THE APPLICATION OF A NOISE MAPPING TOOL DEPLOYED IN GRID INFRASTRUCTURE FOR CREATING NOISE MAPS OF URBAN AREAS

The concept and implementation of the system for creating dynamic noise mapsin PL-Grid infrastructure are presented. The methodology of dynamic acousti-cal maps creating is introduced. The concept of noise mapping, based on noisesource and propagation models, was developed and employed in the system.The details of incorporation of the system to the PL-Grid infrastructure arepresented. The results of simulations performed by the system prototype aredepicted. The results in the form of noise maps obtained by a system are com-pared with some other solutions in order to investigate accuracy

Hazard analysis and risk assessment in metal cutting process

The paper deals with the issue of occupational health and safety in a metalworking manufacturing organization. Hazard and threat have been defined when cutting metal materials with a band saw. We assessed the risk by an extended point method, where we determined the risk rate values. In most cases of sawmill work, we found a “moderate” or “negligible” risk. The highest, ‘serious’ risk we found in a possible electric shock. In this case, we have also taken the necessary actions. As a precaution, we have also proposed safety measures for other threats

A Novel Method for Intelligibility Assessment of Nonlinearly Processed Speech in Spaces Characterized by Long Reverberation Times

Objective assessment of speech intelligibility is a complex task that requires taking into account a number of factors such as different perception of each speech sub-bands by the human hearing sense or different physical properties of each frequency band of a speech signal. Currently, the state-of-the-art method used for assessing the quality of speech transmission is the speech transmission index (STI). It is a standardized way of objectively measuring the quality of, e.g., an acoustical adaptation of conference rooms or public address systems. The wide use of this measure and implementation of this method on numerous measurement devices make STI a popular choice when the speech-related quality of rooms has to be estimated. However, the STI measure has a significant drawback which excludes it from some particular use cases. For instance, if one would like to enhance speech intelligibility by employing a nonlinear digital processing algorithm, the STI method is not suitable to measure the impact of such an algorithm, as it requires that the measurement signal should not be altered in a nonlinear way. Consequently, if a nonlinear speech enhancing algorithm has to be tested, the STI—a standard way of estimating speech transmission cannot be used. In this work, we would like to propose a method based on the STI method but modified in such a way that it makes it possible to employ it for the estimation of the performance of the nonlinear speech intelligibility enhancement method. The proposed approach is based upon a broadband comparison of cumulated energy of the transmitted envelope modulation and the received modulation, so we called it broadband STI (bSTI). Its credibility with regard to signals altered by the environment or nonlinear speech changed by a DSP algorithm is checked by performing a comparative analysis of ten selected impulse responses for which a baseline value of STI was known

THE MANAGEMENT OF QUALITY COSTS ANALYSIS MODEL

This article proposes a comprehensive introduction into the analysis and calculating costs and identifies the different areas of activities in company which can lead to improving the quality and reducing costs by using the PAF cost model. The basic precondition for quality improvement in company is understanding of the process and its control with regard to the objectives which should be achieved. PAF model is the most frequently used model for the quality costs analysis at present. In today's competitive environment, what all organizations consider as the first priority is to provide the customers with the highest quality for the best price. This can be achieved by setting optimal quality costs