspace solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS

A Calibration Method for Wide Field Multicolor Photometric System

The purpose of this paper is to present a method to self-calibrate the spectral energy distribution (SED) of objects in a survey based on the fitting of an SED library to the observed multi-color photometry. We adopt for illustrative purposes the Vilnius (Strizyz and Sviderskiene 1972) and Gunn & Stryker (1983) SED libraries. The self-calibration technique can improve the quality of observations which are not taken under perfectly photometric conditions. The more passbands used for the photometry, the better the results. This technique has been applied to the BATC 15-passband CCD survey.Comment: LateX file, 1 PS file, submitted to PASP number 99-025 The English has been improved and some mistakes have been correcte