WorldWideScience

Sample records for noise reduction afforded

  1. Active3 noise reduction

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Holzfuss, J.

    1996-01-01

    Noise reduction is a problem being encountered in a variety of applications, such as environmental noise cancellation, signal recovery and separation. Passive noise reduction is done with the help of absorbers. Active noise reduction includes the transmission of phase inverted signals for the cancellation. This paper is about a threefold active approach to noise reduction. It includes the separation of a combined source, which consists of both a noise and a signal part. With the help of interaction with the source by scanning it and recording its response, modeling as a nonlinear dynamical system is achieved. The analysis includes phase space analysis and global radial basis functions as tools for the prediction used in a subsequent cancellation procedure. Examples are given which include noise reduction of speech. copyright 1996 American Institute of Physics

  2. Aircraft Noise Reduction Subproject Overview

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fernandez, Hamilton; Nark, Douglas M.; Van Zante, Dale E.

    2016-01-01

    The material presents highlights of propulsion and airframe noise research being completed for the Advanced Air Transport Technology Project. The basis of noise reduction plans along with representative work for the airframe, propulsion, and propulsion-airframe integration is discussed for the Aircraft Noise reduction Subproject.

  3. The effects of noise reduction technologies on the acceptance of background noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lowery, Kristy Jones; Plyler, Patrick N

    2013-09-01

    Directional microphones (D-Mics) and digital noise reduction (DNR) algorithms are used in hearing aids to reduce the negative effects of background noise on performance. Directional microphones attenuate sounds arriving from anywhere other than the front of the listener while DNR attenuates sounds with physical characteristics of noise. Although both noise reduction technologies are currently available in hearing aids, it is unclear if the use of these technologies in isolation or together affects acceptance of noise and/or preference for the end user when used in various types of background noise. The purpose of the research was to determine the effects of D-Mic, DNR, or the combination of D-Mic and DNR on acceptance of noise and preference when listening in various types of background noise. An experimental study in which subjects were exposed to a repeated measures design was utilized. Thirty adult listeners with mild sloping to moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss participated (mean age 67 yr). Acceptable noise levels (ANLs) were obtained using no noise reduction technologies, D-Mic only, DNR only, and the combination of the two technologies (Combo) for three different background noises (single-talker speech, speech-shaped noise, and multitalker babble) for each listener. In addition, preference rankings of the noise reduction technologies were obtained within each background noise (1 = best, 3 = worst). ANL values were significantly better for each noise reduction technology than baseline; and benefit increased significantly from DNR to D-Mic to Combo. Listeners with higher (worse) baseline ANLs received more benefit from noise reduction technologies than listeners with lower (better) baseline ANLs. Neither ANL values nor ANL benefit values were significantly affected by background noise type; however, ANL benefit with D-Mic and Combo was similar when speech-like noise was present while ANL benefit was greatest for Combo when speech spectrum noise was

  4. Critical Low-Noise Technologies Being Developed for Engine Noise Reduction Systems Subproject

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grady, Joseph E.; Civinskas, Kestutis C.

    2004-01-01

    NASA's previous Advanced Subsonic Technology (AST) Noise Reduction Program delivered the initial technologies for meeting a 10-year goal of a 10-dB reduction in total aircraft system noise. Technology Readiness Levels achieved for the engine-noise-reduction technologies ranged from 4 (rig scale) to 6 (engine demonstration). The current Quiet Aircraft Technology (QAT) project is building on those AST accomplishments to achieve the additional noise reduction needed to meet the Aerospace Technology Enterprise's 10-year goal, again validated through a combination of laboratory rig and engine demonstration tests. In order to meet the Aerospace Technology Enterprise goal for future aircraft of a 50- reduction in the perceived noise level, reductions of 4 dB are needed in both fan and jet noise. The primary objectives of the Engine Noise Reduction Systems (ENRS) subproject are, therefore, to develop technologies to reduce both fan and jet noise by 4 dB, to demonstrate these technologies in engine tests, and to develop and experimentally validate Computational Aero Acoustics (CAA) computer codes that will improve our ability to predict engine noise.

  5. Adaptive EMG noise reduction in ECG signals using noise level approximation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Marouf, Mohamed; Saranovac, Lazar

    2017-12-01

    In this paper the usage of noise level approximation for adaptive Electromyogram (EMG) noise reduction in the Electrocardiogram (ECG) signals is introduced. To achieve the adequate adaptiveness, a translation-invariant noise level approximation is employed. The approximation is done in the form of a guiding signal extracted as an estimation of the signal quality vs. EMG noise. The noise reduction framework is based on a bank of low pass filters. So, the adaptive noise reduction is achieved by selecting the appropriate filter with respect to the guiding signal aiming to obtain the best trade-off between the signal distortion caused by filtering and the signal readability. For the evaluation purposes; both real EMG and artificial noises are used. The tested ECG signals are from the MIT-BIH Arrhythmia Database Directory, while both real and artificial records of EMG noise are added and used in the evaluation process. Firstly, comparison with state of the art methods is conducted to verify the performance of the proposed approach in terms of noise cancellation while preserving the QRS complex waves. Additionally, the signal to noise ratio improvement after the adaptive noise reduction is computed and presented for the proposed method. Finally, the impact of adaptive noise reduction method on QRS complexes detection was studied. The tested signals are delineated using a state of the art method, and the QRS detection improvement for different SNR is presented.

  6. Spreadsheet tool for estimating noise reduction costs

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Frank, L.; Senden, V.; Leszczynski, Y.

    2009-01-01

    The Northeast Capital Industrial Association (NCIA) represents industry in Alberta's industrial heartland. The organization is in the process of developing a regional noise management plan (RNMP) for their member companies. The RNMP includes the development of a noise reduction cost spreadsheet tool to conduct reviews of practical noise control treatments available for individual plant equipment, inclusive of ranges of noise attenuation achievable, which produces a budgetary prediction of the installed cost of practical noise control treatments. This paper discussed the noise reduction cost spreadsheet tool, with particular reference to noise control best practices approaches and spreadsheet tool development such as prerequisite, assembling data required, approach, and unit pricing database. Use and optimization of the noise reduction cost spreadsheet tool was also discussed. It was concluded that the noise reduction cost spreadsheet tool is an easy interactive tool to estimate implementation costs related to different strategies and options of noise control mitigating measures and was very helpful in gaining insight for noise control planning purposes. 2 tabs.

  7. A conceptual framework for noise reduction

    CERN Document Server

    Benesty, Jacob

    2015-01-01

    Though noise reduction and speech enhancement problems have been studied for at least five decades, advances in our understanding and the development of reliable algorithms are more important than ever, as they support the design of tailored solutions for clearly defined applications. In this work, the authors propose a conceptual framework that can be applied to the many different aspects of noise reduction, offering a uniform approach to monaural and binaural noise reduction problems, in the time domain and in the frequency domain, and involving a single or multiple microphones. Moreover, the derivation of optimal filters is simplified, as are the performance measures used for their evaluation.

  8. Definition of 1992 Technology Aircraft Noise Levels and the Methodology for Assessing Airplane Noise Impact of Component Noise Reduction Concepts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kumasaka, Henry A.; Martinez, Michael M.; Weir, Donald S.

    1996-01-01

    This report describes the methodology for assessing the impact of component noise reduction on total airplane system noise. The methodology is intended to be applied to the results of individual study elements of the NASA-Advanced Subsonic Technology (AST) Noise Reduction Program, which will address the development of noise reduction concepts for specific components. Program progress will be assessed in terms of noise reduction achieved, relative to baseline levels representative of 1992 technology airplane/engine design and performance. In this report, the 1992 technology reference levels are defined for assessment models based on four airplane sizes - an average business jet and three commercial transports: a small twin, a medium sized twin, and a large quad. Study results indicate that component changes defined as program final goals for nacelle treatment and engine/airframe source noise reduction would achieve from 6-7 EPNdB reduction of total airplane noise at FAR 36 Stage 3 noise certification conditions for all of the airplane noise assessment models.

  9. Jet Noise Reduction by Microjets - A Parametric Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zaman, K. B. M. Q.

    2010-01-01

    The effect of injecting tiny secondary jets (microjets ) on the radiated noise from a subsonic primary jet is studied experimentally. The microjets are injected on to the primary jet near the nozzle exit with variable port geometry, working fluid and driving pressure. A clear noise reduction is observed that improves with increasing jet pressure. It is found that smaller diameter ports with higher driving pressure, but involving less thrust and mass fraction, can produce better noise reduction. A collection of data from the present as well as past experiments is examined in an attempt to correlate the noise reduction with the operating parameters. The results indicate that turbulent mixing noise reduction, as monitored by OASPL at a shallow angle, correlates with the ratio of jet to primary jet driving pressures normalized by the ratio of corresponding diameters (p d /pjD). With gaseous injection, the spectral amplitudes decrease at lower frequencies while an increase is noted at higher frequencies. It is apparent that this amplitude crossover is at least partly due to shock-associated noise from the underexpanded jets themselves. Such crossover is not seen with water injection since the flow in that case is incompressible and there is no shock-associated noise. Centerline velocity data show that larger noise reduction is accompanied by faster jet decay as well as significant reduction in turbulence intensities. While a physical understanding of the dependence of noise reduction on p d /pjD remains unclear, given this correlation, an analysis explains the observed dependence of the effect on various other parameters.

  10. Prewhitening for Rank-Deficient Noise in Subspace Methods for Noise Reduction

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hansen, Per Christian; Jensen, Søren Holdt

    2005-01-01

    A fundamental issue in connection with subspace methods for noise reduction is that the covariance matrix for the noise is required to have full rank, in order for the prewhitening step to be defined. However, there are important cases where this requirement is not fulfilled, e.g., when the noise...... has narrow-band characteristics, or in the case of tonal noise. We extend the concept of prewhitening to include the case when the noise covariance matrix is rank deficient, using a weighted pseudoinverse and the quotient SVD, and we show how to formulate a general rank-reduction algorithm that works...... also for rank deficient noise. We also demonstrate how to formulate this algorithm by means of a quotient ULV decomposition, which allows for faster computation and updating. Finally we apply our algorithm to a problem involving a speech signal contaminated by narrow-band noise....

  11. Noise Reduction with Microphone Arrays for Speaker Identification

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Cohen, Z

    2011-12-22

    Reducing acoustic noise in audio recordings is an ongoing problem that plagues many applications. This noise is hard to reduce because of interfering sources and non-stationary behavior of the overall background noise. Many single channel noise reduction algorithms exist but are limited in that the more the noise is reduced; the more the signal of interest is distorted due to the fact that the signal and noise overlap in frequency. Specifically acoustic background noise causes problems in the area of speaker identification. Recording a speaker in the presence of acoustic noise ultimately limits the performance and confidence of speaker identification algorithms. In situations where it is impossible to control the environment where the speech sample is taken, noise reduction filtering algorithms need to be developed to clean the recorded speech of background noise. Because single channel noise reduction algorithms would distort the speech signal, the overall challenge of this project was to see if spatial information provided by microphone arrays could be exploited to aid in speaker identification. The goals are: (1) Test the feasibility of using microphone arrays to reduce background noise in speech recordings; (2) Characterize and compare different multichannel noise reduction algorithms; (3) Provide recommendations for using these multichannel algorithms; and (4) Ultimately answer the question - Can the use of microphone arrays aid in speaker identification?

  12. Noise reduction in the beam current monitor

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Arai, Shigeaki.

    1982-02-01

    A simple noise reduction system using a pulse transformer and a pair of L C low pass filters has been introduced to the beam current monitor of a current transformer type at the INS electron linac. With this system, the pick-up noise has been reduced to be 1% of the noise without noise reduction. Signal deformation caused by this system is relatively small and the beam current pulse down to 20 mA is successfully monitored in the actual accelerator operation. (author)

  13. Principal Components as a Data Reduction and Noise Reduction Technique

    Science.gov (United States)

    Imhoff, M. L.; Campbell, W. J.

    1982-01-01

    The potential of principal components as a pipeline data reduction technique for thematic mapper data was assessed and principal components analysis and its transformation as a noise reduction technique was examined. Two primary factors were considered: (1) how might data reduction and noise reduction using the principal components transformation affect the extraction of accurate spectral classifications; and (2) what are the real savings in terms of computer processing and storage costs of using reduced data over the full 7-band TM complement. An area in central Pennsylvania was chosen for a study area. The image data for the project were collected using the Earth Resources Laboratory's thematic mapper simulator (TMS) instrument.

  14. Helicopter Flight Procedures for Community Noise Reduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Greenwood, Eric

    2017-01-01

    A computationally efficient, semiempirical noise model suitable for maneuvering flight noise prediction is used to evaluate the community noise impact of practical variations on several helicopter flight procedures typical of normal operations. Turns, "quick-stops," approaches, climbs, and combinations of these maneuvers are assessed. Relatively small variations in flight procedures are shown to cause significant changes to Sound Exposure Levels over a wide area. Guidelines are developed for helicopter pilots intended to provide effective strategies for reducing the negative effects of helicopter noise on the community. Finally, direct optimization of flight trajectories is conducted to identify low noise optimal flight procedures and quantify the magnitude of community noise reductions that can be obtained through tailored helicopter flight procedures. Physically realizable optimal turns and approaches are identified that achieve global noise reductions of as much as 10 dBA Sound Exposure Level.

  15. Occupational Noise Reduction in CNC Striping Process

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mahmad Khairai, Kamarulzaman; Shamime Salleh, Nurul; Razlan Yusoff, Ahmad

    2018-03-01

    Occupational noise hearing loss with high level exposure is common occupational hazards. In CNC striping process, employee that exposed to high noise level for a long time as 8-hour contributes to hearing loss, create physical and psychological stress that reduce productivity. In this paper, CNC stripping process with high level noises are measured and reduced to the permissible noise exposure. First condition is all machines shutting down and second condition when all CNC machine under operations. For both conditions, noise exposures were measured to evaluate the noise problems and sources. After improvement made, the noise exposures were measured to evaluate the effectiveness of reduction. The initial average noise level at the first condition is 95.797 dB (A). After the pneumatic system with leakage was solved, the noise reduced to 55.517 dB (A). The average noise level at the second condition is 109.340 dB (A). After six machines were gathered at one area and cover that area with plastic curtain, the noise reduced to 95.209 dB (A). In conclusion, the noise level exposure in CNC striping machine is high and exceed the permissible noise exposure can be reduced to acceptable levels. The reduction of noise level in CNC striping processes enhanced productivity in the industry.

  16. Resolution improvement and noise reduction in human pinhole SPECT using a multi-ray approach and the SHINE method

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Seret, A.; Vanhove, C.; Defrise, M.

    2009-01-01

    Purpose: This work aimed at quantifying the gains in spatial resolution and noise that could be achieved when using resolution modelling based on a multi-ray approach and additionally the Statistical and Heuristic Noise Extraction (SHINE) method in human pinhole single photon emission tomography (PH-SPECT). Methods: PH-SPECT of two line phantoms and one homogeneous cylinder were recorded using parameters suited for studies of the human neck area. They were reconstructed using pinhole dedicated ordered subsets expectation maximisation algorithm including a resolution recovery technique based on 7 or 21 rays. Optionally, the SPECT data were SHINE pre-processed. Transverse and axial full widths at half-maximum (FWHM) were obtained from the line phantoms. The noise was quantified using the coefficient of variation (COV) derived from the uniform phantom. Two human PH-SPECT studies of the thyroid (a hot nodule and a very low uptake) were processed with the same algorithms. Results: Depending on the number of iterations, FWHM decreased by 30 to 50% when using the multi-ray approach in the reconstruction process. The SHINE method did not affect the resolution but decreased the COV by at least 20% and by 45% when combined with the multi-ray method. The two human studies illustrated the gain in spatial resolution and the decrease in noise afforded both by the multi-ray reconstruction and the SHINE method. Conclusion: Iterative reconstruction with resolution modelling allows to obtain high resolution human PH-SPECT studies with reduced noise content. The SHINE method affords an additional noise reduction without compromising the resolution. (orig.)

  17. Application of system concept in vibration and noise reduction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    SHENG Meiping

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available Although certain vibration and noise control technologies are maturing, such as vibration absorption, vibration isolation, sound absorption and sound insulation, and new methods for specific frequency bands or special environments have been proposed unceasingly, there is still no guarantee that practical effective vibration and noise reduction can be obtained. An important constraint for vibration and noise reduction is the lack of a system concept, and the integrity and relevance of such practical systems as ship structure have not obtained enough attention. We have tried to use the system engineering theory in guiding vibration and noise reduction, and have already achieved certain effects. Based on the system concept, the noise control of a petroleum pipeline production workshop has been completed satisfactorily, and the abnormal noise source identification of an airplane has been accomplished successfully. We want to share our experience and suggestions to promote the popularization of the system engineering theory in vibration and noise control.

  18. Analysis of Individual Preferences for Tuning Noise-Reduction Algorithms

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Houben, Rolph; Dijkstra, Tjeerd M. H.; Dreschler, Wouter A.

    2012-01-01

    There is little research on user preference for different settings of noise reduction, especially for individual users. We therefore measured individual preferences for pairs of audio streams differing in the trade-off between noise reduction and speech distortion. A logistic probability model was

  19. Propulsion Noise Reduction Research in the NASA Advanced Air Transport Technology Project

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van Zante, Dale; Nark, Douglas; Fernandez, Hamilton

    2017-01-01

    The Aircraft Noise Reduction (ANR) sub-project is focused on the generation, development, and testing of component noise reduction technologies progressing toward the NASA far term noise goals while providing associated near and mid-term benefits. The ANR sub-project has efforts in airframe noise reduction, propulsion (including fan and core) noise reduction, acoustic liner technology, and propulsion airframe aeroacoustics for candidate conventional and unconventional aircraft configurations. The current suite of propulsion specific noise research areas is reviewed along with emerging facility and measurement capabilities. In the longer term, the changes in engine and aircraft configuration will influence the suite of technologies necessary to reduce noise in next generation systems.

  20. Noise reduction with complex bilateral filter.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Matsumoto, Mitsuharu

    2017-12-01

    This study introduces a noise reduction technique that uses a complex bilateral filter. A bilateral filter is a nonlinear filter originally developed for images that can reduce noise while preserving edge information. It is an attractive filter and has been used in many applications in image processing. When it is applied to an acoustical signal, small-amplitude noise is reduced while the speech signal is preserved. However, a bilateral filter cannot handle noise with relatively large amplitudes owing to its innate characteristics. In this study, the noisy signal is transformed into the time-frequency domain and the filter is improved to handle complex spectra. The high-amplitude noise is reduced in the time-frequency domain via the proposed filter. The features and the potential of the proposed filter are also confirmed through experiments.

  1. Advanced digital signal processing and noise reduction

    CERN Document Server

    Vaseghi, Saeed V

    2008-01-01

    Digital signal processing plays a central role in the development of modern communication and information processing systems. The theory and application of signal processing is concerned with the identification, modelling and utilisation of patterns and structures in a signal process. The observation signals are often distorted, incomplete and noisy and therefore noise reduction, the removal of channel distortion, and replacement of lost samples are important parts of a signal processing system. The fourth edition of Advanced Digital Signal Processing and Noise Reduction updates an

  2. Noise and Fuel Burn Reduction Potential of an Innovative Subsonic Transport Configuration

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guo, Yueping; Nickol, Craig L.; Thomas, Russell H.

    2014-01-01

    A study is presented for the noise and fuel burn reduction potential of an innovative double deck concept aircraft with two three-shaft direct-drive turbofan engines. The engines are mounted from the fuselage so that the engine inlet is over the main wing. It is shown that such an aircraft can achieve a cumulative Effective Perceived Noise Level (EPNL) about 28 dB below the current aircraft noise regulations of Stage 4. The combination of high bypass ratio engines and advanced wing design with laminar flow control technologies provide fuel burn reduction and low noise levels simultaneously. For example, the fuselage mounted engine position provides more than 4 EPNLdB of noise reduction by shielding the inlet radiated noise. To identify the potential effect of noise reduction technologies on this concept, parametric studies are presented to reveal the system level benefits of various emerging noise reduction concepts, for both engine and airframe noise reduction. These concepts are discussed both individually to show their respective incremental noise reduction potential and collectively to assess their aggregate effects on the total noise. Through these concepts approximately about 8 dB of additional noise reduction is possible, bringing the cumulative noise level of this aircraft to 36 EPNLdB below Stage 4, if the entire suite of noise reduction technologies would mature to practical application. In a final step, an estimate is made for this same aircraft concept but with higher bypass ratio, geared, turbofan engines. With this geared turbofan propulsion system, the noise is estimated to reach as low as 40-42 dB below Stage 4 with a fuel burn reduction of 43-47% below the 2005 best-in-class aircraft baseline. While just short of the NASA N+2 goals of 42 dB and 50% fuel burn reduction, for a 2025 in service timeframe, this assessment shows that this innovative concept warrants refined study. Furthermore, this design appears to be a viable potential future passenger

  3. Wind Noise Reduction in a Non-Porous Subsurface Windscreen

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zuckerwar, Allan J.; Shams, Qamar A.; Knight, H. Keith

    2012-01-01

    Measurements of wind noise reduction were conducted on a box-shaped, subsurface windscreen made of closed cell polyurethane foam. The windscreen was installed in the ground with the lid flush with the ground surface. The wind was generated by means of a fan, situated on the ground, and the wind speed was measured at the center of the windscreen lid with an ultrasonic anemometer. The wind speed was controlled by moving the fan to selected distances from the windscreen. The wind noise was measured on a PCB Piezotronics 3†electret microphone. Wind noise spectra were measured with the microphone exposed directly to the wind (atop the windscreen lid) and with the microphone installed inside the windscreen. The difference between the two spectra comprises the wind noise reduction. At wind speeds of 3, 5, and 7 m/s, the wind noise reduction is typically 15 dB over the frequency range of 0.1-20 Hz.

  4. Experimental Study of Wake / Flap Interaction Noise and the Reduction of Flap Side Edge Noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hutcheson, Florence V.; Stead, Daniel J.; Plassman, Gerald E.

    2016-01-01

    The effects of the interaction of a wake with a half-span flap on radiated noise are examined. The incident wake is generated by bars of various widths and lengths or by a simplified landing gear model. Single microphone and phased array measurements are used to isolate the effects of the wake interaction on the noise radiating from the flap side edge and flap cove regions. The effects on noise of the wake generator's geometry and relative placement with respect to the flap are assessed. Placement of the wake generators upstream of the flap side edge is shown to lead to the reduction of flap side edge noise by introducing a velocity deficit and likely altering the instabilities in the flap side edge vortex system. Significant reduction in flap side edge noise is achieved with a bar positioned directly upstream of the flap side edge. The noise reduction benefit is seen to improve with increased bar width, length and proximity to the flap edge. Positioning of the landing gear model upstream of the flap side edge also leads to decreased flap side edge noise. In addition, flap cove noise levels are significantly lower than when the landing gear is positioned upstream of the flap mid-span. The impact of the local flow velocity on the noise radiating directly from the landing gear is discussed. The effects of the landing gear side-braces on flap side edge, flap cove and landing gear noise are shown.

  5. Binaural noise reduction via cue-preserving MMSE filter and adaptive-blocking-based noise PSD estimation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Azarpour, Masoumeh; Enzner, Gerald

    2017-12-01

    Binaural noise reduction, with applications for instance in hearing aids, has been a very significant challenge. This task relates to the optimal utilization of the available microphone signals for the estimation of the ambient noise characteristics and for the optimal filtering algorithm to separate the desired speech from the noise. The additional requirements of low computational complexity and low latency further complicate the design. A particular challenge results from the desired reconstruction of binaural speech input with spatial cue preservation. The latter essentially diminishes the utility of multiple-input/single-output filter-and-sum techniques such as beamforming. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive and effective signal processing configuration with which most of the aforementioned criteria can be met suitably. This relates especially to the requirement of efficient online adaptive processing for noise estimation and optimal filtering while preserving the binaural cues. Regarding noise estimation, we consider three different architectures: interaural (ITF), cross-relation (CR), and principal-component (PCA) target blocking. An objective comparison with two other noise PSD estimation algorithms demonstrates the superiority of the blocking-based noise estimators, especially the CR-based and ITF-based blocking architectures. Moreover, we present a new noise reduction filter based on minimum mean-square error (MMSE), which belongs to the class of common gain filters, hence being rigorous in terms of spatial cue preservation but also efficient and competitive for the acoustic noise reduction task. A formal real-time subjective listening test procedure is also developed in this paper. The proposed listening test enables a real-time assessment of the proposed computationally efficient noise reduction algorithms in a realistic acoustic environment, e.g., considering time-varying room impulse responses and the Lombard effect. The listening test outcome

  6. Jet noise reduction via dispersed phase injection

    Science.gov (United States)

    Greska, Brent; Krothapalli, Anjaneyulu; Arakeri, Vijay

    2001-11-01

    A recently developed hot jet aeroacoustics facility at FMRL,FAMU-FSU College of Engineering has been used to study the far field noise characteristics of hot supersonic jets as influenced by the injection of a dispersed phase with low mass loading.The measured SPL from a fully expanded Mach 1.36 hot jet shows a peak value of about 139 dB at 40 deg from the jet axis.By injecting atomized water,the SPL are reduced in the angular region of about 30 deg to 50 deg with the maximum reduction being about 2 dB at 40 deg.However,with the use of non atomized aqueous polymer solution as a dispersed phase the noise levels are reduced over all angular positions by at least 1 dB with the maximum reduction being about 3 dB at 40 deg.The injection of a dispersed phase readily kills the screech; the initial results show promise and optimization studies are underway to find methods of further noise reduction.

  7. Noise Reduction of Measurement Data using Linear Digital Filters

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hitzmann B.

    2007-12-01

    Full Text Available In this paper Butterworth, Chebyshev (Type I and II and Elliptic digital filters are designed for signal noise reduction. On-line data measurements of substrate concentration from E. coli fed-batch cultivation process are used. Application of the designed filters leads to a successful noise reduction of on-line glucose measurements. The digital filters presented here are simple, easy to implement and effective - the used filters allow for a smart compromise between signal information and noise corruption.

  8. Digitally controlled active noise reduction with integrated speech communication

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Steeneken, H.J.M.; Verhave, J.A.

    2004-01-01

    Active noise reduction is a successful addition to passive ear-defenders for improvement of the sound attenuation at low frequencies. Design and assessment methods are discussed, focused on subjective and objective attenuation measurements, stability, and high noise level applications. Active noise

  9. Wind Noise Reduction using Non-negative Sparse Coding

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schmidt, Mikkel N.; Larsen, Jan; Hsiao, Fu-Tien

    2007-01-01

    We introduce a new speaker independent method for reducing wind noise in single-channel recordings of noisy speech. The method is based on non-negative sparse coding and relies on a wind noise dictionary which is estimated from an isolated noise recording. We estimate the parameters of the model ...... and discuss their sensitivity. We then compare the algorithm with the classical spectral subtraction method and the Qualcomm-ICSI-OGI noise reduction method. We optimize the sound quality in terms of signal-to-noise ratio and provide results on a noisy speech recognition task....

  10. An Exceptional Purity of Sound: Noise Reduction Technology and the Inevitable Noise of Sound Recording

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Kromhout, M.

    2014-01-01

    The phenomenon of noise has resisted many attempts at framing it within a singular conceptual framework. Critically questioning the tendency to do so, this article asserts the complexities of different noise-phenomena by analysing a specific technology: technological noise reduction systems. Whereas

  11. Incentivising flood risk adaptation through risk based insurance premiums : Trade-offs between affordability and risk reduction

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hudson, Paul F.; Botzen, W.J.W.; Feyen, L.; Aerts, Jeroen C.J.H.

    2016-01-01

    The financial incentives offered by the risk-based pricing of insurance can stimulate policyholder adaptation to flood risk while potentially conflicting with affordability. We examine the trade-off between risk reduction and affordability in a model of public-private flood insurance in France and

  12. Incentivising flood risk adaptation through ris based insurance premiums: trade-offs between affordability and risk reduction

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hudson, P.G.M.B.; Botzen, W.J.W.; Feyen, L.; Aerts, J.C.J.H.

    2016-01-01

    The financial incentives offered by the risk-based pricing of insurance can stimulate policyholder adaptation to flood risk while potentially conflicting with affordability. We examine the trade-off between risk reduction and affordability in a model of public-private flood insurance in France and

  13. Market Analysis of Soundproof and Noise Reduction Plate

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chang Heyu

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Since the reform and opening up, China has a booming economy development, transportation industry as an important part of the economic processes has made a considerable progress, and continue to promote the rapid economic development. At the end of 2012, China's highway mileage has reached 4.238 million km and highway mileage ranks first in the world. Transportation in promoting rapid economic development, but also brings the traffic noise which has a tremendous influence on residents’ daily life, and this influence has gradually deepening and widening, in this situation the production of noise reduction panel gradually emerged. In this paper, a noise barriers manufacturer’ business model in Beijing Daxing District and analyze existing data will be analyzed, it will give much guidance and reference for a new noise reduction factory. The study has shown that plant will target all levels of government departments in charge of roads and the property of management department of residence as our customer groups, increasing technological innovation and improving product quality to establish a more extensive business relationships, and gradually formed noise barriers market competitiveness.

  14. Noise: how can the nuisance be controlled?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ollerhead, J B

    1973-09-01

    Aircraft noise is a major nuisance in residential communities around airports. If the air transport industries are to meet the ever increasing demand for air travel, determined efforts are required now to reduce the burden of noise upon these communities. Significant engine noise reductions have already been achieved in the latest generation of wide-bodied aircraft, and further reductions are being forecast by the engine manufacturers. Regardless of whether there are justifiable grounds for this optimism there are alternative steps to be taken. But the problem is basically an economic rather than a technological one - how much does noise reduction cost and how much can we afford to pay? The various costs of aircraft noise, both monetary and social, are discussed in relation to its effects upon people. Although an economic analysis of the problem is feasible, it is doubtful whether our understanding of the relationships between physical noise levels and human reaction is yet adequate for such purposes. Planning methods for estimating the extent of community noise nuisance are presented, and it is shown that consideration should be given to outlying regions exposed to relatively little aircraft noise.

  15. METHODS OF NOISE LEVEL REDUCTION OF DRIVE IN LATHES

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Janusz ROGULA

    2014-06-01

    Full Text Available The aim of this work is method presentation to noise level reduction of fixed headstock of the lathe. It is connected with the causes finding of non-uniform work of lathe headstock, description of recent design and its analysis. Problem of the excessive noise level concern to near 35% of the lathes have been produced. In spite of lack of noise reduction possibility there were no system solution of problem. Design optimisation weren’t done after application the electric motor with inverter. New solution of electric motor control let to reduce number of gear wheels in lathe drive system. For this drive solution there weren’t made the analysis of drive particular parts influence on the noise generation.

  16. SU-C-207B-02: Maximal Noise Reduction Filter with Anatomical Structures Preservation

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Maitree, R; Guzman, G; Chundury, A; Roach, M; Yang, D [Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO (United States)

    2016-06-15

    Purpose: All medical images contain noise, which can result in an undesirable appearance and can reduce the visibility of anatomical details. There are varieties of techniques utilized to reduce noise such as increasing the image acquisition time and using post-processing noise reduction algorithms. However, these techniques are increasing the imaging time and cost or reducing tissue contrast and effective spatial resolution which are useful diagnosis information. The three main focuses in this study are: 1) to develop a novel approach that can adaptively and maximally reduce noise while preserving valuable details of anatomical structures, 2) to evaluate the effectiveness of available noise reduction algorithms in comparison to the proposed algorithm, and 3) to demonstrate that the proposed noise reduction approach can be used clinically. Methods: To achieve a maximal noise reduction without destroying the anatomical details, the proposed approach automatically estimated the local image noise strength levels and detected the anatomical structures, i.e. tissue boundaries. Such information was used to adaptively adjust strength of the noise reduction filter. The proposed algorithm was tested on 34 repeating swine head datasets and 54 patients MRI and CT images. The performance was quantitatively evaluated by image quality metrics and manually validated for clinical usages by two radiation oncologists and one radiologist. Results: Qualitative measurements on repeated swine head images demonstrated that the proposed algorithm efficiently removed noise while preserving the structures and tissues boundaries. In comparisons, the proposed algorithm obtained competitive noise reduction performance and outperformed other filters in preserving anatomical structures. Assessments from the manual validation indicate that the proposed noise reduction algorithm is quite adequate for some clinical usages. Conclusion: According to both clinical evaluation (human expert ranking) and

  17. SU-C-207B-02: Maximal Noise Reduction Filter with Anatomical Structures Preservation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Maitree, R; Guzman, G; Chundury, A; Roach, M; Yang, D

    2016-01-01

    Purpose: All medical images contain noise, which can result in an undesirable appearance and can reduce the visibility of anatomical details. There are varieties of techniques utilized to reduce noise such as increasing the image acquisition time and using post-processing noise reduction algorithms. However, these techniques are increasing the imaging time and cost or reducing tissue contrast and effective spatial resolution which are useful diagnosis information. The three main focuses in this study are: 1) to develop a novel approach that can adaptively and maximally reduce noise while preserving valuable details of anatomical structures, 2) to evaluate the effectiveness of available noise reduction algorithms in comparison to the proposed algorithm, and 3) to demonstrate that the proposed noise reduction approach can be used clinically. Methods: To achieve a maximal noise reduction without destroying the anatomical details, the proposed approach automatically estimated the local image noise strength levels and detected the anatomical structures, i.e. tissue boundaries. Such information was used to adaptively adjust strength of the noise reduction filter. The proposed algorithm was tested on 34 repeating swine head datasets and 54 patients MRI and CT images. The performance was quantitatively evaluated by image quality metrics and manually validated for clinical usages by two radiation oncologists and one radiologist. Results: Qualitative measurements on repeated swine head images demonstrated that the proposed algorithm efficiently removed noise while preserving the structures and tissues boundaries. In comparisons, the proposed algorithm obtained competitive noise reduction performance and outperformed other filters in preserving anatomical structures. Assessments from the manual validation indicate that the proposed noise reduction algorithm is quite adequate for some clinical usages. Conclusion: According to both clinical evaluation (human expert ranking) and

  18. Noise Reduction Effect of Multiple-Sampling-Based Signal-Readout Circuits for Ultra-Low Noise CMOS Image Sensors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shoji Kawahito

    2016-11-01

    Full Text Available This paper discusses the noise reduction effect of multiple-sampling-based signal readout circuits for implementing ultra-low-noise image sensors. The correlated multiple sampling (CMS technique has recently become an important technology for high-gain column readout circuits in low-noise CMOS image sensors (CISs. This paper reveals how the column CMS circuits, together with a pixel having a high-conversion-gain charge detector and low-noise transistor, realizes deep sub-electron read noise levels based on the analysis of noise components in the signal readout chain from a pixel to the column analog-to-digital converter (ADC. The noise measurement results of experimental CISs are compared with the noise analysis and the effect of noise reduction to the sampling number is discussed at the deep sub-electron level. Images taken with three CMS gains of two, 16, and 128 show distinct advantage of image contrast for the gain of 128 (noise(median: 0.29 e−rms when compared with the CMS gain of two (2.4 e−rms, or 16 (1.1 e−rms.

  19. Noise-based tube current reduction method with iterative reconstruction for reduction of radiation exposure in coronary CT angiography

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Shen, Junlin; Du, Xiangying; Guo, Daode; Cao, Lizhen; Gao, Yan; Bai, Mei; Li, Pengyu; Liu, Jiabin; Li, Kuncheng

    2013-01-01

    Purpose: To investigate the potential of noise-based tube current reduction method with iterative reconstruction to reduce radiation exposure while achieving consistent image quality in coronary CT angiography (CCTA). Materials and methods: 294 patients underwent CCTA on a 64-detector row CT equipped with iterative reconstruction. 102 patients with fixed tube current were assigned to Group 1, which was used to establish noise-based tube current modulation formulas, where tube current was modulated by the noise of test bolus image. 192 patients with noise-based tube current were randomly assigned to Group 2 and Group 3. Filtered back projection was applied for Group 2 and iterative reconstruction for Group 3. Qualitative image quality was assessed with a 5 point score. Image noise, signal intensity, volume CT dose index, and dose-length product were measured. Results: The noise-based tube current modulation formulas were established through regression analysis using image noise measurements in Group 1. Image noise was precisely maintained at the target value of 35.00 HU with small interquartile ranges for Group 2 (34.17–35.08 HU) and Group 3 (34.34–35.03 HU), while it was from 28.41 to 36.49 HU for Group 1. All images in the three groups were acceptable for diagnosis. A relative 14% and 41% reduction in effective dose for Group 2 and Group 3 were observed compared with Group 1. Conclusion: Adequate image quality could be maintained at a desired and consistent noise level with overall 14% dose reduction using noise-based tube current reduction method. The use of iterative reconstruction further achieved approximately 40% reduction in effective dose

  20. Blade-Mounted Flap Control for BVI Noise Reduction Proof-of-Concept Test

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dawson, Seth; Hassan, Ahmed; Straub, Friedrich; Tadghighi, Hormoz

    1995-01-01

    This report describes a wind tunnel test of the McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Systems (MDHS) Active Flap Model Rotor at the NASA Langley 14- by 22-Foot Subsonic Tunnel. The test demonstrated that BVI noise reductions and vibration reductions were possible with the use of an active flap. Aerodynamic results supported the acoustic data trends, showing a reduction in the strength of the tip vortex with the deflection of the flap. Acoustic results showed that the flap deployment, depending on the peak deflection angle and azimuthal shift in its deployment schedule, can produce BVI noise reductions as much as 6 dB on the advancing and retreating sides. The noise reduction was accompanied by an increase in low frequency harmonic noise and high frequency broadband noise. A brief assessment of the effect of the flap on vibration showed that significant reductions were possible. The greatest vibration reductions (as much as 76%) were found in the four per rev pitching moment at the hub. Performance improvement cam results were inconclusive, as the improvements were predicted to be smaller than the resolution of the rotor balance.

  1. Adaptive noise reduction circuit for a sound reproduction system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Engebretson, A. Maynard (Inventor); O'Connell, Michael P. (Inventor)

    1995-01-01

    A noise reduction circuit for a hearing aid having an adaptive filter for producing a signal which estimates the noise components present in an input signal. The circuit includes a second filter for receiving the noise-estimating signal and modifying it as a function of a user's preference or as a function of an expected noise environment. The circuit also includes a gain control for adjusting the magnitude of the modified noise-estimating signal, thereby allowing for the adjustment of the magnitude of the circuit response. The circuit also includes a signal combiner for combining the input signal with the adjusted noise-estimating signal to produce a noise reduced output signal.

  2. Passive Techniques for Fan Noise Reduction in New Turbofan Engines: Review

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M.Gorj-Bandpy

    2013-03-01

    Full Text Available Among the various environmental concerns, the aircraft noise item has been constantly growing in importance over the past years. Measures for its reduction at the source as well its mitigation around airports must take into account aspects of medicine and technical design as well as legal and land use planning aspects. Fan noise is one of the principal noise sources in turbofan aero-engines. In this paper a review of the main technologies employed for the reduction of fan noise turbofan engines is presented.

  3. Noise reduction by wavelet thresholding

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Jansen, Maarten

    2001-01-01

    .... I rather present new material and own insights in the que stions involved with wavelet based noise reduction . On the other hand , the presented material does cover a whole range of methodologies, and in that sense, the book may serve as an introduction into the domain of wavelet smoothing. Throughout the text, three main properties show up ever again: spar...

  4. Potential for Landing Gear Noise Reduction on Advanced Aircraft Configurations

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thomas, Russell H.; Nickol, Craig L.; Burley, Casey L.; Guo, Yueping

    2016-01-01

    The potential of significantly reducing aircraft landing gear noise is explored for aircraft configurations with engines installed above the wings or the fuselage. An innovative concept is studied that does not alter the main gear assembly itself but does shorten the main strut and integrates the gear in pods whose interior surfaces are treated with acoustic liner. The concept is meant to achieve maximum noise reduction so that main landing gears can be eliminated as a major source of airframe noise. By applying this concept to an aircraft configuration with 2025 entry-into-service technology levels, it is shown that compared to noise levels of current technology, the main gear noise can be reduced by 10 EPNL dB, bringing the main gear noise close to a floor established by other components such as the nose gear. The assessment of the noise reduction potential accounts for design features for the advanced aircraft configuration and includes the effects of local flow velocity in and around the pods, gear noise reflection from the airframe, and reflection and attenuation from acoustic liner treatment on pod surfaces and doors. A technical roadmap for maturing this concept is discussed, and the possible drag increase at cruise due to the addition of the pods is identified as a challenge, which needs to be quantified and minimized possibly with the combination of detailed design and application of drag reduction technologies.

  5. Engine-propeller power plant aircraft community noise reduction key methods

    Science.gov (United States)

    Moshkov P., A.; Samokhin V., F.; Yakovlev A., A.

    2018-04-01

    Basic methods of aircraft-type flying vehicle engine-propeller power plant noise reduction were considered including single different-structure-and-arrangement propellers and piston engines. On the basis of a semiempirical model the expressions for blade diameter and number effect evaluation upon propeller noise tone components under thrust constancy condition were proposed. Acoustic tests performed at Moscow Aviation institute airfield on the whole qualitatively proved the obtained ratios. As an example of noise and detectability reduction provision a design-and-experimental estimation of propeller diameter effect upon unmanned aircraft audibility boundaries was performed. Future investigation ways were stated to solve a low-noise power plant design problem for light aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles.

  6. Noise reduction in optically controlled quantum memory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ma, Lijun; Slattery, Oliver; Tang, Xiao

    2018-05-01

    Quantum memory is an essential tool for quantum communications systems and quantum computers. An important category of quantum memory, called optically controlled quantum memory, uses a strong classical beam to control the storage and re-emission of a single-photon signal through an atomic ensemble. In this type of memory, the residual light from the strong classical control beam can cause severe noise and degrade the system performance significantly. Efficiently suppressing this noise is a requirement for the successful implementation of optically controlled quantum memories. In this paper, we briefly introduce the latest and most common approaches to quantum memory and review the various noise-reduction techniques used in implementing them.

  7. Perceptual effects of noise reduction by time-frequency masking of noisy speech.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brons, Inge; Houben, Rolph; Dreschler, Wouter A

    2012-10-01

    Time-frequency masking is a method for noise reduction that is based on the time-frequency representation of a speech in noise signal. Depending on the estimated signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), each time-frequency unit is either attenuated or not. A special type of a time-frequency mask is the ideal binary mask (IBM), which has access to the real SNR (ideal). The IBM either retains or removes each time-frequency unit (binary mask). The IBM provides large improvements in speech intelligibility and is a valuable tool for investigating how different factors influence intelligibility. This study extends the standard outcome measure (speech intelligibility) with additional perceptual measures relevant for noise reduction: listening effort, noise annoyance, speech naturalness, and overall preference. Four types of time-frequency masking were evaluated: the original IBM, a tempered version of the IBM (called ITM) which applies limited and non-binary attenuation, and non-ideal masking (also tempered) with two different types of noise-estimation algorithms. The results from ideal masking imply that there is a trade-off between intelligibility and sound quality, which depends on the attenuation strength. Additionally, the results for non-ideal masking suggest that subjective measures can show effects of noise reduction even if noise reduction does not lead to differences in intelligibility.

  8. 40 CFR 211.207 - Computation of the noise -reduction rating (NRR).

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-07-01

    ... 40 Protection of Environment 24 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Computation of the noise -reduction... of the noise -reduction rating (NRR). Calculate the NRR for hearing protective devices by... “A”-weighting relative response corrections applied to any sound levels at the indicated octave band...

  9. Acoustic-noise-optimized diffusion-weighted imaging.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ott, Martin; Blaimer, Martin; Grodzki, David M; Breuer, Felix A; Roesch, Julie; Dörfler, Arnd; Heismann, Björn; Jakob, Peter M

    2015-12-01

    This work was aimed at reducing acoustic noise in diffusion-weighted MR imaging (DWI) that might reach acoustic noise levels of over 100 dB(A) in clinical practice. A diffusion-weighted readout-segmented echo-planar imaging (EPI) sequence was optimized for acoustic noise by utilizing small readout segment widths to obtain low gradient slew rates and amplitudes instead of faster k-space coverage. In addition, all other gradients were optimized for low slew rates. Volunteer and patient imaging experiments were conducted to demonstrate the feasibility of the method. Acoustic noise measurements were performed and analyzed for four different DWI measurement protocols at 1.5T and 3T. An acoustic noise reduction of up to 20 dB(A) was achieved, which corresponds to a fourfold reduction in acoustic perception. The image quality was preserved at the level of a standard single-shot (ss)-EPI sequence, with a 27-54% increase in scan time. The diffusion-weighted imaging technique proposed in this study allowed a substantial reduction in the level of acoustic noise compared to standard single-shot diffusion-weighted EPI. This is expected to afford considerably more patient comfort, but a larger study would be necessary to fully characterize the subjective changes in patient experience.

  10. Research on Noise Reduction of Reed Valves of a Hermetic Refrigerator Compressor

    Science.gov (United States)

    He, Zhilong; Chen, Qian; Li, Dantong; Wang, Ju; Xia, Pu; Wang, Tao

    2017-08-01

    The noise level of the refrigerator compressor has received more and more attention in recent years. As the key component of a compressor, reed valve is its main noise source. In this paper, a new noise reduction technology of coating on reed valve surface is proposed and verified by experiments. Firstly, the reed valves were coated, and their surface characteristics were checked. Then, the refrigerator compressor p-V diagram test was carried out to investigate the influence of doped diamond-like carbon (DLC) coating on power consumption. Finally, the noise test rig for the refrigerator compressor was set up. Based on the standard test method, noise spectrum was measured in a semi-anechoic room under standard working condition. Research results showed that the compressor noise was significantly reduced by 1.8dB (A) after coating. Moreover, the effect of aerodynamic noise reduction at suction side is better than that at discharge side. However, the influence of the film thickness on noise reduction value is little. The COP was reduced by 0.6% as compared to the compressor with uncoated reed valves.

  11. Joint models for noise annoyance and willingness to pay for road noise reduction

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fosgerau, Mogens; Bue Bjørner, Thomas

    2006-01-01

    Recent contingent valuation (CV) studies of the willingness to pay (WTP) for road noise reduction have used stated annoyance as an independent variable. We argue that this may be inappropriate due to potential endogeneity bias. Instead, an alternative model is proposed that treats both WTP...... and annoyance as endogenous variables in a simultaneous equation model as a combination of a linear regression with an ordered probit with correlated error terms and possibly common parameters. Thus, information on stated annoyance is utilised to estimate WTP with increased efficiency. Application of the model...... to a dataset from Copenhagen indicates a potential for improving the precision of the estimate of WTP for noise reduction with CV data....

  12. Noise Reduction in the Time Domain using Joint Diagonalization

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nørholm, Sidsel Marie; Benesty, Jacob; Jensen, Jesper Rindom

    2014-01-01

    , an estimate of the desired signal is found by subtraction of the noise estimate from the observed signal. The filter can be designed to obtain a desired trade-off between noise reduction and signal distortion, depending on the number of eigenvectors included in the filter design. This is explored through...... simulations using a speech signal corrupted by car noise, and the results confirm that the output signal-to-noise ratio and speech distortion index both increase when more eigenvectors are included in the filter design....

  13. Reduction of Altitude Diffuser Jet Noise Using Water Injection

    Science.gov (United States)

    Allgood, Daniel C.; Saunders, Grady P.; Langford, Lester A.

    2011-01-01

    A feasibility study on the effects of injecting water into the exhaust plume of an altitude rocket diffuser for the purpose of reducing the far-field acoustic noise has been performed. Water injection design parameters such as axial placement, angle of injection, diameter of injectors, and mass flow rate of water have been systematically varied during the operation of a subscale altitude test facility. The changes in acoustic far-field noise were measured with an array of free-field microphones in order to quantify the effects of the water injection on overall sound pressure level spectra and directivity. The results showed significant reductions in noise levels were possible with optimum conditions corresponding to water injection at or just upstream of the exit plane of the diffuser. Increasing the angle and mass flow rate of water injection also showed improvements in noise reduction. However, a limit on the maximum water flow rate existed as too large of flow rate could result in un-starting the supersonic diffuser.

  14. Dynamical reduction models with general gaussian noises

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bassi, Angelo; Ghirardi, GianCarlo

    2002-02-01

    We consider the effect of replacing in stochastic differential equations leading to the dynamical collapse of the statevector, white noise stochastic processes with non white ones. We prove that such a modification can be consistently performed without altering the most interesting features of the previous models. One of the reasons to discuss this matter derives from the desire of being allowed to deal with physical stochastic fields, such as the gravitational one, which cannot give rise to white noises. From our point of view the most relevant motivation for the approach we propose here derives from the fact that in relativistic models the occurrence of white noises is the main responsible for the appearance of untractable divergences. Therefore, one can hope that resorting to non white noises one can overcome such a difficulty. We investigate stochastic equations with non white noises, we discuss their reduction properties and their physical implications. Our analysis has a precise interest not only for the above mentioned subject but also for the general study of dissipative systems and decoherence. (author)

  15. Dynamical reduction models with general Gaussian noises

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Bassi, Angelo; Ghirardi, GianCarlo

    2002-01-01

    We consider the effect of replacing in stochastic differential equations leading to the dynamical collapse of the state vector, white-noise stochastic processes with nonwhite ones. We prove that such a modification can be consistently performed without altering the most interesting features of the previous models. One of the reasons to discuss this matter derives from the desire of being allowed to deal with physical stochastic fields, such as the gravitational one, which cannot give rise to white noises. From our point of view, the most relevant motivation for the approach we propose here derives from the fact that in relativistic models intractable divergences appear as a consequence of the white nature of the noises. Therefore, one can hope that resorting to nonwhite noises, one can overcome such a difficulty. We investigate stochastic equations with nonwhite noises, we discuss their reduction properties and their physical implications. Our analysis has a precise interest not only for the above-mentioned subject but also for the general study of dissipative systems and decoherence

  16. Effects of directional microphone and adaptive multichannel noise reduction algorithm on cochlear implant performance.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chung, King; Zeng, Fan-Gang; Acker, Kyle N

    2006-10-01

    Although cochlear implant (CI) users have enjoyed good speech recognition in quiet, they still have difficulties understanding speech in noise. We conducted three experiments to determine whether a directional microphone and an adaptive multichannel noise reduction algorithm could enhance CI performance in noise and whether Speech Transmission Index (STI) can be used to predict CI performance in various acoustic and signal processing conditions. In Experiment I, CI users listened to speech in noise processed by 4 hearing aid settings: omni-directional microphone, omni-directional microphone plus noise reduction, directional microphone, and directional microphone plus noise reduction. The directional microphone significantly improved speech recognition in noise. Both directional microphone and noise reduction algorithm improved overall preference. In Experiment II, normal hearing individuals listened to the recorded speech produced by 4- or 8-channel CI simulations. The 8-channel simulation yielded similar speech recognition results as in Experiment I, whereas the 4-channel simulation produced no significant difference among the 4 settings. In Experiment III, we examined the relationship between STIs and speech recognition. The results suggested that STI could predict actual and simulated CI speech intelligibility with acoustic degradation and the directional microphone, but not the noise reduction algorithm. Implications for intelligibility enhancement are discussed.

  17. Study of noise reduction characteristics of double-wall panels

    Science.gov (United States)

    Navaneethan, R.; Quayle, B.; Stevenson, S.; Graham, M.

    1983-05-01

    The noise reduction characteristics of general aviation type, flat, double-wall structures were investigated. The experimental study was carried out on 20-by-20 inch panels with an exposed area of 18 by 18 inches. A frequency range from 20 to 5000 Hz was covered. The experimental results, in general, follow the expected trends. At low frequencies the double-wall structures are no better than the single-wall structures. However, for depths normally used in the general aviation industry, the double-wall panels are very attractive. The graphite-spoxy skin panels have higher noise reduction at very low frequencies ( 100 Hz) than the Kevlar skin panels. But the aluminum panels have higher noise reduction in the high frequency region, due to their greater mass. Use of fiberglass insulation is not effective in the low frequency region, and at times it is even negative. But the insulation is effective in the high-frequency region. The theoretical model for predicting the transmission loss of these multilayered panels is also discussed.

  18. Acoustical and Perceptual Comparison of Noise Reduction and Compression in Hearing Aids

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Brons, Inge; Houben, Rolph; Dreschler, Wouter A.

    2015-01-01

    Noise reduction and dynamic-range compression are generally applied together in hearing aids but may have opposite effects on amplification. This study evaluated the acoustical and perceptual effects of separate and combined processing of noise reduction and compression. Recordings of the output of

  19. Noise reduction in Arterial Spin Labeling based Functional Connectivity using nuisance variables

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kay Jann

    2016-08-01

    Full Text Available Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL perfusion image series have recently been utilized for functional connectivity (FC analysis in healthy volunteers and children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD. Noise reduction by using nuisance variables has been shown to be necessary to minimize potential confounding effects of head motion and physiological signals on BOLD based FC analysis. The purpose of the present study is to systematically evaluate the effectiveness of different noise reduction strategies using nuisance variables to improve perfusion based FC analysis in two cohorts of healthy adults using state of the art 3D background-suppressed (BS GRASE pseudo-continuous ASL (pCASL and dual-echo 2D-EPI pCASL sequences. Five different noise reduction strategies (NRS were performed in healthy volunteers to compare their performance. We then compared seed-based FC analysis using 3D BS GRASE pCASL in a cohort of 12 children with ASD (3f/9m, age 12.8±1.3y and 13 typically developing (TD children (1f/12m; age 13.9±3years in conjunction with noise reduction strategies. Regression of different combinations of nuisance variables affected FC analysis from a seed in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC to other areas of the default mode network (DMN in both BOLD and pCASL data sets. Consistent with existing literature on BOLD-FC, we observed improved spatial specificity after physiological noise reduction and improved long-range connectivity using head movement related regressors. Furthermore, 3D BS GRASE pCASL shows much higher temporal SNR compared to dual-echo 2D-EPI pCASL and similar effects of noise reduction as those observed for BOLD. Seed-based FC analysis using 3D BS GRASE pCASL children with ASD and TD children showed that noise reduction including physiological and motion related signals as nuisance variables is crucial for identifying altered long-range connectivity from PCC to frontal brain areas associated with ASD. This is the first study that

  20. Adaptive mean filtering for noise reduction in CT polymer gel dosimetry

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hilts, Michelle; Jirasek, Andrew

    2008-01-01

    X-ray computed tomography (CT) as a method of extracting 3D dose information from irradiated polymer gel dosimeters is showing potential as a practical means to implement gel dosimetry in a radiation therapy clinic. However, the response of CT contrast to dose is weak and noise reduction is critical in order to achieve adequate dose resolutions with this method. Phantom design and CT imaging technique have both been shown to decrease image noise. In addition, image postprocessing using noise reduction filtering techniques have been proposed. This work evaluates in detail the use of the adaptive mean filter for reducing noise in CT gel dosimetry. Filter performance is systematically tested using both synthetic patterns mimicking a range of clinical dose distribution features as well as actual clinical dose distributions. Both low and high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) situations are examined. For all cases, the effects of filter kernel size and the number of iterations are investigated. Results indicate that adaptive mean filtering is a highly effective tool for noise reduction CT gel dosimetry. The optimum filtering strategy depends on characteristics of the dose distributions and image noise level. For low noise images (SNR ∼20), the filtered results are excellent and use of adaptive mean filtering is recommended as a standard processing tool. For high noise images (SNR ∼5) adaptive mean filtering can also produce excellent results, but filtering must be approached with more caution as spatial and dose distortions of the original dose distribution can occur

  1. A Background Noise Reduction Technique Using Adaptive Noise Cancellation for Microphone Arrays

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spalt, Taylor B.; Fuller, Christopher R.; Brooks, Thomas F.; Humphreys, William M., Jr.; Brooks, Thomas F.

    2011-01-01

    Background noise in wind tunnel environments poses a challenge to acoustic measurements due to possible low or negative Signal to Noise Ratios (SNRs) present in the testing environment. This paper overviews the application of time domain Adaptive Noise Cancellation (ANC) to microphone array signals with an intended application of background noise reduction in wind tunnels. An experiment was conducted to simulate background noise from a wind tunnel circuit measured by an out-of-flow microphone array in the tunnel test section. A reference microphone was used to acquire a background noise signal which interfered with the desired primary noise source signal at the array. The technique s efficacy was investigated using frequency spectra from the array microphones, array beamforming of the point source region, and subsequent deconvolution using the Deconvolution Approach for the Mapping of Acoustic Sources (DAMAS) algorithm. Comparisons were made with the conventional techniques for improving SNR of spectral and Cross-Spectral Matrix subtraction. The method was seen to recover the primary signal level in SNRs as low as -29 dB and outperform the conventional methods. A second processing approach using the center array microphone as the noise reference was investigated for more general applicability of the ANC technique. It outperformed the conventional methods at the -29 dB SNR but yielded less accurate results when coherence over the array dropped. This approach could possibly improve conventional testing methodology but must be investigated further under more realistic testing conditions.

  2. A simulation study of harmonics regeneration in noise reduction for electric and acoustic stimulation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Yi

    2010-05-01

    Recent research results show that combined electric and acoustic stimulation (EAS) significantly improves speech recognition in noise, and it is generally established that access to the improved F0 representation of target speech, along with the glimpse cues, provide the EAS benefits. Under noisy listening conditions, noise signals degrade these important cues by introducing undesired temporal-frequency components and corrupting harmonics structure. In this study, the potential of combining noise reduction and harmonics regeneration techniques was investigated to further improve speech intelligibility in noise by providing improved beneficial cues for EAS. Three hypotheses were tested: (1) noise reduction methods can improve speech intelligibility in noise for EAS; (2) harmonics regeneration after noise reduction can further improve speech intelligibility in noise for EAS; and (3) harmonics sideband constraints in frequency domain (or equivalently, amplitude modulation in temporal domain), even deterministic ones, can provide additional benefits. Test results demonstrate that combining noise reduction and harmonics regeneration can significantly improve speech recognition in noise for EAS, and it is also beneficial to preserve the harmonics sidebands under adverse listening conditions. This finding warrants further work into the development of algorithms that regenerate harmonics and the related sidebands for EAS processing under noisy conditions.

  3. The effect of multimicrophone noise reduction systems on sound source localization by users of binaural hearing aids.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Van den Bogaert, Tim; Doclo, Simon; Wouters, Jan; Moonen, Marc

    2008-07-01

    This paper evaluates the influence of three multimicrophone noise reduction algorithms on the ability to localize sound sources. Two recently developed noise reduction techniques for binaural hearing aids were evaluated, namely, the binaural multichannel Wiener filter (MWF) and the binaural multichannel Wiener filter with partial noise estimate (MWF-N), together with a dual-monaural adaptive directional microphone (ADM), which is a widely used noise reduction approach in commercial hearing aids. The influence of the different algorithms on perceived sound source localization and their noise reduction performance was evaluated. It is shown that noise reduction algorithms can have a large influence on localization and that (a) the ADM only preserves localization in the forward direction over azimuths where limited or no noise reduction is obtained; (b) the MWF preserves localization of the target speech component but may distort localization of the noise component. The latter is dependent on signal-to-noise ratio and masking effects; (c) the MWF-N enables correct localization of both the speech and the noise components; (d) the statistical Wiener filter approach introduces a better combination of sound source localization and noise reduction performance than the ADM approach.

  4. Noise Reduction Evaluation of Multi-Layered Viscoelastic Infinite Cylinder under Acoustical Wave Excitation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M.R. Mofakhami

    2008-01-01

    Full Text Available In this paper sound transmission through the multilayered viscoelastic air filled cylinders subjected to the incident acoustic wave is studied using the technique of separation of variables on the basis of linear three dimensional theory of elasticity. The effect of interior acoustic medium on the mode maps (frequency vs geometry and noise reduction is investigated. The effects of internal absorption and external moving medium on noise reduction are also evaluated. The dynamic viscoelastic properties of the structure are rigorously taken into account with a power law technique that models the viscoelastic damping of the cylinder. A parametric study is also performed for the two layered infinite cylinders to obtain the effect of viscoelastic layer characteristics such as thickness, material type and frequency dependency of viscoelastic properties on the noise reduction. It is shown that using constant and frequency dependent viscoelastic material with high loss factor leads to the uniform noise reduction in the frequency domain. It is also shown that the noise reduction obtained for constant viscoelastic material property is subjected to some errors in the low frequency range with respect to those obtained for the frequency dependent viscoelastic material.

  5. Detection threshold for sound distortion resulting from noise reduction in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brons, Inge; Dreschler, Wouter A; Houben, Rolph

    2014-09-01

    Hearing-aid noise reduction should reduce background noise, but not disturb the target speech. This objective is difficult because noise reduction suffers from a trade-off between the amount of noise removed and signal distortion. It is unknown if this important trade-off differs between normal-hearing (NH) and hearing-impaired (HI) listeners. This study separated the negative effect of noise reduction (distortion) from the positive effect (reduction of noise) to allow the measurement of the detection threshold for noise-reduction (NR) distortion. Twelve NH subjects and 12 subjects with mild to moderate sensorineural hearing loss participated in this study. The detection thresholds for distortion were determined using an adaptive procedure with a three-interval, two-alternative forced-choice paradigm. Different levels of distortion were obtained by changing the maximum amount of noise reduction. Participants were also asked to indicate their preferred NR strength. The detection threshold for overall distortion was higher for HI subjects than for NH subjects, suggesting that stronger noise reduction can be applied for HI listeners without affecting the perceived sound quality. However, the preferred NR strength of HI listeners was closer to their individual detection threshold for distortion than in NH listeners. This implies that HI listeners tolerate fewer audible distortions than NH listeners.

  6. Bit-rate reduction strategies for noise suppression with a remote wireless microphone

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Cvijanovic, N.; Sadiq, O.; Srinivasan, S.

    2012-01-01

    In single channel non-stationary noise reduction it is paramount that a good noise reference is available in a timely manner to maintaina high quality speech signal. Using a remote wireless microphone placed close to a noise source, a good estimate of the noise power spectral density (PSD) can be

  7. Bit rate reduction strategies for noise suppression using a remote wireless microphone

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Cvijanovic, N.; Sadiq, O.; Srinivasan, S.

    2012-01-01

    In single-channel non-stationary noise reduction it is paramount that a good noise reference is available in a timely manner to maintain a high quality speech signal. Using a remote wireless microphone placed close to a noise source, a good estimate of the noise power spectral density (PSD) can be

  8. Noise reduction methods for nucleic acid and macromolecule sequencing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schuller, Ivan K.; Di Ventra, Massimiliano; Balatsky, Alexander

    2018-05-08

    Methods, systems, and devices are disclosed for processing macromolecule sequencing data with substantial noise reduction. In one aspect, a method for reducing noise in a sequential measurement of a macromolecule comprising serial subunits includes cross-correlating multiple measured signals of a physical property of subunits of interest of the macromolecule, the multiple measured signals including the time data associated with the measurement of the signal, to remove or at least reduce signal noise that is not in the same frequency and in phase with the systematic signal contribution of the measured signals.

  9. Quantum Noise Reduction with Pulsed Light in Optical Fibers.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bergman, Keren

    Optical fibers offer considerable advantages over bulk nonlinear media for the generation of squeezed states. This thesis reports on experimental investigations of reducing quantum noise by means of squeezing in nonlinear fiber optic interferometers. Fibers have low insertion loss which allows for long interaction lengths. High field intensities are easily achieved in the small cores of single mode fibers. Additionally, the nonlinear process employed is self phase modulation or the Kerr effect, whose broad band nature requires no phase matching and can be exploited with ultra-short pulses of high peak intensity. All these advantageous features of fibers result in easily obtained large nonlinear phase shifts and subsequently large squeezing parameters. By the self phase modulation process a correlation is produced between the phase and amplitude fluctuations of the optical field. The attenuated or squeezed quadrature has a lower noise level than the initial level associated with the coherent state field before propagation. The resulting reduced quantum noise quadrature can be utilized to improve the sensitivity of a phase measuring instrument such as an interferometer. Because the Kerr nonlinearity is a degenerate self pumping process, the squeezed noise is at the same frequency as the pump field. Classical pump noise can therefore interfere with the desired measurement of the quantum noise reduction. The most severe noise process is the phase noise caused by thermally induced index modulation of the fiber. This noise termed Guided Acoustic Wave Brillouin Scattering, or GAWBS, by previous researchers is studied and analyzed. Experiments performed to overcome GAWBS successfully with several schemes are described. An experimental demonstration of an interferometric measurement with better sensitivity than the standard quantum limit is described. The results lead to new understandings into the limitations of quantum noise reduction that can be achieved in the

  10. DFT-Domain Based Single-Microphone Noise Reduction for Speech Enhancement

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    C. Hendriks, Richard; Gerkmann, Timo; Jensen, Jesper

    As speech processing devices like mobile phones, voice controlled devices, and hearing aids have increased in popularity, people expect them to work anywhere and at any time without user intervention. However, the presence of acoustical disturbances limits the use of these applications, degrades...... their performance, or causes the user difficulties in understanding the conversation or appreciating the device. A common way to reduce the effects of such disturbances is through the use of single-microphone noise reduction algorithms for speech enhancement. The field of single-microphone noise reduction...

  11. Application of an active device for helicopter noise reduction in JAXA

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Saito, Shigeru; Kobiki, Noboru; Tanabe, Yasutada

    2010-01-01

    Important issues in noise problems for current helicopters are described. An active tab (AT) was developed as a new active device for noise/vibration reduction under research cooperation between Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Kawada Industries, Inc. The wind tunnel test was conducted in order to investigate the effectiveness of the AT on the aeroacoustic characteristics of a helicopter. From the wind tunnel test, the capability of reducing blade vortex interaction (BVI) noise by an AT was verified. A new control law using instantaneous pressure change on a blade during BVI phenomena was introduced and applied to the wind tunnel testing. This new control law shows reasonable controllability for helicopter noise reduction. Furthermore, in order to analyze noise characteristics, the advanced computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code named JAXA o v3d was developed in JAXA and extended to include CFD-CSD (computational structure dynamics) coupling by using the beam theory for blade deformation. (invited paper)

  12. Helicopter Non-Unique Trim Strategies for Blade-Vortex Interaction (BVI) Noise Reduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Malpica, Carlos; Greenwood, Eric; Sim, Ben W.

    2016-01-01

    An acoustics parametric analysis of the effect of fuselage drag and pitching moment on the Blade-Vortex Interaction (BVI) noise radiated by a medium lift helicopter (S-70UH-60) in a descending flight condition was conducted. The comprehensive analysis CAMRAD II was used for the calculation of vehicle trim, wake geometry and integrated air loads on the blade. The acoustics prediction code PSU-WOPWOP was used for calculating acoustic pressure signatures for a hemispherical grid centered at the hub. This paper revisits the concept of the X-force controller for BVI noise reduction, and investigates its effectiveness on an S-70 helicopter. The analysis showed that further BVI noise reductions were achievable by controlling the fuselage pitching moment. Reductions in excess of 6 dB of the peak BVI noise radiated towards the ground were demonstrated by compounding the effect of airframe drag and pitching moment simultaneously.

  13. Analysis of Beamformer Directed Single-Channel Noise Reduction System for Hearing Aid Applications

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Jesper; Pedersen, Michael Syskind

    2015-01-01

    We study multi-microphone noise reduction systems consisting of a beamformer and a single-channel (SC) noise reduction stage. In particular, we present and analyse a maximum likelihood (ML) method for jointly estimating the target and noise power spectral densities (psd's) entering the SC filter....... We show that the estimators are minimum variance and unbiased, and provide closed-form expressions for their mean-square error (MSE). Furthermore, we show that the MSE of the noise psd estimator is particularly simple: it is independent of target signal characteristics, frequency, and microphone...

  14. Noise Reduction Techniques

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hallas, Tony

    There are two distinct kinds of noise - structural and color. Each requires a specific method of attack to minimize. The great challenge is to reduce the noise without reducing the faint and delicate detail in the image. My most-used and favorite noise suppression is found in Photoshop CS 5 Camera Raw. If I cannot get the desired results with the first choice, I will use Noise Ninja, which has certain advantages in some situations that we will cover.

  15. Spatial-temporal noise reduction method optimized for real-time implementation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Romanenko, I. V.; Edirisinghe, E. A.; Larkin, D.

    2013-02-01

    Image de-noising in the spatial-temporal domain has been a problem studied in-depth in the field of digital image processing. However complexity of algorithms often leads to high hardware resource usage, or computational complexity and memory bandwidth issues, making their practical use impossible. In our research we attempt to solve these issues with an optimized implementation of a practical spatial-temporal de-noising algorithm. Spatial-temporal filtering was performed in Bayer RAW data space, which allowed us to benefit from predictable sensor noise characteristics and reduce memory bandwidth requirements. The proposed algorithm efficiently removes different kinds of noise in a wide range of signal to noise ratios. In our algorithm the local motion compensation is performed in Bayer RAW data space, while preserving the resolution and effectively improving the signal to noise ratios of moving objects. The main challenge for the use of spatial-temporal noise reduction algorithms in video applications is the compromise between the quality of the motion prediction and the complexity of the algorithm and required memory bandwidth. In photo and video applications it is very important that moving objects should stay sharp, while the noise is efficiently removed in both the static background and moving objects. Another important use case is the case when background is also non-static as well as the foreground where objects are also moving. Taking into account the achievable improvement in PSNR (on the level of the best known noise reduction techniques, like VBM3D) and low algorithmic complexity, enabling its practical use in commercial video applications, the results of our research can be very valuable.

  16. Objective Measures of Listening Effort: Effects of Background Noise and Noise Reduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sarampalis, Anastasios; Kalluri, Sridhar; Edwards, Brent; Hafter, Ervin

    2009-01-01

    Purpose: This work is aimed at addressing a seeming contradiction related to the use of noise-reduction (NR) algorithms in hearing aids. The problem is that although some listeners claim a subjective improvement from NR, it has not been shown to improve speech intelligibility, often even making it worse. Method: To address this, the hypothesis…

  17. Detection threshold for sound distortion resulting from noise reduction in normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Brons, Inge; Dreschler, Wouter A.; Houben, Rolph

    2014-01-01

    Hearing-aid noise reduction should reduce background noise, but not disturb the target speech. This objective is difficult because noise reduction suffers from a trade-off between the amount of noise removed and signal distortion. It is unknown if this important trade-off differs between

  18. Research of noise emission sources in railway transport and effective ways of their reduction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Zvolenský Peter

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available In the EU conditions attention is systematically paid to noise reduction on the railways. Because TSI rules systematically tighten limits for noise emissions from railway vehicles, noise research must be addressed by all Member States, as the main technical solutions for railway vehicles and construction technological aspects of railway operations can result in lower noise exposure of affected areas or objects. The paper focuses on theoretical investigation of sources and paths of sound propagation, possibilities of noise reduction both on vehicles and by infrastructure and experimental measurements of the situation in transport practice. Methodology for reducing railway noise around tracks has been presented, too.

  19. Optimization of the poro-serrated trailing edges for airfoil broadband noise reduction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chong, Tze Pei; Dubois, Elisa

    2016-08-01

    This paper reports an aeroacoustic investigation of a NACA0012 airfoil with a number of poro-serrated trailing edge devices that contain porous materials of various air flow resistances at the gaps between adjacent members of the serrated-sawtooth trailing edge. The main objective of this work is to determine whether multiple-mechanisms on the broadband noise reduction can co-exist on a poro-serrated trailing edge. When the sawtooth gaps are filled with porous material of low-flow resistivity, the vortex shedding tone at low-frequency could not be completely suppressed at high-velocity, but a reasonably good broadband noise reduction can be achieved at high-frequency. When the sawtooth gaps are filled with porous material of very high-flow resistivity, no vortex shedding tone is present, but the serration effect on the broadband noise reduction becomes less effective. An optimal choice of the flow resistivity for a poro-serrated configuration has been identified, where it can surpass the conventional serrated trailing edge of the same geometry by achieving a further 1.5 dB reduction in the broadband noise while completely suppressing the vortex shedding tone. A weakened turbulent boundary layer noise scattering at the poro-serrated trailing edge is reflected by the lower-turbulence intensity at the near wake centreline across the whole spanwise wavelength of the sawtooth.

  20. Gene regulation and noise reduction by coupling of stochastic processes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramos, Alexandre F.; Hornos, José Eduardo M.; Reinitz, John

    2015-02-01

    Here we characterize the low-noise regime of a stochastic model for a negative self-regulating binary gene. The model has two stochastic variables, the protein number and the state of the gene. Each state of the gene behaves as a protein source governed by a Poisson process. The coupling between the two gene states depends on protein number. This fact has a very important implication: There exist protein production regimes characterized by sub-Poissonian noise because of negative covariance between the two stochastic variables of the model. Hence the protein numbers obey a probability distribution that has a peak that is sharper than those of the two coupled Poisson processes that are combined to produce it. Biochemically, the noise reduction in protein number occurs when the switching of the genetic state is more rapid than protein synthesis or degradation. We consider the chemical reaction rates necessary for Poisson and sub-Poisson processes in prokaryotes and eucaryotes. Our results suggest that the coupling of multiple stochastic processes in a negative covariance regime might be a widespread mechanism for noise reduction.

  1. Gene regulation and noise reduction by coupling of stochastic processes.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ramos, Alexandre F; Hornos, José Eduardo M; Reinitz, John

    2015-02-01

    Here we characterize the low-noise regime of a stochastic model for a negative self-regulating binary gene. The model has two stochastic variables, the protein number and the state of the gene. Each state of the gene behaves as a protein source governed by a Poisson process. The coupling between the two gene states depends on protein number. This fact has a very important implication: There exist protein production regimes characterized by sub-Poissonian noise because of negative covariance between the two stochastic variables of the model. Hence the protein numbers obey a probability distribution that has a peak that is sharper than those of the two coupled Poisson processes that are combined to produce it. Biochemically, the noise reduction in protein number occurs when the switching of the genetic state is more rapid than protein synthesis or degradation. We consider the chemical reaction rates necessary for Poisson and sub-Poisson processes in prokaryotes and eucaryotes. Our results suggest that the coupling of multiple stochastic processes in a negative covariance regime might be a widespread mechanism for noise reduction.

  2. Objective measures of listening effort: effects of background noise and noise reduction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sarampalis, Anastasios; Kalluri, Sridhar; Edwards, Brent; Hafter, Ervin

    2009-10-01

    This work is aimed at addressing a seeming contradiction related to the use of noise-reduction (NR) algorithms in hearing aids. The problem is that although some listeners claim a subjective improvement from NR, it has not been shown to improve speech intelligibility, often even making it worse. To address this, the hypothesis tested here is that the positive effects of NR might be to reduce cognitive effort directed toward speech reception, making it available for other tasks. Normal-hearing individuals participated in 2 dual-task experiments, in which 1 task was to report sentences or words in noise set to various signal-to-noise ratios. Secondary tasks involved either holding words in short-term memory or responding in a complex visual reaction-time task. At low values of signal-to-noise ratio, although NR had no positive effect on speech reception thresholds, it led to better performance on the word-memory task and quicker responses in visual reaction times. Results from both dual tasks support the hypothesis that NR reduces listening effort and frees up cognitive resources for other tasks. Future hearing aid research should incorporate objective measurements of cognitive benefits.

  3. Reduction of Poisson noise in measured time-resolved data for time-domain diffuse optical tomography.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Okawa, S; Endo, Y; Hoshi, Y; Yamada, Y

    2012-01-01

    A method to reduce noise for time-domain diffuse optical tomography (DOT) is proposed. Poisson noise which contaminates time-resolved photon counting data is reduced by use of maximum a posteriori estimation. The noise-free data are modeled as a Markov random process, and the measured time-resolved data are assumed as Poisson distributed random variables. The posterior probability of the occurrence of the noise-free data is formulated. By maximizing the probability, the noise-free data are estimated, and the Poisson noise is reduced as a result. The performances of the Poisson noise reduction are demonstrated in some experiments of the image reconstruction of time-domain DOT. In simulations, the proposed method reduces the relative error between the noise-free and noisy data to about one thirtieth, and the reconstructed DOT image was smoothed by the proposed noise reduction. The variance of the reconstructed absorption coefficients decreased by 22% in a phantom experiment. The quality of DOT, which can be applied to breast cancer screening etc., is improved by the proposed noise reduction.

  4. Utilisation of polyurethane composit with 50% composition of roystonea regia fiber as noise reduction panel on car hood

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ikhwansyah; Mulia; Gunawan, S.; Lubis, R. D. W.

    2018-02-01

    The objective is to get the characteristics of noise reduction, noise reduction level, variety of measurement spaces, and knowing the process in making acoustic material of natural fiber becomes noise reduction on a car hood. The process of making noise reduction material used casting method and pressed by using molded press. The composition of noise reduction material consist of 50% roystonea regia by 32 mesh and 50% combined by gypsum and polyurethane. The result shows that the average result of noise reduction at X1- side is 5,7% and X2- side is 3,9%, X1+ side is 0,9% and X2+ side is 6,2%, Z1- side is 8,9% and Z2- side is 10,1%, Z1+ side is 9,7% and Z2+ side is 10,01%. The main conclusion of the study shows that a noise reduction which made of roystonea regia with 32 mesh mixed by matrix of polyurethane and gypsum is appropriate for noise reduction on car hood.

  5. The reduction of noise from hydraulic equipments; La reduction du bruit provenant des equipements hydrauliques

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gential, R.

    1996-09-01

    Noise pollution from hydraulic equipments (bath filling, toilets taps, waste waters flow, vibrations, knocks in water pipes, dilatation clattering in heating pipes, hissing of heater taps etc..) are one of the principal causes of nuisance inside residential buildings. Solutions exist and consist in the replacement of old cocks and fittings, the use of soundproof clamps for pipes and noise absorbing supports for baths etc.. This paper summarizes the available modern equipments with a low-noise warranty (cocks and fittings, noise dampers, anti-backflow valves, pressure reducers) and the practical solutions for the modification of existing installations (increase of pipe diameters, reduction of pipe lengths, use of flexible fittings, hydraulic counterbalancing of water flows in heaters etc..). (J.S.)

  6. Sound quality measures for speech in noise through a commercial hearing aid implementing digital noise reduction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ricketts, Todd A; Hornsby, Benjamin W Y

    2005-05-01

    This brief report discusses the affect of digital noise reduction (DNR) processing on aided speech recognition and sound quality measures in 14 adults fitted with a commercial hearing aid. Measures of speech recognition and sound quality were obtained in two different speech-in-noise conditions (71 dBA speech, +6 dB SNR and 75 dBA speech, +1 dB SNR). The results revealed that the presence or absence of DNR processing did not impact speech recognition in noise (either positively or negatively). Paired comparisons of sound quality for the same speech in noise signals, however, revealed a strong preference for DNR processing. These data suggest that at least one implementation of DNR processing is capable of providing improved sound quality, for speech in noise, in the absence of improved speech recognition.

  7. Improved multi-microphone noise reduction preserving binaural cues

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Koutrouvelis, A.; Hendriks, R.C.; Jensen, J; Heusdens, R.; Dong, Min; Zheng, Thomas Fang

    2016-01-01

    We propose a new multi-microphone noise reduction technique for binaural cue preservation of the desired source and the interferers. This method is based on the linearly constrained minimum variance (LCMV) framework, where the constraints are used for the binaural cue preservation of the desired

  8. Noise pollution of air compressor and its noise reduction procedures by using an enclosure

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Farhad Forouharmajd

    2012-01-01

    Conclusions: An overall noise reduction by 25 dB with the use of mineral wool as an extra liner on the inside of the enclosure, suggests that the effectiveness of the enclosure can be increased by using such absorber materials.

  9. Railway noise reduction by the application of CHFC material on the rail

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Brigita ALTENBAHER

    2015-06-01

    Full Text Available Traffic is the most widespread source of environmental noise. Railway noise has become increasingly common in urban areas in the past few decades. Therefore environmental requirements for railway operations regarding noise are becoming very strict and will become even tighter in future. In the present paper we present actual track-based field test performed on Slovenian Railways. The significant noise reduction (up to 30dBA was achieved by the application of CHFC material on the rail using CL-E1 top anti noise system.

  10. Image noise reduction algorithm for digital subtraction angiography: clinical results.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Söderman, Michael; Holmin, Staffan; Andersson, Tommy; Palmgren, Charlotta; Babic, Draženko; Hoornaert, Bart

    2013-11-01

    To test the hypothesis that an image noise reduction algorithm designed for digital subtraction angiography (DSA) in interventional neuroradiology enables a reduction in the patient entrance dose by a factor of 4 while maintaining image quality. This clinical prospective study was approved by the local ethics committee, and all 20 adult patients provided informed consent. DSA was performed with the default reference DSA program, a quarter-dose DSA program with modified acquisition parameters (to reduce patient radiation dose exposure), and a real-time noise-reduction algorithm. Two consecutive biplane DSA data sets were acquired in each patient. The dose-area product (DAP) was calculated for each image and compared. A randomized, blinded, offline reading study was conducted to show noninferiority of the quarter-dose image sets. Overall, 40 samples per treatment group were necessary to acquire 80% power, which was calculated by using a one-sided α level of 2.5%. The mean DAP with the quarter-dose program was 25.3% ± 0.8 of that with the reference program. The median overall image quality scores with the reference program were 9, 13, and 12 for readers 1, 2, and 3, respectively. These scores increased slightly to 12, 15, and 12, respectively, with the quarter-dose program imaging chain. In DSA, a change in technique factors combined with a real-time noise-reduction algorithm will reduce the patient entrance dose by 75%, without a loss of image quality. RSNA, 2013

  11. Effect of digital noise reduction on the accuracy of endodontic file length determination

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mehdizadeh, Mojdeh; Khademi, Abbas Ali; Shokraneh, Ali; Farhadi, Nastaran

    2013-01-01

    The aim of the present study was to evaluate the measurement accuracy of endodontic file length on periapical digital radiography after application of noise reduction digital enhancement. Thirty-five human single-rooted permanent teeth with canals measuring 20-24 mm in length were selected. ISO no.08 endodontic files were placed in the root canals of the teeth. The file lengths were measured with a digital caliper as the standard value. Standard periapical digital images were obtained using the Digora digital radiographic system and a dental X-ray unit. In order to produce the enhanced images, the noise reduction option was applied. Two blinded radiologists measured the file lengths on the original and enhanced images. The measurements were compared by repeated measures ANOVA and the Bonferroni test (a=0.05). Both the original and enhanced digital images provided significantly longer measurements compared with the standard value (P 0.05). Noise reduction digital enhancement did not influence the measurement accuracy of the length of the thin endodontic files on the digital periapical radiographs despite the fact that noise reduction could result in the elimination of fine details of the images.

  12. Reduction of HCCI combustion noise through piston crown design

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pedersen, Troels Dyhr; Schramm, Jesper

    2010-01-01

    . The largest and most consistent reduction in noise level was however achieved with a diesel bowl type piston. The increased surface area as well as the larger crevice volumes of the experimental piston crowns generally resulted in lower IMEP than the flat piston. While the crevice volumes can be reduced...... away from the engine. The experiments were conducted in a diesel engine that was run in HCCI combustion mode with a fixed quantity of DME as fuel. The results show that combustion knock is effectively suppressed by limiting the size of the volume in which the combustion occurs. Splitting...... the compression volume into four smaller volumes placed between the perimeter of the piston and the cylinder liner increased the noise to a higher level than that generated with a flat piston crown. This was due to resonance between the four volumes. Using eight volumes instead decreased the noise. The noise...

  13. Low-Frequency Noise Reduction by Earmuffs with Flax Fibre-Reinforced Polypropylene Ear Cups

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Linus Yinn Leng Ang

    2018-01-01

    Full Text Available Soldiers and supporting engineers are frequently exposed to high low-frequency (<500 Hz cabin noise in military vehicles. Despite the use of commercial hearing protection devices, the risk of auditory damage is still imminent because the devices may not be optimally customised for such applications. This study considers flax fibre-reinforced polypropylene (Flax-PP as an alternative to the material selection for the ear cups of commercial earmuffs, which are typically made of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS. Different weaving configurations (woven and nonwoven and various noise environments (pink noise, cabin booming noise, and firing noise were considered to investigate the feasibility of the proposed composite earmuffs for low-frequency noise reduction. The remaining assembly components of the earmuff were kept consistent with those of a commercial earmuff, which served as a benchmark for results comparison. In contrast to the commercial earmuff, the composite earmuffs were shown to be better in mitigating low-frequency noise by up to 16.6 dB, while compromising midfrequency acoustical performance. Consequently, the proposed composite earmuffs may be an alternative for low-frequency noise reduction in vehicle cabins, at airports, and at construction sites involving heavy machineries.

  14. Study of performance of acoustic fixture for using in noise reduction rate tests of hearing protection devices

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    zam Biabani

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Introduction:One of the recommended methods for evaluation effectiveness of hearing protection is use the acoustic fixture accordance with standard ISO 4869-3. The aim of this study was evaluate the acoustic performance of fixture for using in noise reduction rate tests of hearing protection devices in the laboratory. Methods: In this cross-sectional study , noise reduction rates of five common ear muffs used in the Iran industries were investigated based on the ISO 11904 standard, microphone in real ear method, using noise dosimeter (SVANTEK , Model SV102 equipped with microphone SV25 model which can install inside the ear on 30 subjects under laboratory conditions. Also, noise reduction rate of earmuffs was determined using the fixture model AVASINA9402 accordance with standard procedures. Data were analyzed using the software SPSS21. Results: The results showed the real noise reduction rates of the earmuffs on the studied subjects are from 59% to 94% nominal reduction rates. That rates for the ear muffs on the studied fixture are from 64% to 92.The results showed that the noise reduction rates of the ear muffs on subjects compared with and noise reduction rates of the ear muffs on fixture were not statistically significant (p> 0.05. Conclusion: The results showed the accuracy of noise reduction rate of earmuffs using the fixture compared with real subjects is acceptable. Hence, the fixture is good choice for environments where there’s no possibility of acoustic evaluation on real subjects, also for quality control of productions in the earmuff manufacturers.

  15. CT urography in the urinary bladder: To compare excretory phase images using a low noise index and a high noise index with adaptive noise reduction filter

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Takeyama, Nobuyuki; Hayashi, Takaki; Ohgiya, Yoshimitsu

    2011-01-01

    Background: Although CT urography (CTU) is widely used for the evaluation of the entire urinary tract, the most important drawback is the radiation exposure. Purpose: To evaluate the effect of a noise reduction filter (NRF) using a phantom and to quantitatively and qualitatively compare excretory phase (EP) images using a low noise index (NI) with those using a high NI and postprocessing NRF (pNRF). Material and Methods: Each NI value was defined for a slice thickness of 5 mm, and reconstructed images with a slice thickness of 1.25 mm were assessed. Sixty patients who were at high risk of developing bladder tumors (BT) were divided into two groups according to whether their EP images were obtained using an NI of 9.88 (29 patients; group A) or an NI of 20 and pNRF (31 patients; group B). The CT dose index volume (CTDI vol ) and the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of the bladder with respect to the anterior pelvic fat were compared in both groups. Qualitative assessment of the urinary bladder for image noise, sharpness, streak artifacts, homogeneity, and the conspicuity of polypoid or sessile-shaped BTs with a short-axis diameter greater than 10 mm was performed using a 3-point scale. Results: The phantom study showed noise reduction of approximately 40% and 76% dose reduction between group A and group B. CTDI vol demonstrated a 73% reduction in group B (4.6 ± 1.1 mGy) compared with group A (16.9 ± 3.4 mGy). The CNR value was not significantly different (P = 0.60) between group A (16.1 ± 5.1) and group B (16.6 ± 7.6). Although group A was superior (P < 0.01) to group B with regard to image noise, other qualitative analyses did not show significant differences. Conclusion: EP images using a high NI and pNRF were quantitatively and qualitatively comparable to those using a low NI, except with regard to image noise

  16. Generative Adversarial Networks for Noise Reduction in Low-Dose CT.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wolterink, Jelmer M; Leiner, Tim; Viergever, Max A; Isgum, Ivana

    2017-12-01

    Noise is inherent to low-dose CT acquisition. We propose to train a convolutional neural network (CNN) jointly with an adversarial CNN to estimate routine-dose CT images from low-dose CT images and hence reduce noise. A generator CNN was trained to transform low-dose CT images into routine-dose CT images using voxelwise loss minimization. An adversarial discriminator CNN was simultaneously trained to distinguish the output of the generator from routine-dose CT images. The performance of this discriminator was used as an adversarial loss for the generator. Experiments were performed using CT images of an anthropomorphic phantom containing calcium inserts, as well as patient non-contrast-enhanced cardiac CT images. The phantom and patients were scanned at 20% and 100% routine clinical dose. Three training strategies were compared: the first used only voxelwise loss, the second combined voxelwise loss and adversarial loss, and the third used only adversarial loss. The results showed that training with only voxelwise loss resulted in the highest peak signal-to-noise ratio with respect to reference routine-dose images. However, CNNs trained with adversarial loss captured image statistics of routine-dose images better. Noise reduction improved quantification of low-density calcified inserts in phantom CT images and allowed coronary calcium scoring in low-dose patient CT images with high noise levels. Testing took less than 10 s per CT volume. CNN-based low-dose CT noise reduction in the image domain is feasible. Training with an adversarial network improves the CNNs ability to generate images with an appearance similar to that of reference routine-dose CT images.

  17. A bulk-controlled ring-VCO with 1/f-noise reduction for frequency ΔΣ modulator

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Tuan Vu, CAO; Wisland, Dag T.; Lande, Tor Sverre

    The paper introduces a bulk-controlled ring-VCO with a tail transistor utilizing flicker-noise (1/f-noise) reduction techniques for a frequency-based DeltaSigma modulator (FDSM). This VCO converts an analog input voltage to phase information under various bias conditions ranging from sub-threshol......The paper introduces a bulk-controlled ring-VCO with a tail transistor utilizing flicker-noise (1/f-noise) reduction techniques for a frequency-based DeltaSigma modulator (FDSM). This VCO converts an analog input voltage to phase information under various bias conditions ranging from sub...

  18. Noise reduction and estimation in multiple micro-electro-mechanical inertial systems

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Waegli, Adrian; Skaloud, Jan; Guerrier, Stéphane; Parés, Maria Eulàlia; Colomina, Ismael

    2010-01-01

    This research studies the reduction and the estimation of the noise level within a redundant configuration of low-cost (MEMS-type) inertial measurement units (IMUs). Firstly, independent observations between units and sensors are assumed and the theoretical decrease in the system noise level is analyzed in an experiment with four MEMS-IMU triads. Then, more complex scenarios are presented in which the noise level can vary in time and for each sensor. A statistical method employed for studying the volatility of financial markets (GARCH) is adapted and tested for the usage with inertial data. This paper demonstrates experimentally and through simulations the benefit of direct noise estimation in redundant IMU setups

  19. Reduction of CMOS Image Sensor Read Noise to Enable Photon Counting.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guidash, Michael; Ma, Jiaju; Vogelsang, Thomas; Endsley, Jay

    2016-04-09

    Recent activity in photon counting CMOS image sensors (CIS) has been directed to reduction of read noise. Many approaches and methods have been reported. This work is focused on providing sub 1 e(-) read noise by design and operation of the binary and small signal readout of photon counting CIS. Compensation of transfer gate feed-through was used to provide substantially reduced CDS time and source follower (SF) bandwidth. SF read noise was reduced by a factor of 3 with this method. This method can be applied broadly to CIS devices to reduce the read noise for small signals to enable use as a photon counting sensor.

  20. Noise Reduction in Arterial Spin Labeling Based Functional Connectivity Using Nuisance Variables.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jann, Kay; Smith, Robert X; Rios Piedra, Edgar A; Dapretto, Mirella; Wang, Danny J J

    2016-01-01

    Arterial Spin Labeling (ASL) perfusion image series have recently been utilized for functional connectivity (FC) analysis in healthy volunteers and children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Noise reduction by using nuisance variables has been shown to be necessary to minimize potential confounding effects of head motion and physiological signals on BOLD based FC analysis. The purpose of the present study is to systematically evaluate the effectiveness of different noise reduction strategies (NRS) using nuisance variables to improve perfusion based FC analysis in two cohorts of healthy adults using state of the art 3D background-suppressed (BS) GRASE pseudo-continuous ASL (pCASL) and dual-echo 2D-EPI pCASL sequences. Five different NRS were performed in healthy volunteers to compare their performance. We then compared seed-based FC analysis using 3D BS GRASE pCASL in a cohort of 12 children with ASD (3f/9m, age 12.8 ± 1.3 years) and 13 typically developing (TD) children (1f/12m; age 13.9 ± 3 years) in conjunction with NRS. Regression of different combinations of nuisance variables affected FC analysis from a seed in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) to other areas of the default mode network (DMN) in both BOLD and pCASL data sets. Consistent with existing literature on BOLD-FC, we observed improved spatial specificity after physiological noise reduction and improved long-range connectivity using head movement related regressors. Furthermore, 3D BS GRASE pCASL shows much higher temporal SNR compared to dual-echo 2D-EPI pCASL and similar effects of noise reduction as those observed for BOLD. Seed-based FC analysis using 3D BS GRASE pCASL in children with ASD and TD children showed that noise reduction including physiological and motion related signals as nuisance variables is crucial for identifying altered long-range connectivity from PCC to frontal brain areas associated with ASD. This is the first study that systematically evaluated the effects of

  1. Optimised Sound Absorbing Trim Panels for the Reduction of Aircraft Cabin Noise

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Hannink, M.H.C.; Wijnant, Ysbrand H.; de Boer, Andries; Ivanov, N.I.; Crocker, M.J.

    2004-01-01

    The EU project FACE (Friendly Aircraft Cabin Environment) aims to improve the environmental comfort in aircraft cabins. As part of this project, this paper focuses on the reduction of noise in aircraft cabins. For modern aircraft flying at cruise conditions, this cabin noise is known to be dominated

  2. Noise Reduction Potential of Cellular Metals

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Björn Hinze

    2012-06-01

    Full Text Available Rising numbers of flights and aircrafts cause increasing aircraft noise, resulting in the development of various approaches to change this trend. One approach is the application of metallic liners in the hot gas path of aero-engines. At temperatures of up to 600 °C only metallic or ceramic structures can be used. Due to fatigue loading and the notch effect of the pores, mechanical properties of porous metals are superior to the ones of ceramic structures. Consequently, cellular metals like metallic foams, sintered metals, or sintered metal felts are most promising materials. However, acoustic absorption depends highly on pore morphology and porosity. Therefore, both parameters must be characterized precisely to analyze the correlation between morphology and noise reduction performance. The objective of this study is to analyze the relationship between pore morphology and acoustic absorption performance. The absorber materials are characterized using image processing based on two dimensional microscopy images. The sound absorption properties are measured using an impedance tube. Finally, the correlation of acoustic behavior, pore morphology, and porosity is outlined.

  3. Simultaneous Reduction in Noise and Cross-Contamination Artifacts for Dual-Energy X-Ray CT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Baojun Li

    2013-01-01

    Full Text Available Purpose. Dual-energy CT imaging tends to suffer from much lower signal-to-noise ratio than single-energy CT. In this paper, we propose an improved anticorrelated noise reduction (ACNR method without causing cross-contamination artifacts. Methods. The proposed algorithm diffuses both basis material density images (e.g., water and iodine at the same time using a novel correlated diffusion algorithm. The algorithm has been compared to the original ACNR algorithm in a contrast-enhanced, IRB-approved patient study. Material density accuracy and noise reduction are quantitatively evaluated by the percent density error and the percent noise reduction. Results. Both algorithms have significantly reduced the noises of basis material density images in all cases. The average percent noise reduction is 69.3% and 66.5% with the ACNR algorithm and the proposed algorithm, respectively. However, the ACNR algorithm alters the original material density by an average of 13% (or 2.18 mg/cc with a maximum of 58.7% (or 8.97 mg/cc in this study. This is evident in the water density images as massive cross-contaminations are seen in all five clinical cases. On the contrary, the proposed algorithm only changes the mean density by 2.4% (or 0.69 mg/cc with a maximum of 7.6% (or 1.31 mg/cc. The cross-contamination artifacts are significantly minimized or absent with the proposed algorithm. Conclusion. The proposed algorithm can significantly reduce image noise present in basis material density images from dual-energy CT imaging, with minimized cross-contaminations compared to the ACNR algorithm.

  4. Comparison study of noise reduction algorithms in dual energy chest digital tomosynthesis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, D.; Kim, Y.-S.; Choi, S.; Lee, H.; Choi, S.; Kim, H.-J.

    2018-04-01

    Dual energy chest digital tomosynthesis (CDT) is a recently developed medical technique that takes advantage of both tomosynthesis and dual energy X-ray images. However, quantum noise, which occurs in dual energy X-ray images, strongly interferes with diagnosis in various clinical situations. Therefore, noise reduction is necessary in dual energy CDT. In this study, noise-compensating algorithms, including a simple smoothing of high-energy images (SSH) and anti-correlated noise reduction (ACNR), were evaluated in a CDT system. We used a newly developed prototype CDT system and anthropomorphic chest phantom for experimental studies. The resulting images demonstrated that dual energy CDT can selectively image anatomical structures, such as bone and soft tissue. Among the resulting images, those acquired with ACNR showed the best image quality. Both coefficient of variation and contrast to noise ratio (CNR) were the highest in ACNR among the three different dual energy techniques, and the CNR of bone was significantly improved compared to the reconstructed images acquired at a single energy. This study demonstrated the clinical value of dual energy CDT and quantitatively showed that ACNR is the most suitable among the three developed dual energy techniques, including standard log subtraction, SSH, and ACNR.

  5. Geometric noise reduction for multivariate time series.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mera, M Eugenia; Morán, Manuel

    2006-03-01

    We propose an algorithm for the reduction of observational noise in chaotic multivariate time series. The algorithm is based on a maximum likelihood criterion, and its goal is to reduce the mean distance of the points of the cleaned time series to the attractor. We give evidence of the convergence of the empirical measure associated with the cleaned time series to the underlying invariant measure, implying the possibility to predict the long run behavior of the true dynamics.

  6. Quantum noise and stochastic reduction

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Brody, Dorje C; Hughston, Lane P

    2006-01-01

    In standard nonrelativistic quantum mechanics the expectation of the energy is a conserved quantity. It is possible to extend the dynamical law associated with the evolution of a quantum state consistently to include a nonlinear stochastic component, while respecting the conservation law. According to the dynamics thus obtained, referred to as the energy-based stochastic Schroedinger equation, an arbitrary initial state collapses spontaneously to one of the energy eigenstates, thus describing the phenomenon of quantum state reduction. In this paper, two such models are investigated: one that achieves state reduction in infinite time and the other in finite time. The properties of the associated energy expectation process and the energy variance process are worked out in detail. By use of a novel application of a nonlinear filtering method, closed-form solutions-algebraic in character and involving no integration-are obtained of both these models. In each case, the solution is expressed in terms of a random variable representing the terminal energy of the system and an independent noise process. With these solutions at hand it is possible to simulate explicitly the dynamics of the quantum states of complicated physical systems

  7. Pediatric CT: implementation of ASIR for substantial radiation dose reduction while maintaining pre-ASIR image noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brady, Samuel L; Moore, Bria M; Yee, Brian S; Kaufman, Robert A

    2014-01-01

    To determine a comprehensive method for the implementation of adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (ASIR) for maximal radiation dose reduction in pediatric computed tomography (CT) without changing the magnitude of noise in the reconstructed image or the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) in the patient. The institutional review board waived the need to obtain informed consent for this HIPAA-compliant quality analysis. Chest and abdominopelvic CT images obtained before ASIR implementation (183 patient examinations; mean patient age, 8.8 years ± 6.2 [standard deviation]; range, 1 month to 27 years) were analyzed for image noise and CNR. These measurements were used in conjunction with noise models derived from anthropomorphic phantoms to establish new beam current-modulated CT parameters to implement 40% ASIR at 120 and 100 kVp without changing noise texture or magnitude. Image noise was assessed in images obtained after ASIR implementation (492 patient examinations; mean patient age, 7.6 years ± 5.4; range, 2 months to 28 years) the same way it was assessed in the pre-ASIR analysis. Dose reduction was determined by comparing size-specific dose estimates in the pre- and post-ASIR patient cohorts. Data were analyzed with paired t tests. With 40% ASIR implementation, the average relative dose reduction for chest CT was 39% (2.7/4.4 mGy), with a maximum reduction of 72% (5.3/18.8 mGy). The average relative dose reduction for abdominopelvic CT was 29% (4.8/6.8 mGy), with a maximum reduction of 64% (7.6/20.9 mGy). Beam current modulation was unnecessary for patients weighing 40 kg or less. The difference between 0% and 40% ASIR noise magnitude was less than 1 HU, with statistically nonsignificant increases in patient CNR at 100 kVp of 8% (15.3/14.2; P = .41) for chest CT and 13% (7.8/6.8; P = .40) for abdominopelvic CT. Radiation dose reduction at pediatric CT was achieved when 40% ASIR was implemented as a dose reduction tool only; no net change to the magnitude

  8. Study on the Noise Reduction of Vehicle Exhaust NOX Spectra Based on Adaptive EEMD Algorithm

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kai Zhang

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available It becomes a key technology to measure the concentration of the vehicle exhaust components with the transmission spectra. But in the conventional methods for noise reduction and baseline correction, such as wavelet transform, derivative, interpolation, polynomial fitting, and so forth, the basic functions of these algorithms, the number of decomposition layers, and the way to reconstruct the signal have to be adjusted according to the characteristics of different components in the transmission spectra. The parameter settings of the algorithms above are not transcendental, so with them, it is difficult to achieve the best noise reduction effect for the vehicle exhaust spectra which are sharp and drastic in the waveform. In this paper, an adaptive ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD denoising model based on a special normalized index optimization is proposed and used in the spectral noise reduction of vehicle exhaust NOX. It is shown with the experimental results that the method can effectively improve the accuracy of the spectral noise reduction and simplify the denoising process and its operation difficulty.

  9. Low frequency noise reduction using stiff light composite panels

    Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

    DENG Yongchang; LIN Weizheng

    2003-01-01

    The experiment presented in this paper is to investigate and analyze the noise reduction at low frequency using stiff light composite panels. Since these composite panels are made of lightweight and stiff materials, this actuation strategy will enable the creation of composite panels for duct noise control without using traditional heavy structural mass. The results suggest that the mass-spring resonance absorption in the case of a comparatively stiff thick panel with a thin flexible plate is more efficient with minimum weight, when subjected to low-frequency (<500 Hz). The efficiency of the panel absorber depends on the mass of the thin flexible plate and the stiffness of the panel.

  10. Reduction of broadband noise in vehicles by means of active feedforward control

    OpenAIRE

    Misol, Malte; Haase, Thomas; Monner, Hans Peter

    2015-01-01

    Broadband noise in a vehicle’s interior is an important issue because of its negative impact on the passengersʼ comfort and wellbeing. The perception of this broadband noise can increase due to the use of new, less noisy drive concepts and the accompanying loss of masking noise compo-nents. This contribution focuses on the reduction of the transmission of external broadband distur-bances through lightweight panel structures (e.g. a car’s roof liner or an aircraft sidewall panel) by means of a...

  11. Acoustic performance design and optimal allocation of sound package in ship cabin noise reduction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    YANG Deqing

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available The sound package in noise reduction design of ship cabins has become the main approach for the future. The sound package is a specially designed acoustic component consisting of damping materials, absorption materials, sound isolation materials and base structural materials which can achieve the prescribed performance of noise reduction. Based on the Statistical Energy Analysis(SEAmethod, quick evaluation and design methods, and the optimal allocation theory of sound packages are investigated. The standard numerical acoustic performance evaluation model, sound package optimization design model and sound package optimal allocation model are presented. A genetic algorithm is applied to solve the presented optimization problems. Design examples demonstrate the validity and efficiency of the proposed models and solutions. The presented theory and methods benefit the standardization and programming of sound package design, and decrease noise reduction costs.

  12. Prediction of Landing Gear Noise Reduction and Comparison to Measurements

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lopes, Leonard V.

    2010-01-01

    Noise continues to be an ongoing problem for existing aircraft in flight and is projected to be a concern for next generation designs. During landing, when the engines are operating at reduced power, the noise from the airframe, of which landing gear noise is an important part, is equal to the engine noise. There are several methods of predicting landing gear noise, but none have been applied to predict the change in noise due to a change in landing gear design. The current effort uses the Landing Gear Model and Acoustic Prediction (LGMAP) code, developed at The Pennsylvania State University to predict the noise from landing gear. These predictions include the influence of noise reduction concepts on the landing gear noise. LGMAP is compared to wind tunnel experiments of a 6.3%-scale Boeing 777 main gear performed in the Quiet Flow Facility (QFF) at NASA Langley. The geometries tested in the QFF include the landing gear with and without a toboggan fairing and the door. It is shown that LGMAP is able to predict the noise directives and spectra from the model-scale test for the baseline configuration as accurately as current gear prediction methods. However, LGMAP is also able to predict the difference in noise caused by the toboggan fairing and by removing the landing gear door. LGMAP is also compared to far-field ground-based flush-mounted microphone measurements from the 2005 Quiet Technology Demonstrator 2 (QTD 2) flight test. These comparisons include a Boeing 777-300ER with and without a toboggan fairing that demonstrate that LGMAP can be applied to full-scale flyover measurements. LGMAP predictions of the noise generated by the nose gear on the main gear measurements are also shown.

  13. Research on noise and vibration reduction at DB to improve the environmental friendliness of railway traffic

    Science.gov (United States)

    Schulte-Werning, B.; Beier, M.; Degen, K. G.; Stiebel, D.

    2006-06-01

    One of the most prominent keywords relating to the environmental friendliness of railway traffic is noise reduction. Thus, the research and development programme "Low Noise Railway" of Deutsche Bahn (DB) is under way to treat the noise of the vehicles and infrastructure. The noise reduction of the trains and the rail/wheel system are being tackled within several projects. The direct noise experienced by railway-lineside residents due to train movements on the track can be reduced by minimising the sound radiation directly at the source. This is the first-choice solution, as it proves to be the most effective countermeasure regarding a cost-benefit relation. The limit values for the noise emission as specified in the technical specification for interoperability are an essential criterion to be confirmed during the procurement process of railway vehicles. A recently developed acoustical quality management scheme establishes systematic noise management to complete the vehicle procurement process in the phases of concept, design, construction and manufacturing. In freight traffic quiet railway wheels for block brake operation will play an important role in the future to meet the goal of a low-noise railway system. A first attempt to realise successfully the low-noise potential of such optimised wheels was performed, even if with mixed results. To show ways of reducing the noise of the cooling ventilation in locomotives, DB is a partner in a development project led by Siemens. A notable 8 dB(A) noise reduction was measured. Concerning bridge noise, a project was started based on an effective and cost-efficient combination of experiments and simulations in order to develop specifications for the construction of generic low-noise bridges.

  14. Effect of Two Advanced Noise Reduction Technologies on the Aerodynamic Performance of an Ultra High Bypass Ratio Fan

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hughes, Christoper E.; Gazzaniga, John A.

    2013-01-01

    A wind tunnel experiment was conducted in the NASA Glenn Research Center anechoic 9- by 15-Foot Low-Speed Wind Tunnel to investigate two new advanced noise reduction technologies in support of the NASA Fundamental Aeronautics Program Subsonic Fixed Wing Project. The goal of the experiment was to demonstrate the noise reduction potential and effect on fan model performance of the two noise reduction technologies in a scale model Ultra-High Bypass turbofan at simulated takeoff and approach aircraft flight speeds. The two novel noise reduction technologies are called Over-the-Rotor acoustic treatment and Soft Vanes. Both technologies were aimed at modifying the local noise source mechanisms of the fan tip vortex/fan case interaction and the rotor wake-stator interaction. For the Over-the-Rotor acoustic treatment, two noise reduction configurations were investigated. The results showed that the two noise reduction technologies, Over-the-Rotor and Soft Vanes, were able to reduce the noise level of the fan model, but the Over-the-Rotor configurations had a significant negative impact on the fan aerodynamic performance; the loss in fan aerodynamic efficiency was between 2.75 to 8.75 percent, depending on configuration, compared to the conventional solid baseline fan case rubstrip also tested. Performance results with the Soft Vanes showed that there was no measurable change in the corrected fan thrust and a 1.8 percent loss in corrected stator vane thrust, which resulted in a total net thrust loss of approximately 0.5 percent compared with the baseline reference stator vane set.

  15. Wing Leading Edge Concepts for Noise Reduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shmilovich, Arvin; Yadlin, Yoram; Pitera, David M.

    2010-01-01

    This study focuses on the development of wing leading edge concepts for noise reduction during high-lift operations, without compromising landing stall speeds, stall characteristics or cruise performance. High-lift geometries, which can be obtained by conventional mechanical systems or morphing structures have been considered. A systematic aerodynamic analysis procedure was used to arrive at several promising configurations. The aerodynamic design of new wing leading edge shapes is obtained from a robust Computational Fluid Dynamics procedure. Acoustic benefits are qualitatively established through the evaluation of the computed flow fields.

  16. Enhanced ground bounce noise reduction in a low-leakage CMOS multiplier

    Science.gov (United States)

    Verma, Bipin Kumar; Akashe, Shyam; Sharma, Sanjay

    2015-09-01

    In this paper, various parameters are used to reduce leakage power, leakage current and noise margin of circuits to enhance their performance. A multiplier is proposed with low-leakage current and low ground bounce noise for the microprocessor, digital signal processors (DSP) and graphics engines. The ground bounce noise problem appears when a conventional power-gating circuit transits from sleep-to-active mode. This paper discusses a reduction in leakage current in the stacking power-gating technique by three modes - sleep, active and sleep-to-active. The simulation results are performed on a 4 × 4 carry-save multiplier for leakage current, active power, leakage power and ground bounce noise, and comparison made for different nanoscales. Ground bounce noise is limited to 90%. The leakage current of the circuit is decimated up to 80% and the active power is reduced to 31%. We performed simulations using cadence virtuoso 180 and 45 nm at room temperature at various supply voltages.

  17. HF DBD plasma actuators for reduction of cylinder noise in flow

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kopiev, V. F.; Kazansky, P. N.; Kopiev, V. A.; Moralev, I. A.; Zaytsev, M. Yu

    2017-11-01

    Surface high frequency dielectric barrier discharge (HF DBD) was used to reduce flow-induced noise, radiated by circular cylinder in cross flow. Effect of HF DBD actuators is studied for flow velocity up to 80 m s-1 (Reynolds numbers up to 2.18 · 105), corresponding to the typical aircraft landing approach speed. Noise measurements were performed by microphone array in anechoic chamber; averaged flow parameters were studied by particle image velocimetry (PIV). Actuator was powered by high-frequency voltage in hundreds kHz range in steady or modulated mode with the modulation frequency of 0.3-20 kHz (Strouhal number St of 0.4 to 20). It is demonstrated that upstream directed plasma actuators are able to reduce the vortex noise of a cylinder by 10 dB. Noise reduction is accompanied by significant reorganization of the wake behind a cylinder, decreasing both wake width and turbulence level. The physical mechanism related to broadband noise control by HF DBD actuator is also discussed.

  18. Novel Signal Noise Reduction Method through Cluster Analysis, Applied to Photoplethysmography.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Waugh, William; Allen, John; Wightman, James; Sims, Andrew J; Beale, Thomas A W

    2018-01-01

    Physiological signals can often become contaminated by noise from a variety of origins. In this paper, an algorithm is described for the reduction of sporadic noise from a continuous periodic signal. The design can be used where a sample of a periodic signal is required, for example, when an average pulse is needed for pulse wave analysis and characterization. The algorithm is based on cluster analysis for selecting similar repetitions or pulses from a periodic single. This method selects individual pulses without noise, returns a clean pulse signal, and terminates when a sufficiently clean and representative signal is received. The algorithm is designed to be sufficiently compact to be implemented on a microcontroller embedded within a medical device. It has been validated through the removal of noise from an exemplar photoplethysmography (PPG) signal, showing increasing benefit as the noise contamination of the signal increases. The algorithm design is generalised to be applicable for a wide range of physiological (physical) signals.

  19. Image noise reduction technology reduces radiation in a radial-first cardiac catheterization laboratory

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gunja, Ateka; Pandey, Yagya [Department of Veterans Affairs, Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, Chicago, IL (United States); Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States); Xie, Hui [Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States); Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC (Canada); Wolska, Beata M. [Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Center for Cardiovascular Research, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States); Shroff, Adhir R.; Ardati, Amer K. [Department of Veterans Affairs, Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, Chicago, IL (United States); Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States); Vidovich, Mladen I., E-mail: miv@uic.edu [Department of Veterans Affairs, Jesse Brown VA Medical Center, Chicago, IL (United States); Division of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States)

    2017-04-15

    Background: Transradial coronary angiography (TRA) has been associated with increased radiation doses. We hypothesized that contemporary image noise reduction technology would reduce radiation doses in the cardiac catheterization laboratory in a typical clinical setting. Methods and results: We performed a single-center, retrospective analysis of 400 consecutive patients who underwent diagnostic and interventional cardiac catheterizations in a predominantly TRA laboratory with traditional fluoroscopy (N = 200) and a new image noise reduction fluoroscopy system (N = 200). The primary endpoint was radiation dose (mGy cm{sup 2}). Secondary endpoints were contrast dose, fluoroscopy times, number of cineangiograms, and radiation dose by operator between the two study periods. Radiation was reduced by 44.7% between the old and new cardiac catheterization laboratory (75.8 mGy cm{sup 2} ± 74.0 vs. 41.9 mGy cm{sup 2} ± 40.7, p < 0.0001). Radiation was reduced for both diagnostic procedures (45.9%, p < 0.0001) and interventional procedures (37.7%, p < 0.0001). There was no statistically significant difference in radiation dose between individual operators (p = 0.84). In multivariate analysis, radiation dose remained significantly decreased with the use of the new system (p < 0.0001) and was associated with weight (p < 0.0001), previous coronary artery bypass grafting (p < 0.0007) and greater than 3 stents used (p < 0.0004). TRA was used in 90% of all cases in both periods. Compared with a transfemoral approach (TFA), TRA was not associated with higher radiation doses (p = 0.20). Conclusions: Image noise reduction technology significantly reduces radiation dose in a contemporary radial-first cardiac catheterization clinical practice. - Highlights: • Radial arterial access has been associated with higher doses compared to femoral access. • In a radial-first cardiac catheterization laboratory (90% radial) we examined radiation doses reduction with a contemporary image-noise

  20. Image noise reduction technology reduces radiation in a radial-first cardiac catheterization laboratory

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gunja, Ateka; Pandey, Yagya; Xie, Hui; Wolska, Beata M.; Shroff, Adhir R.; Ardati, Amer K.; Vidovich, Mladen I.

    2017-01-01

    Background: Transradial coronary angiography (TRA) has been associated with increased radiation doses. We hypothesized that contemporary image noise reduction technology would reduce radiation doses in the cardiac catheterization laboratory in a typical clinical setting. Methods and results: We performed a single-center, retrospective analysis of 400 consecutive patients who underwent diagnostic and interventional cardiac catheterizations in a predominantly TRA laboratory with traditional fluoroscopy (N = 200) and a new image noise reduction fluoroscopy system (N = 200). The primary endpoint was radiation dose (mGy cm"2). Secondary endpoints were contrast dose, fluoroscopy times, number of cineangiograms, and radiation dose by operator between the two study periods. Radiation was reduced by 44.7% between the old and new cardiac catheterization laboratory (75.8 mGy cm"2 ± 74.0 vs. 41.9 mGy cm"2 ± 40.7, p < 0.0001). Radiation was reduced for both diagnostic procedures (45.9%, p < 0.0001) and interventional procedures (37.7%, p < 0.0001). There was no statistically significant difference in radiation dose between individual operators (p = 0.84). In multivariate analysis, radiation dose remained significantly decreased with the use of the new system (p < 0.0001) and was associated with weight (p < 0.0001), previous coronary artery bypass grafting (p < 0.0007) and greater than 3 stents used (p < 0.0004). TRA was used in 90% of all cases in both periods. Compared with a transfemoral approach (TFA), TRA was not associated with higher radiation doses (p = 0.20). Conclusions: Image noise reduction technology significantly reduces radiation dose in a contemporary radial-first cardiac catheterization clinical practice. - Highlights: • Radial arterial access has been associated with higher doses compared to femoral access. • In a radial-first cardiac catheterization laboratory (90% radial) we examined radiation doses reduction with a contemporary image-noise compared to

  1. Compressed air noise reductions from using advanced air gun nozzles in research and development environments.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Prieve, Kurt; Rice, Amanda; Raynor, Peter C

    2017-08-01

    The aims of this study were to evaluate sound levels produced by compressed air guns in research and development (R&D) environments, replace conventional air gun models with advanced noise-reducing air nozzles, and measure changes in sound levels to assess the effectiveness of the advanced nozzles as engineering controls for noise. Ten different R&D manufacturing areas that used compressed air guns were identified and included in the study. A-weighted sound level and Z-weighted octave band measurements were taken simultaneously using a single instrument. In each area, three sets of measurements, each lasting for 20 sec, were taken 1 m away and perpendicular to the air stream of the conventional air gun while a worker simulated typical air gun work use. Two different advanced noise-reducing air nozzles were then installed. Sound level and octave band data were collected for each of these nozzles using the same methods as for the original air guns. Both of the advanced nozzles provided sound level reductions of about 7 dBA, on average. The highest noise reductions measured were 17.2 dBA for one model and 17.7 dBA for the other. In two areas, the advanced nozzles yielded no sound level reduction, or they produced small increases in sound level. The octave band data showed strong similarities in sound level among all air gun nozzles within the 10-1,000 Hz frequency range. However, the advanced air nozzles generally had lower noise contributions in the 1,000-20,000 Hz range. The observed decreases at these higher frequencies caused the overall sound level reductions that were measured. Installing new advanced noise-reducing air nozzles can provide large sound level reductions in comparison to existing conventional nozzles, which has direct benefit for hearing conservation efforts.

  2. A study for reduction of radiation pressure noise in gravitational wave detectors

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sakata, S; Sugamoto, A [Graduate School of Humanities and Sciences, Ochanomizu University, 2-1-1 Otsuka, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 112-8610 (Japan); Leonhardt, V; Kawamura, S; Sato, S; Yamazaki, T; Fukushima, M [National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, 2-21-1 Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8588 (Japan); Numata, K [NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, CRESST, Code 663, Greenbelt, MD 20771 (United States); Miyakawa, O [LIGO Laboratory 18-34, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States); Nishizawa, A [Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8501 (Japan); Furusawa, A [Department of Applied Physics, School of Engineering, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656 (Japan)], E-mail: shihori.sakata@nao.ac.jp

    2008-07-15

    We describe an experimental conceptual design for observation and reduction of radiation pressure noise. The radiation pressure noise is increased in a high finesse cavity with a small mass mirror. In our experiment a Fabry-Perot Michelson interferometer with a homodyne detection scheme will be built with Fabry-Perot cavities of finesse of 10000 containing suspended mirrors of 23 mg. To observe the radiation pressure noise, the goal sensitivity is set to 1x10{sup -17} [m/ {radical}Hz] at 1 kHz. Then the radiation pressure noise is reduced by adjusting the homodyne phase. To achieve the sensitivity, the other noise sources such as thermal noises, seismic noise and laser frequency noise should be suppressed below 1x10{sup -18} [m/{radical} Hz] at 1kHz. The whole interferometer is suspended as a double pendulum on double-layer stacks. As a preliminary setup, a Fabry-Perot cavity of finesse of 800 with a suspended mirror of 100 mg was locked. The current best sensitivity is 1x10{sup -15} [m/ {radical}Hz] at 1 kHz.

  3. Broadband transmission noise reduction of smart panels featuring piezoelectric shunt circuits and sound-absorbing material.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kim, Jaehwan; Lee, Joong-Kuen

    2002-09-01

    The possibility of a broadband noise reduction of piezoelectric smart panels is experimentally studied. A piezoelectric smart panel is basically a plate structure on which piezoelectric patches with electrical shunt circuits are mounted and sound-absorbing material is bonded on the surface of the structure. Sound-absorbing material can absorb the sound transmitted at the midfrequency region effectively while the use of piezoelectric shunt damping can reduce the transmission at resonance frequencies of the panel structure. To be able to reduce the sound transmission at low panel resonance frequencies, piezoelectric damping using the measured electrical impedance model is adopted. A resonant shunt circuit for piezoelectric shunt damping is composed of resistor and inductor in series, and they are determined by maximizing the dissipated energy through the circuit. The transmitted noise-reduction performance of smart panels is tested in an acoustic tunnel. The tunnel is a square cross-sectional tube and a loudspeaker is mounted at one side of the tube as a sound source. Panels are mounted in the middle of the tunnel and the transmitted sound pressure across panels is measured. When an absorbing material is bonded on a single plate, a remarkable transmitted noise reduction in the midfrequency region is observed except for the fundamental resonance frequency of the plate. By enabling the piezoelectric shunt damping, noise reduction is achieved at the resonance frequency as well. Piezoelectric smart panels incorporating passive absorbing material and piezoelectric shunt damping is a promising technology for noise reduction over a broadband of frequencies.

  4. Reduction of 1/f noise in graphene after electron-beam irradiation

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Zahid Hossain, Md.; Rumyantsev, Sergey; Shur, Michael S.; Balandin, Alexander A.

    2013-01-01

    We investigated experimentally the effect of the electron-beam irradiation on the level of the low-frequency 1/f noise in graphene devices. It was found that 1/f noise in graphene reduces with increasing concentration of defects induced by irradiation. The increased amount of structural disorder in graphene under irradiation was verified with micro-Raman spectroscopy. The bombardment of graphene devices with 20-keV electrons reduced the noise spectral density, S I /I 2 (I is the source-drain current) by an order-of magnitude at the radiation dose of 10 4 μC/cm 2 . We analyzed the observed noise reduction in the limiting cases of the mobility and carrier number fluctuation mechanisms. The obtained results are important for the proposed graphene applications in analog, mixed-signal, and radio-frequency systems, integrated circuits and sensors.

  5. RANS Analyses of Turbofan Nozzles with Internal Wedge Deflectors for Noise Reduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    DeBonis, James R.

    2009-01-01

    Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used to evaluate the flow field and thrust performance of a promising concept for reducing the noise at take-off of dual-stream turbofan nozzles. The concept, offset stream technology, reduces the jet noise observed on the ground by diverting (offsetting) a portion of the fan flow below the core flow, thickening and lengthening this layer between the high-velocity core flow and the ground observers. In this study a wedge placed in the internal fan stream is used as the diverter. Wind, a Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) code, was used to analyze the flow field of the exhaust plume and to calculate nozzle performance. Results showed that the wedge diverts all of the fan flow to the lower side of the nozzle, and the turbulent kinetic energy on the observer side of the nozzle is reduced. This reduction in turbulent kinetic energy should correspond to a reduction in noise. However, because all of the fan flow is diverted, the upper portion of the core flow is exposed to the freestream, and the turbulent kinetic energy on the upper side of the nozzle is increased, creating an unintended noise source. The blockage due to the wedge reduces the fan mass flow proportional to its blockage, and the overall thrust is consequently reduced. The CFD predictions are in very good agreement with experimental flow field data, demonstrating that RANS CFD can accurately predict the velocity and turbulent kinetic energy fields. While this initial design of a large scale wedge nozzle did not meet noise reduction or thrust goals, this study identified areas for improvement and demonstrated that RANS CFD can be used to improve the concept.

  6. An Assessment of Psychological Noise Reduction by Landscape Plants

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fan Yang

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available The emphasis in the term ‘Green Transportation’ is on the word ‘green’. Green transportation focuses on the construction of a slow transport system with a visually pleasing, easy and secure trip environment composed of urban parks, green roadside spaces and some other space that is full of landscape plants. This trip environment encourages residents to make trip choices that reduce fuel consumption and pollution and is one of the most important ways of popularizing green transportation. To study the psychological benefits provided by urban parks and other landscape environments, we combined a subjective approach (a questionnaire with an objective quantitative approach (emotional tests using an electroencephalogram; EEG. Using a questionnaire survey, we found that 90% of the subjects believed that landscape plants contribute to noise reduction and that 55% overrated the plants’ actual ability to attenuate noise. Two videos (showing a traffic scene and a plant scene were shown to 40 participants on video glasses. We detected and recorded EEG values with a portable electroencephalograph, and a comparison between the results of the two groups revealed that there was a highly significant asymmetry between the EEG activity of the vegetation scene and traffic scene groups. The results suggest that the emotions aroused by noise and visual stimuli are manifested in the synchronization of beta frequency band and the desynchronization of alpha frequency band, indicating that landscape plants can moderate or buffer the effects of noise. These findings indicate that landscape plants provide excess noise attenuating effects through subjects’ emotional processing, which we term ‘psychological noise reduction’.

  7. Evidence of "hidden hearing loss" following noise exposures that produce robust TTS and ABR wave-I amplitude reductions.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lobarinas, Edward; Spankovich, Christopher; Le Prell, Colleen G

    2017-06-01

    In animals, noise exposures that produce robust temporary threshold shifts (TTS) can produce immediate damage to afferent synapses and long-term degeneration of low spontaneous rate auditory nerve fibers. This synaptopathic damage has been shown to correlate with reduced auditory brainstem response (ABR) wave-I amplitudes at suprathreshold levels. The perceptual consequences of this "synaptopathy" remain unknown but have been suggested to include compromised hearing performance in competing background noise. Here, we used a modified startle inhibition paradigm to evaluate whether noise exposures that produce robust TTS and ABR wave-I reduction but not permanent threshold shift (PTS) reduced hearing-in-noise performance. Animals exposed to 109 dB SPL octave band noise showed TTS >30 dB 24-h post noise and modest but persistent ABR wave-I reduction 2 weeks post noise despite full recovery of ABR thresholds. Hearing-in-noise performance was negatively affected by the noise exposure. However, the effect was observed only at the poorest signal to noise ratio and was frequency specific. Although TTS >30 dB 24-h post noise was a predictor of functional deficits, there was no relationship between the degree of ABR wave-I reduction and degree of functional impairment. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  8. Reduction of centrifugal fan noise by use of resonators

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neise, W.; Koopmann, G. H.

    1980-11-01

    A method by which an acoustic resonator can be used to reduce at source the aerodynamic noise generated by turbomachinery has been investigated experimentally. The casing of a small, centrifugal blower was modified by replacing the cut-off of the scroll with the mouth of a quarter-wavelength resonator. The mouth of the resonator was constructed from a series of perforated plates with the same curvature as the cut-off to preserve the original geometry of the casing. Tuning of the resonator was achieved by changing the length via a movable end plug. The noise measurements were made in an anechoically terminated outlet duct at nearly a free delivery operating condition of the blower. With appropriate tuning of the resonator, reductions in the blade passing frequency tones of up to 29 dB were observed with corresponding overall sound pressure levels reductions of up to 7 dB(A). Parameters which influenced the band width of the resonator response were the porosity and the size of the resonator mouth and the flow velocity near the cut-off region. Throughout the tests, the aerodynamic performance of the blower was unaffected by the addition of the resonator to the casing.

  9. Effects of cavity resonances on sound transmission into a thin cylindrical shell. [noise reduction in aircraft fuselage

    Science.gov (United States)

    Koval, L. R.

    1978-01-01

    In the context of the transmission of airborne noise into an aircraft fuselage, a mathematical model is presented for the effects of internal cavity resonances on sound transmission into a thin cylindrical shell. The 'noise reduction' of the cylinder is defined and computed, with and without including the effects of internal cavity resonances. As would be expected, the noise reduction in the absence of cavity resonances follows the same qualitative pattern as does transmission loss. Numerical results show that cavity resonances lead to wide fluctuations and a general decrease of noise reduction, especially at cavity resonances. Modest internal absorption is shown to greatly reduce the effect of cavity resonances. The effects of external airflow, internal cabin pressurization, and different acoustical properties inside and outside the cylinder are also included and briefly examined.

  10. Noise reduction and image enhancement using a hardware implementation of artificial neural networks

    Science.gov (United States)

    David, Robert; Williams, Erin; de Tremiolles, Ghislain; Tannhof, Pascal

    1999-03-01

    In this paper, we present a neural based solution developed for noise reduction and image enhancement using the ZISC, an IBM hardware processor which implements the Restricted Coulomb Energy algorithm and the K-Nearest Neighbor algorithm. Artificial neural networks present the advantages of processing time reduction in comparison with classical models, adaptability, and the weighted property of pattern learning. The goal of the developed application is image enhancement in order to restore old movies (noise reduction, focus correction, etc.), to improve digital television images, or to treat images which require adaptive processing (medical images, spatial images, special effects, etc.). Image results show a quantitative improvement over the noisy image as well as the efficiency of this system. Further enhancements are being examined to improve the output of the system.

  11. Application of a TiO2 nanocomposite in earplugs, a case study of noise reduction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ibrahimi Ghavamabadi, Leila; Fouladi Dehaghi, Behzad; Hesampour, Morteza; Ahmadi Angali, Kambiz

    2018-03-13

    Use of hearing protection devices (HPDs) has become necessary when other control measures cannot reduce noise to a safe and standard level. In most countries, more effective hearing protection devices are in demand. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) nanoparticles on noise reduction efficiency in a polyvinyl chloride (PVC) earplug. An S-60 type PVC polymer as main matrix and TiO 2 with 30 nm size were used. PVC/TiO 2 nanocomposite was mixed at a temperature of 160 °C and 40 rounds per minute (rpm) and the samples were prepared with 0, 0.2 and 0.5 wt% of TiO 2 nanoparticle concentrations. Earplug samples with PVC/TiO 2 (0.2, 0.5 wt%) nanoparticles, when compared with raw earplugs, showed almost equal noise attenuation at low frequencies (500- 125 Hz). However, at high frequencies (2-8 kHz), the power of noise reduction of earplugs containing TiO 2 nanoparticles was significantly increased. The results of the present study showed that samples containing nanoparticles of TiO 2 had more noticeable noise reduction abilities at higher frequencies in comparison with samples without the nanoparticles.

  12. Random resampling masks: a non-Bayesian one-shot strategy for noise reduction in digital holography.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bianco, V; Paturzo, M; Memmolo, P; Finizio, A; Ferraro, P; Javidi, B

    2013-03-01

    Holographic imaging may become severely degraded by a mixture of speckle and incoherent additive noise. Bayesian approaches reduce the incoherent noise, but prior information is needed on the noise statistics. With no prior knowledge, one-shot reduction of noise is a highly desirable goal, as the recording process is simplified and made faster. Indeed, neither multiple acquisitions nor a complex setup are needed. So far, this result has been achieved at the cost of a deterministic resolution loss. Here we propose a fast non-Bayesian denoising method that avoids this trade-off by means of a numerical synthesis of a moving diffuser. In this way, only one single hologram is required as multiple uncorrelated reconstructions are provided by random complementary resampling masks. Experiments show a significant incoherent noise reduction, close to the theoretical improvement bound, resulting in image-contrast improvement. At the same time, we preserve the resolution of the unprocessed image.

  13. A quantitative comparison of noise reduction across five commercial (hybrid and model-based) iterative reconstruction techniques: an anthropomorphic phantom study.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Patino, Manuel; Fuentes, Jorge M; Hayano, Koichi; Kambadakone, Avinash R; Uyeda, Jennifer W; Sahani, Dushyant V

    2015-02-01

    OBJECTIVE. The objective of our study was to compare the performance of three hybrid iterative reconstruction techniques (IRTs) (ASiR, iDose4, SAFIRE) and their respective strengths for image noise reduction on low-dose CT examinations using filtered back projection (FBP) as the standard reference. Also, we compared the performance of these three hybrid IRTs with two model-based IRTs (Veo and IMR) for image noise reduction on low-dose examinations. MATERIALS AND METHODS. An anthropomorphic abdomen phantom was scanned at 100 and 120 kVp and different tube current-exposure time products (25-100 mAs) on three CT systems (for ASiR and Veo, Discovery CT750 HD; for iDose4 and IMR, Brilliance iCT; and for SAFIRE, Somatom Definition Flash). Images were reconstructed using FBP and using IRTs at various strengths. Nine noise measurements (mean ROI size, 423 mm(2)) on extracolonic fat for the different strengths of IRTs were recorded and compared with FBP using ANOVA. Radiation dose, which was measured as the volume CT dose index and dose-length product, was also compared. RESULTS. There were no significant differences in radiation dose and image noise among the scanners when FBP was used (p > 0.05). Gradual image noise reduction was observed with each increasing increment of hybrid IRT strength, with a maximum noise suppression of approximately 50% (48.2-53.9%). Similar noise reduction was achieved on the scanners by applying specific hybrid IRT strengths. Maximum noise reduction was higher on model-based IRTs (68.3-81.1%) than hybrid IRTs (48.2-53.9%) (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION. When constant scanning parameters are used, radiation dose and image noise on FBP are similar for CT scanners made by different manufacturers. Significant image noise reduction is achieved on low-dose CT examinations rendered with IRTs. The image noise on various scanners can be matched by applying specific hybrid IRT strengths. Model-based IRTs attain substantially higher noise reduction than hybrid

  14. HF DBD plasma actuators for reduction of cylinder noise in flow

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kopiev, V F; Kopiev, V A; Zaytsev, M Yu; Kazansky, P N; Moralev, I A

    2017-01-01

    Surface high frequency dielectric barrier discharge (HF DBD) was used to reduce flow-induced noise, radiated by circular cylinder in cross flow. Effect of HF DBD actuators is studied for flow velocity up to 80 m s −1 (Reynolds numbers up to 2.18 · 10 5 ), corresponding to the typical aircraft landing approach speed. Noise measurements were performed by microphone array in anechoic chamber; averaged flow parameters were studied by particle image velocimetry (PIV). Actuator was powered by high-frequency voltage in hundreds kHz range in steady or modulated mode with the modulation frequency of 0.3–20 kHz (Strouhal number St of 0.4 to 20). It is demonstrated that upstream directed plasma actuators are able to reduce the vortex noise of a cylinder by 10 dB. Noise reduction is accompanied by significant reorganization of the wake behind a cylinder, decreasing both wake width and turbulence level. The physical mechanism related to broadband noise control by HF DBD actuator is also discussed. (paper)

  15. Noise Reduction of Steel Cord Conveyor Belt Defect Electromagnetic Signal by Combined Use of Improved Wavelet and EMD

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hong-Wei Ma

    2016-09-01

    Full Text Available In order to reduce the noise of a defect electromagnetic signal of the steel cord conveyor belt used in coal mines, a new signal noise reduction method by combined use of the improved threshold wavelet and Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD is proposed. Firstly, the denoising method based on the improved threshold wavelet is applied to reduce the noise of a defect electromagnetic signal obtained by an electromagnetic testing system. Then, the EMD is used to decompose the denoised signal and then the effective Intrinsic Mode Function (IMF is extracted by the dominant eigenvalue strategy. Finally, the signal reconstruction is carried out by utilizing the obtained IMF. In order to verify the proposed noise reduction method, the experiments are carried out in two cases including the defective joint and steel wire rope break. The experimental results show that the proposed method in this paper obtains the higher Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR for the defect electromagnetic signal noise reduction of steel cord conveyor belts.

  16. Noise reduction in long‐period seismograms by way of array summing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ringler, Adam; Wilson, David; Storm, Tyler; Marshall, Benjamin T.; Hutt, Charles R.; Holland, Austin

    2016-01-01

    Long‐period (>100  s period) seismic data can often be dominated by instrumental noise as well as local site noise. When multiple collocated sensors are installed at a single site, it is possible to improve the overall station noise levels by applying stacking methods to their traces. We look at the noise reduction in long‐period seismic data by applying the time–frequency phase‐weighted stacking method of Schimmel and Gallart (2007) as well as the phase‐weighted stacking (PWS) method of Schimmel and Paulssen (1997) to four collocated broadband sensors installed in the quiet Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory underground vault. We show that such stacking methods can improve vertical noise levels by as much as 10 dB over the mean background noise levels at 400 s period, suggesting that greater improvements could be achieved with an array involving multiple sensors. We also apply this method to reduce local incoherent noise on horizontal seismic records of the 2 March 2016 Mw 7.8 Sumatra earthquake, where the incoherent noise levels at very long periods are similar in amplitude to the earthquake signal. To maximize the coherency, we apply the PWS method to horizontal data where relative azimuths between collocated sensors are estimated and compared with a simpler linear stack with no azimuthal rotation. Such methods could help reduce noise levels at various seismic stations where multiple high‐quality sensors have been deployed. Such small arrays may also provide a solution to improving long‐period noise levels at Global Seismographic Network stations.

  17. Noise Reduction for Nonlinear Nonstationary Time Series Data using Averaging Intrinsic Mode Function

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Christofer Toumazou

    2013-07-01

    Full Text Available A novel noise filtering algorithm based on averaging Intrinsic Mode Function (aIMF, which is a derivation of Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD, is proposed to remove white-Gaussian noise of foreign currency exchange rates that are nonlinear nonstationary times series signals. Noise patterns with different amplitudes and frequencies were randomly mixed into the five exchange rates. A number of filters, namely; Extended Kalman Filter (EKF, Wavelet Transform (WT, Particle Filter (PF and the averaging Intrinsic Mode Function (aIMF algorithm were used to compare filtering and smoothing performance. The aIMF algorithm demonstrated high noise reduction among the performance of these filters.

  18. Ensemble empirical mode decomposition based fluorescence spectral noise reduction for low concentration PAHs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, Shu-tao; Yang, Xue-ying; Kong, De-ming; Wang, Yu-tian

    2017-11-01

    A new noise reduction method based on ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) is proposed to improve the detection effect for fluorescence spectra. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) pollutants, as a kind of important current environmental pollution source, are highly oncogenic. Using the fluorescence spectroscopy method, the PAHs pollutants can be detected. However, instrument will produce noise in the experiment. Weak fluorescent signals can be affected by noise, so we propose a way to denoise and improve the detection effect. Firstly, we use fluorescence spectrometer to detect PAHs to obtain fluorescence spectra. Subsequently, noises are reduced by EEMD algorithm. Finally, the experiment results show the proposed method is feasible.

  19. Application of Circulation Control Technology to Airframe Noise Reduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahuja, K. K.; Sankar, L. N.; Englar, R. J.; Munro, Scott E.; Li, Yi; Gaeta, R. J.

    2003-01-01

    This report is a summary of the work performed by Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) under NASA Langley Grant NAG-1-2146, which was awarded as a part of NASA's Breakthrough Innovative Technologies (BIT) initiative. This was a three-year program, with a one-year no-cost extension. Each year's study has been an integrated effort consisting of computational fluid dynamics, experimental aerodynamics, and detailed noise and flow measurements. Year I effort examined the feasibility of reducing airframe noise by replacing the conventional wing systems with a Circulation Control Wing (CCW), where steady blowing was used through the trailing edge of the wing over a Coanda surface. It was shown that the wing lift increases with CCW blowing and indeed for the same lift, a CCW wing was shown to produce less noise. Year 2 effort dealt with a similar study on the role of pulsed blowing on airframe noise. The main objective of this portion of the study was to assess whether pulse blowing from the trailing edge of a CCW resulted in more, less, or the same amount of radiated noise to the farfield. Results show that a reduction in farfield noise of up to 5 dB is measured when pulse flow is compared with steady flow for an equivalent lift configuration. This reduction is in the spectral region associated with the trailing edge jet noise. This result is due to the unique advantage that pulsed flow has over steady flow. For a range of frequencies, more lift is experienced with the same mass flow as the steady case. Thus, for an equivalent lift and slot height, the pulsed system can operate at lower jet velocities, and hence lower jet noise. The computational analysis showed that for a given time-averaged mass flow rate, pulsed jets give a higher value of C(sub l) and a higher L/D than equivalent steady jets. This benefit is attributable to higher instantaneous jet velocities, and higher instantaneous C(sub mu) values for the pulsed jet. Pulsed jet benefits increase at higher

  20. Evaluation of a Noise Reduction Procedure for Chest Radiography

    Science.gov (United States)

    Fukui, Ryohei; Ishii, Rie; Kodani, Kazuhiko; Kanasaki, Yoshiko; Suyama, Hisashi; Watanabe, Masanari; Nakamoto, Masaki; Fukuoka, Yasushi

    2013-01-01

    Background The aim of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of noise reduction procedure (NRP), a function in the new image processing for chest radiography. Methods A CXDI-50G Portable Digital Radiography System (Canon) was used for X-ray detection. Image noise was analyzed with a noise power spectrum (NPS) and a burger phantom was used for evaluation of density resolution. The usefulness of NRP was evaluated by chest phantom images and clinical chest radiography. We employed the Bureau of Radiological Health Method for scoring chest images while carrying out our observations. Results NPS through the use of NRP was improved compared with conventional image processing (CIP). The results in image quality showed high-density resolution through the use of NRP, so that chest radiography examination can be performed with a low dose of radiation. Scores were significantly higher than for CIP. Conclusion In this study, use of NRP led to a high evaluation in these so we are able to confirm the usefulness of NRP for clinical chest radiography. PMID:24574577

  1. Low Delay Noise Reduction and Dereverberation for Hearing Aids

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Heinrich W. Löllmann

    2009-01-01

    Full Text Available A new system for single-channel speech enhancement is proposed which achieves a joint suppression of late reverberant speech and background noise with a low signal delay and low computational complexity. It is based on a generalized spectral subtraction rule which depends on the variances of the late reverberant speech and background noise. The calculation of the spectral variances of the late reverberant speech requires an estimate of the reverberation time (RT which is accomplished by a maximum likelihood (ML approach. The enhancement with this blind RT estimation achieves almost the same speech quality as by using the actual RT. In comparison to commonly used post-filters in hearing aids which only perform a noise reduction, a significantly better objective and subjective speech quality is achieved. The proposed system performs time-domain filtering with coefficients adapted in the non-uniform (Bark-scaled frequency-domain. This allows to achieve a high speech quality with low signal delay which is important for speech enhancement in hearing aids or related applications such as hands-free communication systems.

  2. Filtering out the noise: evaluating the impact of noise and sound reduction strategies on sleep quality for ICU patients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bosma, Karen J; Ranieri, V Marco

    2009-01-01

    The review article by Xie and colleagues examines the impact of noise and noise reduction strategies on sleep quality for critically ill patients. Evaluating the impact of noise on sleep quality is challenging, as it must be measured relative to other factors that may be more or less disruptive to patients' sleep. Such factors may be difficult for patients, observers, and polysomnogram interpreters to identify, due to our limited understanding of the causes of sleep disruption in the critically ill, as well as the challenges in recording and quantifying sleep stages and sleep fragmentation in the intensive care unit. Furthermore, most research in this field has focused on noise level, whereas acousticians typically evaluate additional parameters such as noise spectrum and reverberation time. The authors highlight the disparate results and limitations of existing studies, including the lack of attention to other acoustic parameters besides sound level, and the combined effects of different sleep disturbing factors.

  3. Acoustic noise reduction in T 1- and proton-density-weighted turbo spin-echo imaging.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ott, Martin; Blaimer, Martin; Breuer, Felix; Grodzki, David; Heismann, Björn; Jakob, Peter

    2016-02-01

    To reduce acoustic noise levels in T 1-weighted and proton-density-weighted turbo spin-echo (TSE) sequences, which typically reach acoustic noise levels up to 100 dB(A) in clinical practice. Five acoustic noise reduction strategies were combined: (1) gradient ramps and shapes were changed from trapezoidal to triangular, (2) variable-encoding-time imaging was implemented to relax the phase-encoding gradient timing, (3) RF pulses were adapted to avoid the need for reversing the polarity of the slice-rewinding gradient, (4) readout bandwidth was increased to provide more time for gradient activity on other axes, (5) the number of slices per TR was reduced to limit the total gradient activity per unit time. We evaluated the influence of each measure on the acoustic noise level, and conducted in vivo measurements on a healthy volunteer. Sound recordings were taken for comparison. An overall acoustic noise reduction of up to 16.8 dB(A) was obtained by the proposed strategies (1-4) and the acquisition of half the number of slices per TR only. Image quality in terms of SNR and CNR was found to be preserved. The proposed measures in this study allowed a threefold reduction in the acoustic perception of T 1-weighted and proton-density-weighted TSE sequences compared to a standard TSE-acquisition. This could be achieved without visible degradation of image quality, showing the potential to improve patient comfort and scan acceptability.

  4. Single-Channel Noise Reduction using Unified Joint Diagonalization and Optimal Filtering

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nørholm, Sidsel Marie; Benesty, Jacob; Jensen, Jesper Rindom

    2014-01-01

    consider two cases, where, respectively, no distortion and distortion are incurred on the desired signal. The former can be achieved when the covariance matrix of the desired signal is rank deficient, which is the case, for example, for voiced speech. In the latter case, the covariance matrix......In this paper, the important problem of single-channel noise reduction is treated from a new perspective. The problem is posed as a filtering problem based on joint diagonalization of the covariance matrices of the desired and noise signals. More specifically, the eigenvectors from the joint...

  5. Electrocardiogram (ECG Signal Modeling and Noise Reduction Using Hopfield Neural Networks

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    F. Bagheri

    2013-02-01

    Full Text Available The Electrocardiogram (ECG signal is one of the diagnosing approaches to detect heart disease. In this study the Hopfield Neural Network (HNN is applied and proposed for ECG signal modeling and noise reduction. The Hopfield Neural Network (HNN is a recurrent neural network that stores the information in a dynamic stable pattern. This algorithm retrieves a pattern stored in memory in response to the presentation of an incomplete or noisy version of that pattern. Computer simulation results show that this method can successfully model the ECG signal and remove high-frequency noise.

  6. Pediatric cT: Implementation of ASIR for Substantial Radiation Dose Reduction While Maintaining Pre-ASIR Image Noise1

    Science.gov (United States)

    Brady, Samuel L.; Moore, Bria M.; Yee, Brian S.; Kaufman, Robert A.

    2015-01-01

    Purpose To determine a comprehensive method for the implementation of adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (ASIR) for maximal radiation dose reduction in pediatric computed tomography (CT) without changing the magnitude of noise in the reconstructed image or the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) in the patient. Materials and Methods The institutional review board waived the need to obtain informed consent for this HIPAA-compliant quality analysis. Chest and abdominopelvic CT images obtained before ASIR implementation (183 patient examinations; mean patient age, 8.8 years ± 6.2 [standard deviation]; range, 1 month to 27 years) were analyzed for image noise and CNR. These measurements were used in conjunction with noise models derived from anthropomorphic phantoms to establish new beam current–modulated CT parameters to implement 40% ASIR at 120 and 100 kVp without changing noise texture or magnitude. Image noise was assessed in images obtained after ASIR implementation (492 patient examinations; mean patient age, 7.6 years ± 5.4; range, 2 months to 28 years) the same way it was assessed in the pre-ASIR analysis. Dose reduction was determined by comparing size-specific dose estimates in the pre- and post-ASIR patient cohorts. Data were analyzed with paired t tests. Results With 40% ASIR implementation, the average relative dose reduction for chest CT was 39% (2.7/4.4 mGy), with a maximum reduction of 72% (5.3/18.8 mGy). The average relative dose reduction for abdominopelvic CT was 29% (4.8/6.8 mGy), with a maximum reduction of 64% (7.6/20.9 mGy). Beam current modulation was unnecessary for patients weighing 40 kg or less. The difference between 0% and 40% ASIR noise magnitude was less than 1 HU, with statistically nonsignificant increases in patient CNR at 100 kVp of 8% (15.3/14.2; P = .41) for chest CT and 13% (7.8/6.8; P = .40) for abdominopelvic CT. Conclusion Radiation dose reduction at pediatric CT was achieved when 40% ASIR was implemented as a dose

  7. A PIV Study of Slotted Air Injection for Jet Noise Reduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Henderson, Brenda S.; Wernet, Mark P.

    2012-01-01

    Results from acoustic and Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) measurements are presented for single and dual-stream jets with fluidic injection on the core stream. The fluidic injection nozzles delivered air to the jet through slots on the interior of the nozzle at the nozzle trailing edge. The investigations include subsonic and supersonic jet conditions. Reductions in broadband shock noise and low frequency mixing noise were obtained with the introduction of fluidic injection on single stream jets. Fluidic injection was found to eliminate shock cells, increase jet mixing, and reduce turbulent kinetic energy levels near the end of the potential core. For dual-stream subsonic jets, the introduction of fluidic injection reduced low frequency noise in the peak jet noise direction and enhanced jet mixing. For dual-stream jets with supersonic fan streams and subsonic core streams, the introduction of fluidic injection in the core stream impacted the jet shock cell structure but had little effect on mixing between the core and fan streams.

  8. Mastication noise reduction method for fully implantable hearing aid using piezo-electric sensor.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Na, Sung Dae; Lee, Gihyoun; Wei, Qun; Seong, Ki Woong; Cho, Jin Ho; Kim, Myoung Nam

    2017-07-20

    Fully implantable hearing devices (FIHDs) can be affected by generated biomechanical noise such as mastication noise. To reduce the mastication noise using a piezo-electric sensor, the mastication noise is measured with the piezo-electric sensor, and noise reduction is practiced by the energy difference. For the experiment on mastication noise, a skull model was designed using artificial skull model and a piezo-electric sensor that can measure the vibration signals better than other sensors. A 1 kHz pure-tone sound through a standard speaker was applied to the model while the lower jawbone of the model was moved in a masticatory fashion. The correlation coefficients and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) before and after application of the proposed method were compared. It was found that the signal-to-noise ratio and correlation coefficients increased by 4.48 dB and 0.45, respectively. The mastication noise is measured by piezo-electric sensor as the mastication noise that occurred during vibration. In addition, the noise was reduced by using the proposed method in conjunction with MATLAB. In order to confirm the performance of the proposed method, the correlation coefficients and signal-to-noise ratio before and after signal processing were calculated. In the future, an implantable microphone for real-time processing will be developed.

  9. Reducing Radiation Dose in Coronary Angiography and Angioplasty Using Image Noise Reduction Technology.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kastrati, Mirlind; Langenbrink, Lukas; Piatkowski, Michal; Michaelsen, Jochen; Reimann, Doris; Hoffmann, Rainer

    2016-08-01

    This study sought to quantitatively evaluate the reduction of radiation dose in coronary angiography and angioplasty with the use of image noise reduction technology in a routine clinical setting. Radiation dose data from consecutive 605 coronary procedures (397 consecutive coronary angiograms and 208 consecutive coronary interventions) performed from October 2014 to April 2015 on a coronary angiography system with noise reduction technology (Allura Clarity IQ) were collected. For comparison, radiation dose data from consecutive 695 coronary procedures (435 coronary angiograms and 260 coronary interventions) performed on a conventional coronary angiography system from October 2013 to April 2014 were evaluated. Patient radiation dosage was evaluated based on the cumulative dose area product. Operators and operator practice did not change between the 2 evaluated periods. Patient characteristics were collected to evaluate similarity of patient groups. Image quality was evaluated on a 5-grade scale in 30 patients of each group. There were no significant differences between the 2 evaluated groups in gender, age, weight, and fluoroscopy time (6.8 ± 6.1 vs 6.9 ± 6.3 minutes, not significant). The dose area product was reduced from 3195 ± 2359 to 983 ± 972 cGycm(2) (65%, p technology. Image quality was graded as similar between the evaluated systems (4.0 ± 0.7 vs 4.2 ± 0.6, not significant). In conclusion, a new x-ray technology with image noise reduction algorithm provides a substantial reduction in radiation exposure without the need to prolong the procedure or fluoroscopy time. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  10. Experimental demonstration of wind turbine noise reduction through optimized airfoil shape and trailing-edge serrations

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Oerlemans, S. [National Aerospace Laboratory NLR, Emmeloord (Netherlands); Schepers, J.G. [Unit Wind Energy, Energy research Centre of the Netherlands ECN, Petten (Netherlands); Guidati, G.; Wagner, S. [Institut fuer Aerodynamik und Gasdynamik IAG, Universitaet Stuttgart (Germany)

    2001-07-15

    The objective of the European project DATA (Design and Testing of Acoustically Optimized Airfoils for Wind Turbines) is a reduction of trailing-edge (TE) noise by modifying the airfoil shape and/or the application of trailing-edge serrations. This paper describes validation measurements that were performed in the DNW-LLF wind tunnel, on a model scale wind turbine with a two-bladed 4.5 m diameter rotor which was designed in the project. Measurements were done for one reference- and two acoustically optimized rotors, for varying flow conditions. The aerodynamic performance of the rotors was measured using a torque meter in the hub, and further aerodynamic information was obtained from flow visualization on the blades. The acoustic measurements were done with a 136 microphone out-of-flow acoustic array. Besides the location of the noise sources in the (stationary) rotor plane, a new acoustic processing method enabled identification of dominant noise source regions on the rotating blades. The results show dominant noise sources at the trailing-edge of the blade, close to the tip. The optimized airfoil shapes result in a significant reduction of TE noise levels with respect to the reference rotor, without loss in power production. A further reduction can be achieved by the application of trailing-edge serrations. The aerodynamic measurements are generally in good agreement with the aerodynamic predictions made during the design of the model turbine.

  11. Noise reduction techniques used on the high power klystron modulators at Argonne National Laboratory

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Russell, T.J.

    1993-01-01

    The modulators used in the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory have been redesigned with an emphasis on electrical noise reduction. Since the modulators are 100 MW modulators with <700 ns rise time, electrical noise can be coupled very easily to other electronic equipment in the area. This paper will detail the efforts made to reduce noise coupled to surrounding equipment. Shielding and sound grounding techniques accomplished the goal of drastically reducing the noise induced in surrounding equipment. The approach used in grounding and shielding will be discussed, and data will be presented comparing earlier designs to the improved design

  12. The effectiveness of environmental strategies on noise reduction in a pediatric intensive care unit: creation of single-patient bedrooms and reducing noise sources.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kol, Emine; Aydın, Perihan; Dursun, Oguz

    2015-07-01

    Noise is a substantial problem for both patients and healthcare workers in hospitals. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of environmental strategies (creating single-patient rooms and reducing noise sources) in noise reduction in a pediatric intensive care unit. Noise measurement in the unit was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, measurements aimed at determining the unit's present level of noise were performed over 4 weeks in December 2013. During the month following the first measurement phase, the intensive care unit (ICU) was moved to a new location and noise-reducing strategies were implemented. The second phase, in May 2014, measured noise levels in the newly constructed environment. The noise levels before and after environmental changes were statistically significant at 72.6 dB-A and 56 dB-A, respectively (p noise-reducing strategies can be effective in controlling environmental noise in the ICU. © 2015, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  13. Subspace-Based Noise Reduction for Speech Signals via Diagonal and Triangular Matrix Decompositions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hansen, Per Christian; Jensen, Søren Holdt

    2007-01-01

    We survey the definitions and use of rank-revealing matrix decompositions in single-channel noise reduction algorithms for speech signals. Our algorithms are based on the rank-reduction paradigm and, in particular, signal subspace techniques. The focus is on practical working algorithms, using both...... with working Matlab code and applications in speech processing....

  14. In vivo evaluation of mastication noise reduction for dual channel implantable microphone.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Woo, SeongTak; Jung, EuiSung; Lim, HyungGyu; Lee, Jang Woo; Seong, Ki Woong; Won, Chul Ho; Kim, Myoung Nam; Cho, Jin Ho; Lee, Jyung Hyun

    2014-01-01

    Input for fully implantable hearing devices (FIHDs) is provided by an implantable microphone under the skin of the temporal bone. However, the implanted microphone can be affected when the FIHDs user chews. In this paper, a dual implantable microphone was designed that can filter out the noise from mastication. For the in vivo experiment, a fabricated microphone was implanted in a rabbit. Pure-tone sounds of 1 kHz through a standard speaker were applied to the rabbit, which was given food simultaneously. To evaluate noise reduction, the measured signals were processed using a MATLAB program based adaptive filter. To verify the proposed method, the correlation coefficients and signal to-noise ratio before and after signal processing were calculated. By comparing the results, signal-to-noise ratio and correlation coefficients are enhanced by 6.07dB and 0.529 respectively.

  15. Coherent noise reduction in digital holographic microscopy by averaging multiple holograms recorded with a multimode laser.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pan, Feng; Yang, Lizhi; Xiao, Wen

    2017-09-04

    In digital holographic microscopy (DHM), it is undesirable to observe coherent noise in the reconstructed images. The sources of the noise are mainly the parasitic interference fringes caused by multiple reflections and the speckle pattern caused by the optical scattering on the object surface. Here we propose a noise reduction approach in DHM by averaging multiple holograms recorded with a multimode laser. Based on the periodicity of the temporal coherence of a multimode semiconductor laser, we acquire a series of holograms by changing the optical path length difference between the reference beam and object beam. Because of the use of low coherence light, we can remove the parasitic interference fringes caused by multiple reflections in the holograms. In addition, the coherent noise patterns change in this process due to the different optical paths. Therefore, the coherent noise can be reduced by averaging the multiple reconstructions with uncorrelated noise patterns. Several experiments have been carried out to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach for coherent noise reduction in DHM. It is shown a remarkable improvement both in amplitude imaging quality and phase measurement accuracy.

  16. Simulated dose reduction by adding artificial noise to measured raw data: A validation study

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Soederberg, M.; Gunnarsson, M.; Nilsson, M.

    2010-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to verify and validate a noise simulation tool called Dose Tutor (VAMP GmbH) in terms of level and texture of the simulated noise. By adding artificial noise to measured computed tomography (CT) raw data, a scan acquired with a lower dose (mAs) than the actual one can be simulated. A homogeneous polyethylene phantom and an anthropomorphic chest phantom were scanned for different mAs levels, tube voltages, slice thicknesses and reconstruction kernels. The simulated noise levels were compared with the noise levels in real transverse slice images actually acquired with corresponding mAs values. In general, the noise comparisons showed acceptable agreement in magnitude (<20% deviation in pixel standard deviation). Also, the calculated noise power spectra were similar, which indicates that the noise texture is correctly reproduced. In conclusion, this study establishes that the Dose Tutor might be a useful tool for estimating the dose reduction potential for CT protocols. (authors)

  17. Measured and calculated noise reduction of rail dampers and absorption plates on a high speed slab track

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dittrich, M.G.; Graafland, F.; Eisses, A.R.; Nijhof, M.J.J.

    2015-01-01

    Rail dampers and sound absorbing plates have been tested on a high speed railway slab track in a walled cutting at a noise sensitive location. Their noise reduction has been determined from pass-by measurements during service and predicted using BEM calculations. The cutting depth, noise barrier

  18. Complex diffusion process for noise reduction

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Nadernejad, Ehsan; Barari, A.

    2014-01-01

    equations (PDEs) in image restoration and de-noising prompted many researchers to search for an improvement in the technique. In this paper, a new method is presented for signal de-noising, based on PDEs and Schrodinger equations, named as complex diffusion process (CDP). This method assumes that variations...... for signal de-noising. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, a number of experiments have been performed using Sinusoid, multi-component and FM signals cluttered with noise. The results indicate that the proposed method outperforms the approaches for signal de-noising known in prior art....

  19. Sensor locations and noise reduction in high-purity batch distillation control loops

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Oisiovici R.M.

    2000-01-01

    Full Text Available The influence of the sensor locations on the composition control of high-purity batch distillation columns has been investigated. Using concepts of the nonlinear control theory, an input-output linearizing controller was implemented to keep the distillate composition constant at a desired value by varying the reflux ratio. An Extended Kalman Filter was developed to estimate the compositions required in the control algorithm using temperature measurements. In the presence of measurement noise, the control performance depended greatly on the sensor locations. Placing the sensors further from the top stages reduced the detrimental effects of noise but increased the inference error. To achieve accurate composition control, both noise reduction and composition estimate accuracy should be considered in the selection of the sensor locations.

  20. Speckle Noise Reduction for the Enhancement of Retinal Layers in Optical Coherence Tomography Images

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Fereydoon Nowshiravan Rahatabad

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available Introduction One of the most important pre-processing steps in optical coherence tomography (OCT is reducing speckle noise, resulting from multiple scattering of tissues, which degrades the quality of OCT images. Materials and Methods The present study focused on speckle noise reduction and edge detection techniques. Statistical filters with different masks and noise variances were applied on OCT and test images. Objective evaluation of both types of images was performed, using various image metrics such as peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR, root mean square error, correlation coefficient and elapsed time. For the purpose of recovery, Kuan filter was used as an input for edge enhancement. Also, a spatial filter was applied to improve image quality. Results The obtained results were presented as statistical tables and images. Based on statistical measures and visual quality of OCT images, Enhanced Lee filter (3×3 with a PSNR value of 43.6735 in low noise variance and Kuan filter (3×3 with a PSNR value of 37.2850 in high noise variance showed superior performance over other filters. Conclusion Based on the obtained results, by using speckle reduction filters such as Enhanced Lee and Kuan filters on OCT images, the number of compounded images, required to achieve a given image quality, could be reduced. Moreover, use of Kuan filters for promoting the edges allowed smoothing of speckle regions, while preserving image tissue texture.

  1. Statistical CT noise reduction with multiscale decomposition and penalized weighted least squares in the projection domain

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tang Shaojie; Tang Xiangyang

    2012-01-01

    Purposes: The suppression of noise in x-ray computed tomography (CT) imaging is of clinical relevance for diagnostic image quality and the potential for radiation dose saving. Toward this purpose, statistical noise reduction methods in either the image or projection domain have been proposed, which employ a multiscale decomposition to enhance the performance of noise suppression while maintaining image sharpness. Recognizing the advantages of noise suppression in the projection domain, the authors propose a projection domain multiscale penalized weighted least squares (PWLS) method, in which the angular sampling rate is explicitly taken into consideration to account for the possible variation of interview sampling rate in advanced clinical or preclinical applications. Methods: The projection domain multiscale PWLS method is derived by converting an isotropic diffusion partial differential equation in the image domain into the projection domain, wherein a multiscale decomposition is carried out. With adoption of the Markov random field or soft thresholding objective function, the projection domain multiscale PWLS method deals with noise at each scale. To compensate for the degradation in image sharpness caused by the projection domain multiscale PWLS method, an edge enhancement is carried out following the noise reduction. The performance of the proposed method is experimentally evaluated and verified using the projection data simulated by computer and acquired by a CT scanner. Results: The preliminary results show that the proposed projection domain multiscale PWLS method outperforms the projection domain single-scale PWLS method and the image domain multiscale anisotropic diffusion method in noise reduction. In addition, the proposed method can preserve image sharpness very well while the occurrence of “salt-and-pepper” noise and mosaic artifacts can be avoided. Conclusions: Since the interview sampling rate is taken into account in the projection domain

  2. Robust spinal cord resting-state fMRI using independent component analysis-based nuisance regression noise reduction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Yong; Jin, Richu; Li, Guangsheng; Luk, Keith Dk; Wu, Ed X

    2018-04-16

    Physiological noise reduction plays a critical role in spinal cord (SC) resting-state fMRI (rsfMRI). To reduce physiological noise and increase the robustness of SC rsfMRI by using an independent component analysis (ICA)-based nuisance regression (ICANR) method. Retrospective. Ten healthy subjects (female/male = 4/6, age = 27 ± 3 years, range 24-34 years). 3T/gradient-echo echo planar imaging (EPI). We used three alternative methods (no regression [Nil], conventional region of interest [ROI]-based noise reduction method without ICA [ROI-based], and correction of structured noise using spatial independent component analysis [CORSICA]) to compare with the performance of ICANR. Reduction of the influence of physiological noise on the SC and the reproducibility of rsfMRI analysis after noise reduction were examined. The correlation coefficient (CC) was calculated to assess the influence of physiological noise. Reproducibility was calculated by intraclass correlation (ICC). Results from different methods were compared by one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with post-hoc analysis. No significant difference in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pulsation influence or tissue motion influence were found (P = 0.223 in CSF, P = 0.2461 in tissue motion) in the ROI-based (CSF: 0.122 ± 0.020; tissue motion: 0.112 ± 0.015), and Nil (CSF: 0.134 ± 0.026; tissue motion: 0.124 ± 0.019). CORSICA showed a significantly stronger influence of CSF pulsation and tissue motion (CSF: 0.166 ± 0.045, P = 0.048; tissue motion: 0.160 ± 0.032, P = 0.048) than Nil. ICANR showed a significantly weaker influence of CSF pulsation and tissue motion (CSF: 0.076 ± 0.007, P = 0.0003; tissue motion: 0.081 ± 0.014, P = 0.0182) than Nil. The ICC values in the Nil, ROI-based, CORSICA, and ICANR were 0.669, 0.645, 0.561, and 0.766, respectively. ICANR more effectively reduced physiological noise from both tissue motion and CSF pulsation than three alternative methods. ICANR increases the robustness of SC rsf

  3. Experimental identification of noise reduction properties of honeycomb panels using a small cabin

    OpenAIRE

    D'Ortona, Vittorio; Vivolo, Marianna; Pluymers, Bert; Vandepitte, Dirk; Desmet, Wim

    2013-01-01

    A procedure to identify the noise reduction properties of panels by means of a single cabin test setup is discussed. The complexity of the sound pressure field that builds up in the acoustic volume requires the support of advanced numerical techniques allowing for the evaluation of noise and vibration performances. Numerical models are used to predict the structural dynamics and the vibro-acoustic behaviour of the tested panel. Both Finite Element and Boundary Element simulations are validate...

  4. Study on ventilation and noise reduction in the main transformer room in indoor substation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hu Sheng

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available The noise emission should be considered in the ventilation and cooling design for the main transformer room of indoor substation. In this study, based on Soundplan software, effects of four common ventilation and cooling schemes on the cooling and sound insulation were compared. The research showed that the region with low noise requirement, the ventilation could be set on the outer wall or on the door of the main transformer room, while the region with high noise requirement, air inlet muffler or ventilation through the cable interlayer under the main transformer room must be used. All of the four kinds of ventilation schemes, ventilation through the cable interlayer is the best in cooling and noise reduction.

  5. Noise at the Interface

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Prior, Andrew

    2011-01-01

    The notion of noise occupies a contested territory, in which it is framed as pollution and detritus even as it makes its opposite a possibility - noise is always defined in opposition to something else, even if this ‘other’ is not quite clear. This paper explores noise in the context of ‘the...... interface’ asking what its affordances as an idea may contribute to our understanding of interface. I draw historically on information theory in particular to initiate this exploration....

  6. Improvement of road noise by reduction of acoustic radiation from body panels; Panel no hoshaon teigen ni yoru road noise no kaizen

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kamura, T; Utsunomiya, A; Sugihara, T; Tobita, K [Mazda Motor Corp., Hiroshima (Japan)

    1997-10-01

    This paper describes road noise reduction methods accomplished by reducing acoustic power radiated from body panels. Fundamental study of acoustic and dynamic characteristics with rectangular panels revealed following results: (1) The lower stiffness panel had lower radiation efficiency and made damping materials work more effective to reduce the acoustic power. (2) The acoustic power was also reduced by designing the panel so that it can generate the vibration of (2, 2) mode, which has the lowest radiation efficiency, in road noise frequency region. By applying these methods to a vehicle floor, we confirmed the improvement of road noise performance. 3 refs., 12 figs.

  7. An artificial neural network approach for aerodynamic performance retention in airframe noise reduction design of a 3D swept wing model

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Tao Jun

    2016-10-01

    Full Text Available With the progress of high-bypass turbofan and the innovation of silencing nacelle in engine noise reduction, airframe noise has now become another important sound source besides the engine noise. Thus, reducing airframe noise makes a great contribution to the overall noise reduction of a civil aircraft. However, reducing airframe noise often leads to aerodynamic performance loss in the meantime. In this case, an approach based on artificial neural network is introduced. An established database serves as a basis and the training sample of a back propagation (BP artificial neural network, which uses confidence coefficient reasoning method for optimization later on. Then the most satisfactory configuration is selected for validating computations through the trained BP network. On the basis of the artificial neural network approach, an optimization process of slat cove filler (SCF for high lift devices (HLD on the Trap Wing is presented. Aerodynamic performance of both the baseline and optimized configurations is investigated through unsteady detached eddy simulations (DES, and a hybrid method, which combines unsteady DES method with acoustic analogy theory, is employed to validate the noise reduction effect. The numerical results indicate not merely a significant airframe noise reduction effect but also excellent aerodynamic performance retention simultaneously.

  8. Noise Exposure of Teachers in Nursery Schools-Evaluation of Measures for Noise Reduction When Dropping DUPLO Toy Bricks into Storage Cases by Sound Analyses.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gebauer, Konstanze; Scharf, Thomas; Baumann, Uwe; Groneberg, David A; Bundschuh, Matthias

    2016-07-04

    Although noise is one of the leading work-related health risk factors for teachers, many nursery schools lack sufficient noise reduction measures. This intervention study evaluated the noise exposure of nursery school teachers when dropping DUPLO toy bricks into storage cases. Sound analyses of the impact included assessment of the maximum sound pressure level (LAFmax) as well as frequency analyses with 1/3 octave band filter. For the purpose of standardization, a customized gadget was developed. Recordings were performed in 11 cases of different materials and designs to assess the impact on sound level reduction. Thereby, the acoustic effects of three damping materials (foam rubber, carpet, and PU-foam) were investigated. The lowest LAFmax was measured in cases consisting of "metal grid" (90.71 dB) or of a woven willow "basket" (91.61 dB), whereas a case of "aluminium" (103.34 dB) generated the highest impact LAFmax. The frequency analyses determined especially low LAFmax in the frequency bands between 80 and 2500 Hz in cases designs "metal grid" and "basket". The insertion of PU-foam achieved the most significant attenuation of LAFmax (-13.88 dB) and, in the frequency analyses, the best sound damping. The dropping of DUPLO bricks in cases contributes to the high noise level in nursery schools, but measured LAFmax show no evidence for the danger of acute hearing loss. However, continuous exposure may lead to functional impairment of the hair cells and trigger stress reactions. We recommend noise reduction by utilizing cases of woven "basket" with an insert of PU-foam.

  9. Noise reduction in binaural hearing aids : Analyzing the benefit over monaural systems

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Srinivasan, S.

    2008-01-01

    Binaural beamforming using signals from both left and right hearing aids offers greater potential for noise reduction than using signals from a single aid. However, wireless transmission of data imposes power constraints. Since most modern hearing aids have multiple microphones and are capable of

  10. Background Noise Reduction Using Adaptive Noise Cancellation Determined by the Cross-Correlation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Spalt, Taylor B.; Brooks, Thomas F.; Fuller, Christopher R.

    2012-01-01

    Background noise due to flow in wind tunnels contaminates desired data by decreasing the Signal-to-Noise Ratio. The use of Adaptive Noise Cancellation to remove background noise at measurement microphones is compromised when the reference sensor measures both background and desired noise. The technique proposed modifies the classical processing configuration based on the cross-correlation between the reference and primary microphone. Background noise attenuation is achieved using a cross-correlation sample width that encompasses only the background noise and a matched delay for the adaptive processing. A present limitation of the method is that a minimum time delay between the background noise and desired signal must exist in order for the correlated parts of the desired signal to be separated from the background noise in the crosscorrelation. A simulation yields primary signal recovery which can be predicted from the coherence of the background noise between the channels. Results are compared with two existing methods.

  11. Finite element analysis using NASTRAN applied to helicopter transmission vibration/noise reduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Howells, R. W.; Sciarra, J. J.

    1975-01-01

    A finite element NASTRAN model of the complete forward rotor transmission housing for the Boeing Vertol CH-47 helicopter was developed and applied to reduce transmission vibration/noise at its source. In addition to a description of the model, a technique for vibration/noise prediction and reduction is outlined. Also included are the dynamic response as predicted by NASTRAN, test data, the use of strain energy methods to optimize the housing for minimum vibration/noise, and determination of design modifications which will be manufactured and tested. The techniques presented are not restricted to helicopters but are applicable to any power transmission system. The transmission housing model developed can be used further to evaluate static and dynamic stresses, thermal distortions, deflections and load paths, fail-safety/vulnerability, and composite materials.

  12. Use of the Kalman Filter for Aortic Pressure Waveform Noise Reduction.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lam, Frank; Lu, Hsiang-Wei; Wu, Chung-Che; Aliyazicioglu, Zekeriya; Kang, James S

    2017-01-01

    Clinical applications that require extraction and interpretation of physiological signals or waveforms are susceptible to corruption by noise or artifacts. Real-time hemodynamic monitoring systems are important for clinicians to assess the hemodynamic stability of surgical or intensive care patients by interpreting hemodynamic parameters generated by an analysis of aortic blood pressure (ABP) waveform measurements. Since hemodynamic parameter estimation algorithms often detect events and features from measured ABP waveforms to generate hemodynamic parameters, noise and artifacts integrated into ABP waveforms can severely distort the interpretation of hemodynamic parameters by hemodynamic algorithms. In this article, we propose the use of the Kalman filter and the 4-element Windkessel model with static parameters, arterial compliance C , peripheral resistance R , aortic impedance r , and the inertia of blood L , to represent aortic circulation for generating accurate estimations of ABP waveforms through noise and artifact reduction. Results show the Kalman filter could very effectively eliminate noise and generate a good estimation from the noisy ABP waveform based on the past state history. The power spectrum of the measured ABP waveform and the synthesized ABP waveform shows two similar harmonic frequencies.

  13. Prediction and Reduction of Aerodynamic Noise of the Multiblade Centrifugal Fan

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shuiqing Zhou

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available An aerodynamic and aeroacoustic investigation of the multiblade centrifugal fan is proposed in this paper, and a hybrid technique of combining flow field calculation and acoustic analysis is applied to solve the aeroacoustic problem of multiblade centrifugal fan. The unsteady flow field of the multiblade centrifugal fan is predicted by solving the incompressible Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS equations with conventional computing techniques for fluid dynamics. The principal noise source induced is extracted from the calculation of the flow field by using acoustic principles, and the modeled sources on inner and outer surfaces of the volute are calculated with multiregional boundary element method (BEM. Through qualitative analysis, the sound pressure amplitude distribution of the multiblade centrifugal fan in near field is given and the sound pressure level (SPL spectrum diagram of monitoring points in far field is obtained. Based on the analysis results, the volute tongue structure is adjusted and then a low-noise design for the centrifugal fan is proposed. The comparison of noise tests shows the noise reduction of improved fan model is more obvious, which is in good agreement with the prediction using the hybrid techniques.

  14. Active Vibration Control for Helicopter Interior Noise Reduction Using Power Minimization

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mendoza, J.; Chevva, K.; Sun, F.; Blanc, A.; Kim, S. B.

    2014-01-01

    This report describes work performed by United Technologies Research Center (UTRC) for NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) under Contract NNL11AA06C. The objective of this program is to develop technology to reduce helicopter interior noise resulting from multiple gear meshing frequencies. A novel active vibration control approach called Minimum Actuation Power (MAP) is developed. MAP is an optimal control strategy that minimizes the total input power into a structure by monitoring and varying the input power of controlling sources. MAP control was implemented without explicit knowledge of the phasing and magnitude of the excitation sources by driving the real part of the input power from the controlling sources to zero. It is shown that this occurs when the total mechanical input power from the excitation and controlling sources is a minimum. MAP theory is developed for multiple excitation sources with arbitrary relative phasing for single or multiple discrete frequencies and controlled by a single or multiple controlling sources. Simulations and experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of MAP for structural vibration reduction of a realistic rotorcraft interior structure. MAP control resulted in significant average global vibration reduction of a single frequency and multiple frequency excitations with one controlling actuator. Simulations also demonstrate the potential effectiveness of the observed vibration reductions on interior radiated noise.

  15. Dual-tree complex wavelet transform and SVD based acoustic noise reduction and its application in leak detection for natural gas pipeline

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yu, Xuchao; Liang, Wei; Zhang, Laibin; Jin, Hao; Qiu, Jingwei

    2016-05-01

    During the last decades, leak detection for natural gas pipeline has become one of the paramount concerns of pipeline operators and researchers across the globe. However, acoustic wave method has been proved to be an effective way to identify and localize leakage for gas pipeline. Considering the fact that noises inevitably exist in the acoustic signals collected, noise reduction should be enforced on the signals for subsequent data mining and analysis. Thus, an integrated acoustic noise reduction method based on DTCWT and SVD is proposed in this study. The method is put forward based on the idea that noise reduction strategy should match the characteristics of the noisy signal. According to previous studies, it is known that the energy of acoustic signals collected under leaking condition is mainly concentrated in low-frequency portion (0-100 Hz). And ultralow-frequency component (0-5 Hz), which is taken as the characteristic frequency band in this study, can propagate a relatively longer distance and be captured by sensors. Therefore, in order to filter the noises and to reserve the characteristic frequency band, DTCWT is taken as the core to conduct multilevel decomposition and refining for acoustic signals and SVD is employed to eliminate noises in non-characteristic bands. Both simulation and field experiments show that DTCWT-SVD is an excellent method for acoustic noise reduction. At the end of this study, application in leakage localization shows that it becomes much easier and a little more accurate to estimate the location of leak hole after noise reduction by DTCWT-SVD.

  16. Review of noise reduction methods for centrifugal fans

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neise, W.

    1981-11-01

    Several methods for the reduction of centrifugal fan noise are presented, the most of which are aimed at a lower blade passage frequency level. The methods are grouped into five categories: casing modifications to increase the distance between impeller and cutoff, the introduction of a phase shift of the source pressure fluctuations, impeller modifications, radial clearance between impeller eye and inlet nozzle, and acoustical measures. Resonators mounted at the cutoff of centrifugal fans appear to be a highly efficient and simple means of reducing the blade passage tone, and the method can be used for new fan construction and existing installations without affecting the aerodynamic performance of the fan.

  17. A novel modulation scheme for noise reduction in analog fiber optic links

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Marpaung, D.A.I.; Roeloffzen, C.G.H.; van Etten, Wim

    2006-01-01

    A novel noise reduction scheme called Balanced Modulation and Detection (BMD) is proposed. In this scheme, the modulating RF signal is half-wave rectified in the optical domain, eliminating the DC optical power resulting from pre-biasing of the optical source. A link model employing this scheme has

  18. Shot noise reduction in the AlGaAs/GaAs- and InGaP/GaAs-based HBTs

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sakalas, Paulius; Schroeter, Michael; Zampardi, Peter; Zirath, Herbert

    2003-05-01

    Noise parameters of AlGaAs/GaAs and InGaP/GaAs HBTs were measured in microwave frequency range and modeled using the small-signal equivalent circuit approach. Correlated current noise sources in the base and collector currents with thermal noise in the circuit resistive elements were accounted for by the model and yielded good agreement with the measured data. This enabled an extraction of the different noise source contributions to minimum noise figure (NFmin) in AlGaAs/GaAs and InGaP/GaAs HBTs. Decomposition of the (NFmin) in to the different contributors showed that the main noise sources in investigated HBTs are correlated base and collector current shot noise. The observed minimum of NFmin versus frequency at lower collector current is explained by the reduction of the emitter/base junction shot noise component due to the spike in the emitter/base junction and associated accumulation of the quasi-thermalized electrons forming a space charge, which screens the electron transfer through the barrier. The bias (VCE) increase creates an efficient electric field in collector/base junction, capable of 'washing out' the accumulated charge. Such shot noise reduction in HBTs could be exploited in the LNA for the RF application.

  19. Noise Exposure of Teachers in Nursery Schools—Evaluation of Measures for Noise Reduction When Dropping DUPLO Toy Bricks into Storage Cases by Sound Analyses

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Konstanze Gebauer

    2016-07-01

    Full Text Available Background: Although noise is one of the leading work-related health risk factors for teachers, many nursery schools lack sufficient noise reduction measures. Methods: This intervention study evaluated the noise exposure of nursery school teachers when dropping DUPLO toy bricks into storage cases. Sound analyses of the impact included assessment of the maximum sound pressure level (LAFmax as well as frequency analyses with 1/3 octave band filter. For the purpose of standardization, a customized gadget was developed. Recordings were performed in 11 cases of different materials and designs to assess the impact on sound level reduction. Thereby, the acoustic effects of three damping materials (foam rubber, carpet, and PU-foam were investigated. Results: The lowest LAFmax was measured in cases consisting of “metal grid” (90.71 dB or of a woven willow “basket” (91.61 dB, whereas a case of “aluminium” (103.34 dB generated the highest impact LAFmax. The frequency analyses determined especially low LAFmax in the frequency bands between 80 and 2500 Hz in cases designs “metal grid” and “basket”. The insertion of PU-foam achieved the most significant attenuation of LAFmax (−13.88 dB and, in the frequency analyses, the best sound damping. Conclusion: The dropping of DUPLO bricks in cases contributes to the high noise level in nursery schools, but measured LAFmax show no evidence for the danger of acute hearing loss. However, continuous exposure may lead to functional impairment of the hair cells and trigger stress reactions. We recommend noise reduction by utilizing cases of woven “basket” with an insert of PU-foam.

  20. Supersonic impinging jet noise reduction using a hybrid control technique

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wiley, Alex; Kumar, Rajan

    2015-07-01

    Control of the highly resonant flowfield associated with supersonic impinging jet has been experimentally investigated. Measurements were made in the supersonic impinging jet facility at the Florida State University for a Mach 1.5 ideally expanded jet. Measurements included unsteady pressures on a surface plate near the nozzle exit, acoustics in the nearfield and beneath the impingement plane, and velocity field using particle image velocimetry. Both passive control using porous surface and active control with high momentum microjet injection are effective in reducing nearfield noise and flow unsteadiness over a range of geometrical parameters; however, the type of noise reduction achieved by the two techniques is different. The passive control reduces broadband noise whereas microjet injection attenuates high amplitude impinging tones. The hybrid control, a combination of two control methods, reduces both broadband and high amplitude impinging tones and surprisingly its effectiveness is more that the additive effect of the two control techniques. The flow field measurements show that with hybrid control the impinging jet is stabilized and the turbulence quantities such as streamwise turbulence intensity, transverse turbulence intensity and turbulent shear stress are significantly reduced.

  1. Reduction of airfoil trailing edge noise by trailing edge blowing

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Gerhard, T; Carolus, T; Erbslöh, S

    2014-01-01

    The paper deals with airfoil trailing edge noise and its reduction by trailing edge blowing. A Somers S834 airfoil section which originally was designed for small wind turbines is investigated. To mimic realistic Reynolds numbers the boundary layer is tripped on pressure and suction side. The chordwise position of the blowing slot is varied. The acoustic sources, i.e. the unsteady flow quantities in the turbulent boundary layer in the vicinity of the trailing edge, are quantified for the airfoil without and with trailing edge blowing by means of a large eddy simulation and complementary measurements. Eventually the far field airfoil noise is measured by a two-microphone filtering and correlation and a 40 microphone array technique. Both, LES-prediction and measurements showed that a suitable blowing jet on the airfoil suction side is able to reduce significantly the turbulence intensity and the induced surface pressure fluctuations in the trailing edge region. As a consequence, trailing edge noise associated with a spectral hump around 500 Hz could be reduced by 3 dB. For that a jet velocity of 50% of the free field velocity was sufficient. The most favourable slot position was at 90% chord length

  2. Active Noise Control for Dishwasher noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Nokhaeng; Park, Youngjin

    2016-09-01

    The dishwasher is a useful home appliance and continually used for automatically washing dishes. It's commonly placed in the kitchen with built-in style for practicality and better use of space. In this environment, people are easily exposed to dishwasher noise, so it is an important issue for the consumers, especially for the people living in open and narrow space. Recently, the sound power levels of the noise are about 40 - 50 dBA. It could be achieved by removal of noise sources and passive means of insulating acoustical path. For more reduction, such a quiet mode with the lower speed of cycle has been introduced, but this deteriorates the washing capacity. Under this background, we propose active noise control for dishwasher noise. It is observed that the noise is propagating mainly from the lower part of the front side. Control speakers are placed in the part for the collocation. Observation part of estimating sound field distribution and control part of generating the anti-noise are designed for active noise control. Simulation result shows proposed active noise control scheme could have a potential application for dishwasher noise reduction.

  3. Investigation and reduction of excess low-frequency noise in rf superconducting quantum interference devices

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Mueck, M.; Heiden, C.; Clarke, J.

    1994-01-01

    A detailed study has been made of the low-frequency excess noise of rf superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs), fabricated from thin niobium films and operated at 4.2 K, with rf bias frequencies of 0.15, 1.7, and 3 GHz. When the SQUIDs were operated in an open-loop configuration in the absence of low-frequency flux modulation, the demodulated rf voltage exhibited a substantial level 1/f noise, which was essentially independent of the rf bias frequency. As the rf bias frequency was increased, the crossover frequency at which the 1/f noise power was equal to the white noise power moved to higher frequencies, because of the reduction in white noise. On the other hand, when the SQUID was flux modulated at 50 kHz and operated in a flux locked loop, no 1/f noise was observed at frequencies above 0.5 Hz. A detailed description of how the combination of rf bias and flux modulation removes 1/f noise due to critical current fluctuations is given. Thus, the results demonstrate that the 1/f noise observed in these SQUIDs is generated by critical current fluctuations, rather than by the hopping of flux vortices in the niobium films

  4. Noise Reduction with Optimal Variable Span Linear Filters

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Jesper Rindom; Benesty, Jacob; Christensen, Mads Græsbøll

    2016-01-01

    In this paper, the problem of noise reduction is addressed as a linear filtering problem in a novel way by using concepts from subspace-based enhancement methods, resulting in variable span linear filters. This is done by forming the filter coefficients as linear combinations of a number...... included in forming the filter. Using these concepts, a number of different filter designs are considered, like minimum distortion, Wiener, maximum SNR, and tradeoff filters. Interestingly, all these can be expressed as special cases of variable span filters. We also derive expressions for the speech...... demonstrate the advantages and properties of the variable span filter designs, and their potential performance gain compared to widely used speech enhancement methods....

  5. The affordances of broken affordances

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Grünbaum, Martin Gielsgaard; Simonsen, Jakob Grue

    2015-01-01

    We consider the use of physical and virtual objects having one or more affordances associated to simple interactions with them. Based on Kaptelinin and Nardi’s notion of instrumental affordance, we investigate what it means to break an affordance, and the two ensuing questions we deem most import...

  6. A Noise Reduction Method for Dual-Mass Micro-Electromechanical Gyroscopes Based on Sample Entropy Empirical Mode Decomposition and Time-Frequency Peak Filtering.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Shen, Chong; Li, Jie; Zhang, Xiaoming; Shi, Yunbo; Tang, Jun; Cao, Huiliang; Liu, Jun

    2016-05-31

    The different noise components in a dual-mass micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) gyroscope structure is analyzed in this paper, including mechanical-thermal noise (MTN), electronic-thermal noise (ETN), flicker noise (FN) and Coriolis signal in-phase noise (IPN). The structure equivalent electronic model is established, and an improved white Gaussian noise reduction method for dual-mass MEMS gyroscopes is proposed which is based on sample entropy empirical mode decomposition (SEEMD) and time-frequency peak filtering (TFPF). There is a contradiction in TFPS, i.e., selecting a short window length may lead to good preservation of signal amplitude but bad random noise reduction, whereas selecting a long window length may lead to serious attenuation of the signal amplitude but effective random noise reduction. In order to achieve a good tradeoff between valid signal amplitude preservation and random noise reduction, SEEMD is adopted to improve TFPF. Firstly, the original signal is decomposed into intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) by EMD, and the SE of each IMF is calculated in order to classify the numerous IMFs into three different components; then short window TFPF is employed for low frequency component of IMFs, and long window TFPF is employed for high frequency component of IMFs, and the noise component of IMFs is wiped off directly; at last the final signal is obtained after reconstruction. Rotation experimental and temperature experimental are carried out to verify the proposed SEEMD-TFPF algorithm, the verification and comparison results show that the de-noising performance of SEEMD-TFPF is better than that achievable with the traditional wavelet, Kalman filter and fixed window length TFPF methods.

  7. A Noise Reduction Method for Dual-Mass Micro-Electromechanical Gyroscopes Based on Sample Entropy Empirical Mode Decomposition and Time-Frequency Peak Filtering

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Chong Shen

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available The different noise components in a dual-mass micro-electromechanical system (MEMS gyroscope structure is analyzed in this paper, including mechanical-thermal noise (MTN, electronic-thermal noise (ETN, flicker noise (FN and Coriolis signal in-phase noise (IPN. The structure equivalent electronic model is established, and an improved white Gaussian noise reduction method for dual-mass MEMS gyroscopes is proposed which is based on sample entropy empirical mode decomposition (SEEMD and time-frequency peak filtering (TFPF. There is a contradiction in TFPS, i.e., selecting a short window length may lead to good preservation of signal amplitude but bad random noise reduction, whereas selecting a long window length may lead to serious attenuation of the signal amplitude but effective random noise reduction. In order to achieve a good tradeoff between valid signal amplitude preservation and random noise reduction, SEEMD is adopted to improve TFPF. Firstly, the original signal is decomposed into intrinsic mode functions (IMFs by EMD, and the SE of each IMF is calculated in order to classify the numerous IMFs into three different components; then short window TFPF is employed for low frequency component of IMFs, and long window TFPF is employed for high frequency component of IMFs, and the noise component of IMFs is wiped off directly; at last the final signal is obtained after reconstruction. Rotation experimental and temperature experimental are carried out to verify the proposed SEEMD-TFPF algorithm, the verification and comparison results show that the de-noising performance of SEEMD-TFPF is better than that achievable with the traditional wavelet, Kalman filter and fixed window length TFPF methods.

  8. The effect of oblique angle of sound incidence, realistic edge conditions, curvature and in-plane panel stresses on the noise reduction characteristics of general aviation type panels

    Science.gov (United States)

    Grosveld, F.; Lameris, J.; Dunn, D.

    1979-01-01

    Experiments and a theoretical analysis were conducted to predict the noise reduction of inclined and curved panels. These predictions are compared to the experimental results with reasonable agreement between theory and experiment for panels under an oblique angle of sound incidence. Theoretical as well as experimental results indicate a big increase in noise reduction when a flat test panel is curved. Further curving the panel slightly decreases the noise reduction. Riveted flat panels are shown to give a higher noise reduction in the stiffness-controlled frequency region, while bonded panels are superior in this region when the test panel is curved. Experimentally measured noise reduction characteristics of flat aluminum panels with uniaxial in-plane stresses are presented and discussed. These test results indicate an important improvement in the noise reduction of these panels in the frequency range below the fundamental panel/cavity frequency.

  9. Mobility and Noise Pollution. Noise-reduction Traditional Strategies and Green Mobility Ones

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Carmela Gargiulo

    2011-07-01

    Full Text Available The urbanized territories are quite complex environments in many ways, whose management requires, on the one hand, adequate skills to mediate among the different needs, often conflicting, and on the other hand a clear idea of the target to hit.One of these aspects is the need to ensure mobility in urban areas and, simultaneously, reduce noise levels below the values   that are compatible with the well-being of citizens.There are several sources of noise in an urban context  such as vehicle and rail traffic, the fixed sound sources due to craft and trade activities, as well as to equipment for buildings, to human activities related to recreation and tourism.It must be emphasized, however, that not all noise content has a negative value but there are noise sources such as the noise produced by the local markets and/or that produced by craft activities with historical value, the noise, or rather, the sounds perceived in public parks, town centres and/or areas on the sea which, on the contrary, have a positive value.They represent, in fact, the set of sounds that contribute to the perception of the “soundscape” of an area, which are to be preserved as they are not only appreciated but also sought after by citizens.The noise generated by vehicle traffic, however, while not disregarding the contribution to noise pollution produced by other infrastructure for mobility in urban area, represents one of the major contributor to the noise levels recorded in urban areas, disturbing, firstly, people exposed to it and, secondly, masking the perception of pleasant sounds by altering the “soundscape” of the area.In this context, strategies and interventions to reduce noise caused by road traffic, both the traditional ones (regulations on vehicles, circulation, road, city planning and the new ones related to green mobility, have a twofold purpose as they not only reduce the amount of noise generated by road traffic, but at the same time, help to bring

  10. On the dynamics of the preference-performance relation for hearing aid noise reduction

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fischer, Rosa-Linde; Wagener, Kirsten C.; Vormann, Matthias

    on the data collected during the first laboratory assessment of the study. In particular, the influence of hearing aid experience and individual noise sensitivity on the preference-performance relation will be presented and discussed. REFERENCES S. Getzmann, E. Wascher and M. Falkenstein (2015). "What does......Previous research has shown that hearing aid users can differ substantially in their preference for noise reduction (NR) strength, and that preference for and speech recognition with NR processing typically are not correlated (e.g. Neher 2014; Serman et al. 2016). In other words, hearing aid users...... may prefer a certain NR setting, but perform better with a different one. The aim of the present work was to investigate the influence of individual noise sensitivity, hearing aid experience and acclimatization on the preference-performance relation for different NR settings. For this purpose...

  11. How much noise reduction at airports?

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Lijesen, M.G.; van der Straaten, J.W.; Dekkers, J.E.C.; van Elk, R.; Blokdijk, J.

    2010-01-01

    Airport noise nuisance is a negative externality especially when it occurring near urban areas. Like all externalities, noise nuisance may be a reason for government intervention. When intervening, governments should set quantitative policy targets with care. In practice, this issue is generally

  12. Musical noise reduction using an adaptive filter

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hanada, Takeshi; Murakami, Takahiro; Ishida, Yoshihisa; Hoya, Tetsuya

    2003-10-01

    This paper presents a method for reducing a particular noise (musical noise). The musical noise is artificially produced by Spectral Subtraction (SS), which is one of the most conventional methods for speech enhancement. The musical noise is the tin-like sound and annoying in human auditory. We know that the duration of the musical noise is considerably short in comparison with that of speech, and that the frequency components of the musical noise are random and isolated. In the ordinary SS-based methods, the musical noise is removed by the post-processing. However, the output of the ordinary post-processing is delayed since the post-processing uses the succeeding frames. In order to improve this problem, we propose a novel method using an adaptive filter. In the proposed system, the observed noisy signal is used as the input signal to the adaptive filter and the output of SS is used as the reference signal. In this paper we exploit the normalized LMS (Least Mean Square) algorithm for the adaptive filter. Simulation results show that the proposed method has improved the intelligibility of the enhanced speech in comparison with the conventional method.

  13. Recent technologies for reduction of aircraft propulsion noise. Kokuki engine soon teigenka no saikin no gijutsu shinpo ni tsuite

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kobayashi, H [National Aerospace Lab., Chofu, Tokyo (Japan)

    1994-03-10

    Inside the jet engine, the propulsion engine for an aircraft, a high speed air current is flowing, and the rotors such as the fan, compress or, turbine and so forth are rotating with a high speed in its flowing current. The flow itself in which a high speed exhaust jet is discharged in the air from engine exhaust port, and the aerodynamic noise generated by an interaction of the flow with the material bodies are the main noise sources of the aircraft engine. Because the supersonic planes are necessary to fly with mach number 2 - 3 during cruising, the turbojet engine with a large jet exhaust speed or the low bypass ratio turbofan engine is selected. Since a noise reduction by reducing the jet exhaust speed, which was an effective measure for the high subsonic speed passenger plane, can not be applied, a reduction of the supersonic jet noise, which is hard to be reduced, becomes a necessity. In addition, in recent years, a research and development of the advanced turbo prop (ATP) aircraft with a further higher thrust efficiency are advanced as well. The aerodynamical noise reduction technologies of these engines for supersonic airplanes are summarized. 14 refs., 11 figs., 1 tab.

  14. Reduction of environmental MHz noise for SQUID application

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Araya, T. [Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, 1-3 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-8531 (Japan)]. E-mail: araya@sup.ee.es.osaka-u.ac.jp; Kitamura, Y. [Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, 1-3 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-8531 (Japan); Kamishiro, M. [Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, 1-3 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-8531 (Japan); Sakuta, K. [Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, 1-3 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-8531 (Japan); Itozaki, H. [Graduate School of Engineering Science, Osaka University, 1-3 Machikaneyama, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-8531 (Japan)]. E-mail: itozaki@ee.es.osaka-u.ac.jp

    2006-10-01

    It is important to remove large environmental noise in measurement using SQUIDs without magnetic shielding. Active noise control (ANC) is an effective method to remove the environmental noise. The environmental noise has been reduced by the ANC system in the radio frequency region around MHz. The anti-phase waves of the environmental noise should be generated by this system. The ANC system including the phase and amplitude control circuit was developed to make the anti-phase waves in the MHz region. In this paper, sinusoidal waves with a MHz frequency were used as the environmental noise. When a coil antenna was used for a receiver antenna, this ANC system suppressed these sinusoidal waves to the white noise level about 40 dB. When we used a SQUID as a receiver antenna, we also cancelled sinusoidal waves to the white noise level by this system. This shows that the ANC system is useful to reduce an environmental noise when this ANC system is developed to cancel multi-frequency noise.

  15. Reduction of environmental MHz noise for SQUID application

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Araya, T.; Kitamura, Y.; Kamishiro, M.; Sakuta, K.; Itozaki, H.

    2006-01-01

    It is important to remove large environmental noise in measurement using SQUIDs without magnetic shielding. Active noise control (ANC) is an effective method to remove the environmental noise. The environmental noise has been reduced by the ANC system in the radio frequency region around MHz. The anti-phase waves of the environmental noise should be generated by this system. The ANC system including the phase and amplitude control circuit was developed to make the anti-phase waves in the MHz region. In this paper, sinusoidal waves with a MHz frequency were used as the environmental noise. When a coil antenna was used for a receiver antenna, this ANC system suppressed these sinusoidal waves to the white noise level about 40 dB. When we used a SQUID as a receiver antenna, we also cancelled sinusoidal waves to the white noise level by this system. This shows that the ANC system is useful to reduce an environmental noise when this ANC system is developed to cancel multi-frequency noise

  16. Image processing methods for noise reduction in the TJ-II Thomson Scattering diagnostic

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Dormido-Canto, S., E-mail: sebas@dia.uned.es [Departamento de Informatica y Automatica, UNED, Madrid 28040 (Spain); Farias, G. [Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso, Valparaiso (Chile); Vega, J.; Pastor, I. [Asociacion EURATOM/CIEMAT para Fusion, Madrid 28040 (Spain)

    2012-12-15

    Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer We describe an approach in order to reduce or mitigate the stray-light on the images and show the exceptional results. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer We analyze the parameters to take account in the proposed process. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer We report a simplified exampled in order to explain the proposed process. - Abstract: The Thomsom Scattering diagnostic of the TJ-II stellarator provides temperature and density profiles. The CCD camera acquires images corrupted with noise that, in some cases, can produce unreliable profiles. The main source of noise is the so-called stray-light. In this paper we describe an approach that allows mitigation of the effects that stray-light has on the images: extraction regions with connected-components. In addition, the robustness and effectiveness of the noise reduction technique is validated in two ways: (1) supervised classification and (2) comparison of electron temperature profiles.

  17. Design of a Low-Power VLSI Macrocell for Nonlinear Adaptive Video Noise Reduction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sergio Saponara

    2004-09-01

    Full Text Available A VLSI macrocell for edge-preserving video noise reduction is proposed in the paper. It is based on a nonlinear rational filter enhanced by a noise estimator for blind and dynamic adaptation of the filtering parameters to the input signal statistics. The VLSI filter features a modular architecture allowing the extension of both mask size and filtering directions. Both spatial and spatiotemporal algorithms are supported. Simulation results with monochrome test videos prove its efficiency for many noise distributions with PSNR improvements up to 3.8 dB with respect to a nonadaptive solution. The VLSI macrocell has been realized in a 0.18 μm CMOS technology using a standard-cells library; it allows for real-time processing of main video formats, up to 30 fps (frames per second 4CIF, with a power consumption in the order of few mW.

  18. Subspace-Based Noise Reduction for Speech Signals via Diagonal and Triangular Matrix Decompositions

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Hansen, Per Christian; Jensen, Søren Holdt

    We survey the definitions and use of rank-revealing matrix decompositions in single-channel noise reduction algorithms for speech signals. Our algorithms are based on the rank-reduction paradigm and, in particular, signal subspace techniques. The focus is on practical working algorithms, using both...... diagonal (eigenvalue and singular value) decompositions and rank-revealing triangular decompositions (ULV, URV, VSV, ULLV and ULLIV). In addition we show how the subspace-based algorithms can be evaluated and compared by means of simple FIR filter interpretations. The algorithms are illustrated...... with working Matlab code and applications in speech processing....

  19. Electronic noise in CT detectors: Impact on image noise and artifacts.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duan, Xinhui; Wang, Jia; Leng, Shuai; Schmidt, Bernhard; Allmendinger, Thomas; Grant, Katharine; Flohr, Thomas; McCollough, Cynthia H

    2013-10-01

    The objective of our study was to evaluate in phantoms the differences in CT image noise and artifact level between two types of commercial CT detectors: one with distributed electronics (conventional) and one with integrated electronics intended to decrease system electronic noise. Cylindric water phantoms of 20, 30, and 40 cm in diameter were scanned using two CT scanners, one equipped with integrated detector electronics and one with distributed detector electronics. All other scanning parameters were identical. Scans were acquired at four tube potentials and 10 tube currents. Semianthropomorphic phantoms were scanned to mimic the shoulder and abdominal regions. Images of two patients were also selected to show the clinical values of the integrated detector. Reduction of image noise with the integrated detector depended on phantom size, tube potential, and tube current. Scans that had low detected signal had the greatest reductions in noise, up to 40% for a 30-cm phantom scanned using 80 kV. This noise reduction translated into up to 50% in dose reduction to achieve equivalent image noise. Streak artifacts through regions of high attenuation were reduced by up to 45% on scans obtained using the integrated detector. Patient images also showed superior image quality for the integrated detector. For the same applied radiation level, the use of integrated electronics in a CT detector showed a substantially reduced level of electronic noise, resulting in reductions in image noise and artifacts, compared with detectors having distributed electronics.

  20. A Third-Generation Adaptive Statistical Iterative Reconstruction Technique: Phantom Study of Image Noise, Spatial Resolution, Lesion Detectability, and Dose Reduction Potential.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Euler, André; Solomon, Justin; Marin, Daniele; Nelson, Rendon C; Samei, Ehsan

    2018-06-01

    The purpose of this study was to assess image noise, spatial resolution, lesion detectability, and the dose reduction potential of a proprietary third-generation adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (ASIR-V) technique. A phantom representing five different body sizes (12-37 cm) and a contrast-detail phantom containing lesions of five low-contrast levels (5-20 HU) and three sizes (2-6 mm) were deployed. Both phantoms were scanned on a 256-MDCT scanner at six different radiation doses (1.25-10 mGy). Images were reconstructed with filtered back projection (FBP), ASIR-V with 50% blending with FBP (ASIR-V 50%), and ASIR-V without blending (ASIR-V 100%). In the first phantom, noise properties were assessed by noise power spectrum analysis. Spatial resolution properties were measured by use of task transfer functions for objects of different contrasts. Noise magnitude, noise texture, and resolution were compared between the three groups. In the second phantom, low-contrast detectability was assessed by nine human readers independently for each condition. The dose reduction potential of ASIR-V was estimated on the basis of a generalized linear statistical regression model. On average, image noise was reduced 37.3% with ASIR-V 50% and 71.5% with ASIR-V 100% compared with FBP. ASIR-V shifted the noise power spectrum toward lower frequencies compared with FBP. The spatial resolution of ASIR-V was equivalent or slightly superior to that of FBP, except for the low-contrast object, which had lower resolution. Lesion detection significantly increased with both ASIR-V levels (p = 0.001), with an estimated radiation dose reduction potential of 15% ± 5% (SD) for ASIR-V 50% and 31% ± 9% for ASIR-V 100%. ASIR-V reduced image noise and improved lesion detection compared with FBP and had potential for radiation dose reduction while preserving low-contrast detectability.

  1. Application of the fourier and wavelet transforms in noise reduction of the out of the ordinary data

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tafreshi, M. A.; Sadeghi, Y.

    2006-01-01

    In this article the noise reduction of the experimental data by the Fourier and the wavelet transforms has been investigated. Using both simulated and experimental data (from the plasma focus facility, Dena), the sensitive features of the application of the Fourier transform are visualized and discussed. Then, the main idea of the wavelet transform and the results of the noise reduction with this transform are presented. Due to this investigation, for the cases such as the current derivative of the Dena facility, where the reliability of the Fourier transform can be doubtful, the wavelet transform can be considered as a more accurate alternative approach

  2. Fan interaction noise reduction using a wake generator: experiments and computational aeroacoustics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Polacsek, C.; Desbois-Lavergne, F.

    2003-08-01

    A control grid (wake generator) aimed at reducing rotor-stator interaction modes in fan engines when mounted upstream of the rotor has been studied here. This device complements other active noise control systems currently proposed. The compressor model of the instrumented ONERA CERF-rig is used to simulate suitable conditions. The design of the grid is drafted out using semi-empirical models for wake and potential flow, and experimentally achieved. Cylindrical rods are able to generate a spinning mode of the same order and similar level as the interaction mode. Mounting the rods on a rotating ring allows for adjusting the phase of the control mode so that an 8 dB sound pressure level (SPL) reduction at the blade passing frequency is achieved when the two modes are out of phase. Experimental results are assessed by a numerical approach using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). A Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes 2-D solver, developed at ONERA, is used to provide the unsteady force components on blades and vanes required for acoustics. The loading noise source term of the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings equation is used to model the interaction noise between the sources, and an original coupling to a boundary element method (BEM) code is realized to take account of the inlet geometry effects on acoustic in-duct propagation. Calculations using the classical analytical the Green function of an infinite annular duct are also addressed. Simple formulations written in the frequency domain and expanded into modes are addressed and used to compute an in-duct interaction mode and to compare with the noise reduction obtained during the tests. A fairly good agreement between predicted and measured SPL is found when the inlet geometry effects are part of the solution (by coupling with the BEM). Furthermore, computed aerodynamic penalties due to the rods are found to be negligible. These results partly validate the computation chain and highlight the potential of the wake generator

  3. Wake Management Strategies for Reduction of Turbomachinery Fan Noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Waitz, Ian A.

    1998-01-01

    The primary objective of our work was to evaluate and test several wake management schemes for the reduction of turbomachinery fan noise. Throughout the course of this work we relied on several tools. These include 1) Two-dimensional steady boundary-layer and wake analyses using MISES (a thin-shear layer Navier-Stokes code), 2) Two-dimensional unsteady wake-stator interaction simulations using UNSFLO, 3) Three-dimensional, steady Navier-Stokes rotor simulations using NEWT, 4) Internal blade passage design using quasi-one-dimensional passage flow models developed at MIT, 5) Acoustic modeling using LINSUB, 6) Acoustic modeling using VO72, 7) Experiments in a low-speed cascade wind-tunnel, and 8) ADP fan rig tests in the MIT Blowdown Compressor.

  4. Optimal filter design for shielded and unshielded ambient noise reduction in fetal magnetocardiography

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Comani, S; Mantini, D; Alleva, G; Luzio, S Di; Romani, G L

    2005-01-01

    The greatest impediment to extracting high-quality fetal signals from fetal magnetocardiography (fMCG) is environmental magnetic noise, which may have peak-to-peak intensity comparable to fetal QRS amplitude. Being an unstructured Gaussian signal with large disturbances at specific frequencies, ambient field noise can be reduced with hardware-based approaches and/or with software algorithms that digitally filter magnetocardiographic recordings. At present, no systematic evaluation of filters' performances on shielded and unshielded fMCG is available. We designed high-pass and low-pass Chebychev II-type filters with zero-phase and stable impulse response; the most commonly used band-pass filters were implemented combining high-pass and low-pass filters. The achieved ambient noise reduction in shielded and unshielded recordings was quantified, and the corresponding signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and signal-to-distortion ratio (SDR) of the retrieved fetal signals was evaluated. The study regarded 66 fMCG datasets at different gestational ages (22-37 weeks). Since the spectral structures of shielded and unshielded magnetic noise were very similar, we concluded that the same filter setting might be applied to both conditions. Band-pass filters (1.0-100 Hz) and (2.0-100 Hz) provided the best combinations of fetal signal detection rates, SNR and SDR; however, the former should be preferred in the case of arrhythmic fetuses, which might present spectral components below 2 Hz

  5. Reward Pays the Cost of Noise Reduction in Motor and Cognitive Control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Manohar, Sanjay G; Chong, Trevor T-J; Apps, Matthew A J; Batla, Amit; Stamelou, Maria; Jarman, Paul R; Bhatia, Kailash P; Husain, Masud

    2015-06-29

    Speed-accuracy trade-off is an intensively studied law governing almost all behavioral tasks across species. Here we show that motivation by reward breaks this law, by simultaneously invigorating movement and improving response precision. We devised a model to explain this paradoxical effect of reward by considering a new factor: the cost of control. Exerting control to improve response precision might itself come at a cost--a cost to attenuate a proportion of intrinsic neural noise. Applying a noise-reduction cost to optimal motor control predicted that reward can increase both velocity and accuracy. Similarly, application to decision-making predicted that reward reduces reaction times and errors in cognitive control. We used a novel saccadic distraction task to quantify the speed and accuracy of both movements and decisions under varying reward. Both faster speeds and smaller errors were observed with higher incentives, with the results best fitted by a model including a precision cost. Recent theories consider dopamine to be a key neuromodulator in mediating motivational effects of reward. We therefore examined how Parkinson's disease (PD), a condition associated with dopamine depletion, alters the effects of reward. Individuals with PD showed reduced reward sensitivity in their speed and accuracy, consistent in our model with higher noise-control costs. Including a cost of control over noise explains how reward may allow apparent performance limits to be surpassed. On this view, the pattern of reduced reward sensitivity in PD patients can specifically be accounted for by a higher cost for controlling noise. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

  6. A critical review of hearing-aid single-microphone noise-reduction studies in adults and children.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chong, Foong Yen; Jenstad, Lorienne M

    2017-10-26

    Single-microphone noise reduction (SMNR) is implemented in hearing aids to suppress background noise. The purpose of this article was to provide a critical review of peer-reviewed studies in adults and children with sensorineural hearing loss who were fitted with hearing aids incorporating SMNR. Articles published between 2000 and 2016 were searched in PUBMED and EBSCO databases. Thirty-two articles were included in the final review. Most studies with adult participants showed that SMNR has no effect on speech intelligibility. Positive results were reported for acceptance of background noise, preference, and listening effort. Studies of school-aged children were consistent with the findings of adult studies. No study with infants or young children of under 5 years old was found. Recent studies on noise-reduction systems not yet available in wearable hearing aids have documented benefits of noise reduction on memory for speech processing for older adults. This evidence supports the use of SMNR for adults and school-aged children when the aim is to improve listening comfort or reduce listening effort. Future research should test SMNR with infants and children who are younger than 5 years of age. Further development, testing, and clinical trials should be carried out on algorithms not yet available in wearable hearing aids. Testing higher cognitive level for speech processing and learning of novel sounds or words could show benefits of advanced signal processing features. These approaches should be expanded to other populations such as children and younger adults. Implications for rehabilitation The review provides a quick reference for students and clinicians regarding the efficacy and effectiveness of SMNR in wearable hearing aids. This information is useful during counseling session to build a realistic expectation among hearing aid users. Most studies in the adult population suggest that SMNR may provide some benefits to adult listeners in terms of listening

  7. Community noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bragdon, C. R.

    Airport and community land use planning as they relate to airport noise reduction are discussed. Legislation, community relations, and the physiological effect of airport noise are considered. Noise at the Logan, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis/St. Paul airports is discussed.

  8. Impact of SNR, masker type and noise reduction processing on sentence recognition performance and listening effort as indicated by the pupil dilation response

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Ohlenforst, Barbara; Wendt, Dorothea; Kramer, Sophia E

    2018-01-01

    Recent studies have shown that activating the noise reduction scheme in hearing aids results in a smaller peak pupil dilation (PPD), indicating reduced listening effort, at 50% and 95% correct sentence recognition with a 4-talker masker. The objective of this study was to measure the effect...... of the noise reduction scheme (on or off) on PPD and sentence recognition across a wide range of signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) from +16 dB to -12 dB and two masker types (4-talker and stationary noise). Relatively low PPDs were observed at very low (-12 dB) and very high (+16 dB to +8 dB) SNRs presumably due...... to 'giving up' and 'easy listening', respectively. The maximum PPD was observed with SNRs at approximately 50% correct sentence recognition. Sentence recognition with both masker types was significantly improved by the noise reduction scheme, which corresponds to the shift in performance from SNR function...

  9. Evaluating noise abatement measures using strategic noise maps

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Borst, H.C.; Miedema, H.M.E.; Laan, W.P.N. van der; Lohman, W.J.A.

    2006-01-01

    Noise annoyance due to transportation is widespread in industrialized countries and in urban areas in the developing countries. The European Noise Directive (END) requires an assessment of the noise situation as well as the formulation of action plans for the reduction of the number of people

  10. The effect of hearing aid noise reduction on listening effort in hearing-impaired adults.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Desjardins, Jamie L; Doherty, Karen A

    2014-01-01

    The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effect of a noise-reduction (NR) algorithm on the listening effort hearing-impaired participants expend on a speech in noise task. Twelve hearing-impaired listeners fitted with behind-the-ear hearing aids with a fast-acting modulation-based NR algorithm participated in this study. A dual-task paradigm was used to measure listening effort with and without the NR enabled in the hearing aid. The primary task was a sentence-in-noise task presented at fixed overall speech performance levels of 76% (moderate listening condition) and 50% (difficult listening condition) correct performance, and the secondary task was a visual-tracking test. Participants also completed measures of working memory (Reading Span test), and processing speed (Digit Symbol Substitution Test) ability. Participants' speech recognition in noise scores did not significantly change with the NR algorithm activated in the hearing aid in either listening condition. The NR algorithm significantly decreased listening effort, but only in the more difficult listening condition. Last, there was a tendency for participants with faster processing speeds to expend less listening effort with the NR algorithm when listening to speech in background noise in the difficult listening condition. The NR algorithm reduced the listening effort adults with hearing loss must expend to understand speech in noise.

  11. Phonon squeezed states: quantum noise reduction in solids

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hu, Xuedong; Nori, Franco

    1999-03-01

    This article discusses quantum fluctuation properties of a crystal lattice, and in particular, phonon squeezed states. Squeezed states of phonons allow a reduction in the quantum fluctuations of the atomic displacements to below the zero-point quantum noise level of coherent phonon states. Here we discuss our studies of both continuous-wave and impulsive second-order Raman scattering mechanisms. The later approach was used to experimentally suppress (by one part in a million) fluctuations in phonons. We calculate the expectation values and fluctuations of both the atomic displacement and the lattice amplitude operators, as well as the effects of the phonon squeezed states on macroscopically measurable quantities, such as changes in the dielectric constant. These results are compared with recent experiments. Further information, including preprints and animations, are available in http://www-personal.engin.umich.edu/∼nori/squeezed.html.

  12. Trends in magnetic resonance imaging. Technical trends in MRI, noise reduction and fast imaging

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Sugimoto, Hiroshi

    2007-01-01

    At MRI examination, patients suffer the machine noise and long tight lying as well as an oppressive feeling. This paper describes the technological efforts against the former two. The noise is generated from the force (thumb-ward) to vibrate the magnetic field gradient coil according to the left-hand rule. Authors have developed a MRI machine (Pianissimo) where the coil is placed in vacuum and its actual noise level is found reduced from 105 - 112 to 84 dB(A) at 1.5T. Fast imaging to shorten the imaging time is attained by combination of parallel imaging where MR signals are into multiple high frequency receiver coils, and the usual pulse sequence imaging, which results in the increased encoding in a given time. Together with these, MR angiography and diffusion weighted imaging of abdomen for cancer examination are becoming popular as an additional MRI diagnosis, also acceptable to patients. Future progress of MRI machines conceivably accompanies the unavoidable noise increase and possibly significant magnetic effects on human body, and efforts for their reduction will be continued at patients' viewpoint. (T.I.)

  13. Novel noise reduction filter for improving visibility of early computed tomography signs of hyperacute stroke. Evaluation of the filter's performance. Preliminary clinical experience

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Takahashi, Noriyuki; Ishii, Kiyoshi; Lee, Y.; Tsai, D.Y.

    2007-01-01

    The aim of this study was to evaluate the performance of a novel noise reduction filter for improving the visibility of early computed tomography (CT) signs of hyperacute stroke on nonenhanced CT images. Fourteen patients with a middle cerebral artery occlusion within 4.5 h after onset were evaluated. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the processed images with the noise reduction filter and that of original images were measured. Two neuroradiologists visually rated all the processed and original images on the visibility of normal and abnormal gray-white matter interfaces. The SNR value of the processed images was approximately eight times as high as that of the original images, and a 87% reduction of noise was achieved using this technique. For the visual assessment, the results showed that the visibility of normal gray-white matter interface and that of the loss of the gray-white matter interface were significantly improved using the proposed method (P<0.05). The noise reduction filter proposed in the present study has the potential to improve the visibility of early CT signs of hyperacute stroke on nonenhanced CT images. (author)

  14. Aeroacoustic characteristics and noise reduction of a centrifugal fan for a vacuum cleaner

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Jeon, Wan Ho; Rew, Ho Seon; Kim, Chang Joon [LG Electronics, Seoul (Korea, Republic of)

    2004-02-01

    The aeroacoustic characteristics of a centrifugal fan for a vacuum cleaner and its noise reduction method are studied in this paper. The major noise source of a vacuum cleaner is the centrifugal fan. The impeller of the fan rotates at over 30000 rpm, and generates very high-level noise. It was revealed that the dominant noise source is the aerodynamic interaction between the rotating impeller and stationary diffuser. The directivity of acoustic pressure showed that most of the noise propagates backward direction of the fan-motor assembly. In order to reduce the high tonal sound generated from the aerodynamic interaction, unevenly pitched impeller and diffuser, and tapered impeller designs were proposed and experiments were performed. Uneven pitch design of the impeller changes the sound quality while the overall Sound Power Level (SPL) and the performance remains similar. The effect of the tapered design of impeller was evaluated. The trailing edge of the tapered fan is inclined. This reduces the flow interaction between the rotating impeller and the stationary diffuser because of some phase shifts. The static efficiency of the new impeller design is slightly lower than the previous design. However, the overall SPL is reduced by about 4 dB(A). The SPL of the fundamental Blade Passing Frequency (BPF) is reduced by about 6 dB(A) and the 2{sup nd} BPF is reduced about 20 dB(A). The vacuum cleaner with the tapered impeller design produces lower noise level than the previous one, and the strong tonal sound was dramatically reduced.

  15. Aeroacoustic characteristics and noise reduction of a centrifugal fan for a vacuum cleaner

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jeon, Wan Ho; Rew, Ho Seon; Kim, Chang Joon

    2004-01-01

    The aeroacoustic characteristics of a centrifugal fan for a vacuum cleaner and its noise reduction method are studied in this paper. The major noise source of a vacuum cleaner is the centrifugal fan. The impeller of the fan rotates at over 30000 rpm, and generates very high-level noise. It was revealed that the dominant noise source is the aerodynamic interaction between the rotating impeller and stationary diffuser. The directivity of acoustic pressure showed that most of the noise propagates backward direction of the fan-motor assembly. In order to reduce the high tonal sound generated from the aerodynamic interaction, unevenly pitched impeller and diffuser, and tapered impeller designs were proposed and experiments were performed. Uneven pitch design of the impeller changes the sound quality while the overall Sound Power Level (SPL) and the performance remains similar. The effect of the tapered design of impeller was evaluated. The trailing edge of the tapered fan is inclined. This reduces the flow interaction between the rotating impeller and the stationary diffuser because of some phase shifts. The static efficiency of the new impeller design is slightly lower than the previous design. However, the overall SPL is reduced by about 4 dB(A). The SPL of the fundamental Blade Passing Frequency (BPF) is reduced by about 6 dB(A) and the 2 nd BPF is reduced about 20 dB(A). The vacuum cleaner with the tapered impeller design produces lower noise level than the previous one, and the strong tonal sound was dramatically reduced

  16. Reduction of background noise induced by wind tunnel jet exit vanes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Martin, R. M.; Brooks, T. F.; Hoad, D. R.

    1985-01-01

    The NASA-Langley 4 x 7 m wind tunnel develops low frequency flow pulsations at certain velocity ranges during open throat mode operation, affecting the aerodynamics of the flow and degrading the resulting model test data. Triangular vanes attached to the trailing edge of flat steel rails, mounted 10 cm from the inside of the jet exit walls, have been used to reduce this effect; attention is presently given to methods used to reduce the inherent noise generation of the vanes while retaining their pulsation reduction features.

  17. Poisson-Gaussian Noise Reduction Using the Hidden Markov Model in Contourlet Domain for Fluorescence Microscopy Images

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yang, Sejung; Lee, Byung-Uk

    2015-01-01

    In certain image acquisitions processes, like in fluorescence microscopy or astronomy, only a limited number of photons can be collected due to various physical constraints. The resulting images suffer from signal dependent noise, which can be modeled as a Poisson distribution, and a low signal-to-noise ratio. However, the majority of research on noise reduction algorithms focuses on signal independent Gaussian noise. In this paper, we model noise as a combination of Poisson and Gaussian probability distributions to construct a more accurate model and adopt the contourlet transform which provides a sparse representation of the directional components in images. We also apply hidden Markov models with a framework that neatly describes the spatial and interscale dependencies which are the properties of transformation coefficients of natural images. In this paper, an effective denoising algorithm for Poisson-Gaussian noise is proposed using the contourlet transform, hidden Markov models and noise estimation in the transform domain. We supplement the algorithm by cycle spinning and Wiener filtering for further improvements. We finally show experimental results with simulations and fluorescence microscopy images which demonstrate the improved performance of the proposed approach. PMID:26352138

  18. Active noise control in a duct to cancel broadband noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Kuan-Chun; Chang, Cheng-Yuan; Kuo, Sen M.

    2017-09-01

    The paper presents cancelling duct noises by using the active noise control (ANC) techniques. We use the single channel feed forward algorithm with feedback neutralization to realize ANC. Several kinds of ducts noises including tonal noises, sweep tonal signals, and white noise had investigated. Experimental results show that the proposed ANC system can cancel these noises in a PVC duct very well. The noise reduction of white noise can be up to 20 dB.

  19. Flap Side Edge Liners for Airframe Noise Reduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Michael G. (Inventor); Khorrami, Mehdi R. (Inventor); Choudhari, Meelan M. (Inventor); Howerton, Brian M. (Inventor)

    2014-01-01

    One or more acoustic liners comprising internal chambers or passageways that absorb energy from a noise source on the aircraft are disclosed. The acoustic liners may be positioned at the ends of flaps of an aircraft wing to provide broadband noise absorption and/or dampen the noise producing unsteady flow features, and to reduce the amount of noise generated due to unsteady flow at the inboard and/or outboard end edges of a flap.

  20. The reduction of image noise and streak artifact in the thoracic inlet during low dose and ultra-low dose thoracic CT

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Paul, N S; Prezelj, E; Burey, P; Menezes, R J; Blobel, J; Ursani, A; Kashani, H; Siewerdsen, J H

    2010-01-01

    Increased pixel noise and streak artifact reduce CT image quality and limit the potential for radiation dose reduction during CT of the thoracic inlet. We propose to quantify the pixel noise of mediastinal structures in the thoracic inlet, during low-dose (LDCT) and ultralow-dose (uLDCT) thoracic CT, and assess the utility of new software (quantum denoising system and BOOST3D) in addressing these limitations. Twelve patients had LDCT (120 kV, 25 mAs) and uLDCT (120 kV, 10 mAs) images reconstructed initially using standard mediastinal and lung filters followed by the quantum denoising system (QDS) to reduce pixel noise and BOOST3D (B3D) software to correct photon starvation noise as follows: group 1 no QDS, no B3D; group 2 B3D alone; group 3 QDS alone and group 4 both QDS and B3D. Nine regions of interest (ROIs) were replicated on mediastinal anatomy in the thoracic inlet, for each patient resulting in 3456 data points to calculate pixel noise and attenuation. QDS reduced pixel noise by 18.4% (lung images) and 15.8% (mediastinal images) at 25 mAs. B3D reduced pixel noise by ∼8% in the posterior thorax and in combination there was a 35.5% reduction in effective radiation dose (E) for LDCT (1.63-1.05 mSv) in lung images and 32.2% (1.55-1.05 mSv) in mediastinal images. The same combination produced 20.7% reduction (0.53-0.42 mSv) in E for uLDCT, for lung images and 17.3% (0.51-0.42) for mediastinal images. This quantitative analysis of image quality confirms the utility of dedicated processing software in targeting image noise and streak artifact in thoracic LDCT and uLDCT images taken in the thoracic inlet. This processing software potentiates substantial reductions in radiation dose during thoracic LDCT and uLDCT.

  1. The correlation study of parallel feature extractor and noise reduction approaches

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Dewi, Deshinta Arrova; Sundararajan, Elankovan; Prabuwono, Anton Satria [Industrial Computing Research Group, Centre for Artificial Intelligence Technology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi (Malaysia)

    2015-05-15

    This paper presents literature reviews that show variety of techniques to develop parallel feature extractor and finding its correlation with noise reduction approaches for low light intensity images. Low light intensity images are normally displayed as darker images and low contrast. Without proper handling techniques, those images regularly become evidences of misperception of objects and textures, the incapability to section them. The visual illusions regularly clues to disorientation, user fatigue, poor detection and classification performance of humans and computer algorithms. Noise reduction approaches (NR) therefore is an essential step for other image processing steps such as edge detection, image segmentation, image compression, etc. Parallel Feature Extractor (PFE) meant to capture visual contents of images involves partitioning images into segments, detecting image overlaps if any, and controlling distributed and redistributed segments to extract the features. Working on low light intensity images make the PFE face challenges and closely depend on the quality of its pre-processing steps. Some papers have suggested many well established NR as well as PFE strategies however only few resources have suggested or mentioned the correlation between them. This paper reviews best approaches of the NR and the PFE with detailed explanation on the suggested correlation. This finding may suggest relevant strategies of the PFE development. With the help of knowledge based reasoning, computational approaches and algorithms, we present the correlation study between the NR and the PFE that can be useful for the development and enhancement of other existing PFE.

  2. The correlation study of parallel feature extractor and noise reduction approaches

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dewi, Deshinta Arrova; Sundararajan, Elankovan; Prabuwono, Anton Satria

    2015-01-01

    This paper presents literature reviews that show variety of techniques to develop parallel feature extractor and finding its correlation with noise reduction approaches for low light intensity images. Low light intensity images are normally displayed as darker images and low contrast. Without proper handling techniques, those images regularly become evidences of misperception of objects and textures, the incapability to section them. The visual illusions regularly clues to disorientation, user fatigue, poor detection and classification performance of humans and computer algorithms. Noise reduction approaches (NR) therefore is an essential step for other image processing steps such as edge detection, image segmentation, image compression, etc. Parallel Feature Extractor (PFE) meant to capture visual contents of images involves partitioning images into segments, detecting image overlaps if any, and controlling distributed and redistributed segments to extract the features. Working on low light intensity images make the PFE face challenges and closely depend on the quality of its pre-processing steps. Some papers have suggested many well established NR as well as PFE strategies however only few resources have suggested or mentioned the correlation between them. This paper reviews best approaches of the NR and the PFE with detailed explanation on the suggested correlation. This finding may suggest relevant strategies of the PFE development. With the help of knowledge based reasoning, computational approaches and algorithms, we present the correlation study between the NR and the PFE that can be useful for the development and enhancement of other existing PFE

  3. A noise-reduction program in a pediatric operation theatre is associated with surgeon's benefits and a reduced rate of complications: a prospective controlled clinical trial.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Engelmann, Carsten R; Neis, Jan Philipp; Kirschbaum, Clemens; Grote, Gudela; Ure, Benno M

    2014-05-01

    We assessed the impact of a noise-reduction program in a pediatric operating theatre. Adverse effects from noise pollution in theatres have been demonstrated. In 156 operations spatially resolved, sound levels were measured before and after a noise-reduction program on the basis of education, rules, and technical devices (Sound Ear). Surgical complications were recorded. The surgeon's biometric (saliva cortisol, electrodermal activity) and behavioral stress responses (questionnaires) were measured and correlated with mission protocols and individual noise sensitivity. Median noise levels in the control group versus the interventional group were reduced by -3 ± 3 dB(A) (63 vs 59 dB(A), P 0.05). Spontaneous noise during pediatric operations attains the magnitude of a lawn mower and peaks resemble a passing truck. The sound intensity could be reduced by 50% by specific measures. This reduction was associated with a significantly lowered number of postoperative complications. The surgeon's benefits are idiosyncratic with "responders" experiencing marked improvements.

  4. Foundations of Active Control - Active Noise Reduction Helmets

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Elmkjær, Torsten Haaber Leth

    2008-01-01

    rate is increased which in turn most likely also will lead to an increased ANR bandwidth. The hybrid system is also constituted from a continuous-time feedback system (FBS) and a discrete-time FBS. The continuous-time FBS is primarily responsible for additional broadband noise reduction, whereas...... the discrete-time FBS primarily is responsible for the attenuation of periodic signals. Owing to the requirement on causal operation of a physical AC system time delays will also to a large extent determine the achievable performance in FFS design and in particular in FBS design. A quantity referred...... on a head and torso simulator (HATS), is exposed to diffuse sound field illumination. By applying the JCRSA method the spatially-weighted-averaged acquisition lead times provided by the reference sensors relative to the performance sensors are estimated to be as much as 800-900μs. The thesis also includes...

  5. Noise Reduction of Ocean-Bottom Pressure Data Toward Real-Time Tsunami Forecasting

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tsushima, H.; Hino, R.

    2008-12-01

    We discuss a method of noise reduction of ocean-bottom pressure data to be fed into the near-field tsunami forecasting scheme proposed by Tsushima et al. [2008a]. In their scheme, the pressure data is processed in real time as follows: (1) removing ocean tide components by subtracting the sea-level variation computed from a theoretical tide model, (2) applying low-pass digital filter to remove high-frequency fluctuation due to seismic waves, and (3) removing DC-offset and linear-trend component to determine a baseline of relative sea level. However, it turns out this simple method is not always successful in extracting tsunami waveforms from the data, when the observed amplitude is ~1cm. For disaster mitigation, accurate forecasting of small tsunamis is important as well as large tsunamis. Since small tsunami events occur frequently, successful tsunami forecasting of those events are critical to obtain public reliance upon tsunami warnings. As a test case, we applied the data-processing described above to the bottom pressure records containing tsunami with amplitude less than 1 cm which was generated by the 2003 Off-Fukushima earthquake occurring in the Japan Trench subduction zone. The observed pressure variation due to the ocean tide is well explained by the calculated tide signals from NAO99Jb model [Matsumoto et al., 2000]. However, the tide components estimated by BAYTAP-G [Tamura et al., 1991] from the pressure data is more appropriate for predicting and removing the ocean tide signals. In the pressure data after removing the tide variations, there remain pressure fluctuations with frequencies ranging from about 0.1 to 1 mHz and with amplitudes around ~10 cm. These fluctuations distort the estimation of zero-level and linear trend to define relative sea-level variation, which is treated as tsunami waveform in the subsequent analysis. Since the linear trend is estimated from the data prior to the origin time of the earthquake, an artificial linear trend is

  6. Aerodynamic Measurements of a Gulfstream Aircraft Model With and Without Noise Reduction Concepts

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neuhart, Dan H.; Hannon, Judith A.; Khorrami, Mehdi R.

    2014-01-01

    Steady and unsteady aerodynamic measurements of a high-fidelity, semi-span 18% scale Gulfstream aircraft model are presented. The aerodynamic data were collected concurrently with acoustic measurements as part of a larger aeroacoustic study targeting airframe noise associated with main landing gear/flap components, gear-flap interaction noise, and the viability of related noise mitigation technologies. The aeroacoustic tests were conducted in the NASA Langley Research Center 14- by 22-Foot Subsonic Wind Tunnel with the facility in the acoustically treated open-wall (jet) mode. Most of the measurements were obtained with the model in landing configuration with the flap deflected at 39º and the main landing gear on and off. Data were acquired at Mach numbers of 0.16, 0.20, and 0.24. Global forces (lift and drag) and extensive steady and unsteady surface pressure measurements were obtained. Comparison of the present results with those acquired during a previous test shows a significant reduction in the lift experienced by the model. The underlying cause was traced to the likely presence of a much thicker boundary layer on the tunnel floor, which was acoustically treated for the present test. The steady and unsteady pressure fields on the flap, particularly in the regions of predominant noise sources such as the inboard and outboard tips, remained unaffected. It is shown that the changes in lift and drag coefficients for model configurations fitted with gear/flap noise abatement technologies fall within the repeatability of the baseline configuration. Therefore, the noise abatement technologies evaluated in this experiment have no detrimental impact on the aerodynamic performance of the aircraft model.

  7. Modeling speed and width parameters of vehicle tires for prediction of the reduction in vehicle noise pollution

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Amir Esmael Forouhid

    2016-06-01

    Full Text Available Introduction: Safe driving requires the ability of the driver to receive the messages and complying with them. The most significant consequences of noise pollution are on the human auditory system. Disorders in the auditory system can have harmful side effects for human health. By reducing this kind of pollution in large cities, the quality of life, which is one of the biggest goals of the governments, can be considerably increased. Hence, in the present research, some parameters of vehicle tires were examined as a source of noise pollution, and the results can be taken into consideration in noise pollution reduction. Material and Method: Several vehicles with different tire width were selected for measuring sound level. The sound levels were measured for moving vehicles with the use of the Statistical Pass By Method (SPB, ISO 11819-1. Following sound level measurements for moving vehicles and by considering tire width, mathematical model of noise level was predicted on the basis of the obtained information and by usage of SPSS program and considering vehicle tire parameters. Result: The result of this study showed that the vehicle speed and tire width can affect different sound levels emitted by moving tire on road surface. The average speed of vehicles can play an important role in the noise pollution. By increasing speed, rotation of the the tires on the asphalt is increased, as it is a known factors for noise pollution. Moreover, changing the speed of vehicles is accompanied with abnormal sounds of vehicle engine. According to regression model analysis, the obtained value of R2 for the model is 0.8367 which represents the coefficient of determination. Conclusion: The results suggest the main role of the vehicle speed and tire width in increasing the noise reaches to the drivers and consequent noise pollution, which demonstrates the necessity for noise control measures. According to the obtained model, it is understood that changes in noise

  8. Noise Source Visualization Using a Digital Voice Recorder and Low-Cost Sensors.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cho, Yong Thung

    2018-04-03

    Accurate sound visualization of noise sources is required for optimal noise control. Typically, noise measurement systems require microphones, an analog-digital converter, cables, a data acquisition system, etc., which may not be affordable for potential users. Also, many such systems are not highly portable and may not be convenient for travel. Handheld personal electronic devices such as smartphones and digital voice recorders with relatively lower costs and higher performance have become widely available recently. Even though such devices are highly portable, directly implementing them for noise measurement may lead to erroneous results since such equipment was originally designed for voice recording. In this study, external microphones were connected to a digital voice recorder to conduct measurements and the input received was processed for noise visualization. In this way, a low cost, compact sound visualization system was designed and introduced to visualize two actual noise sources for verification with different characteristics: an enclosed loud speaker and a small air compressor. Reasonable accuracy of noise visualization for these two sources was shown over a relatively wide frequency range. This very affordable and compact sound visualization system can be used for many actual noise visualization applications in addition to educational purposes.

  9. Minimizing noise in fiberglass aquaculture tanks: Noise reduction potential of various retrofits

    Science.gov (United States)

    Equipment used in intensive aquaculture systems, such as pumps and blowers can produce underwater sound levels and frequencies within the range of fish hearing. The impacts of underwater noise on fish are not well known, but limited research suggests that subjecting fish to noise could result in imp...

  10. Evaluation of noise pollution in urban traffic hubs—Noise maps and measurements

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Fiedler, Paulo Eduardo Kirrian; Zannin, Paulo Henrique Trombetta

    2015-01-01

    A study was made of some of the main traffic hubs in a Latin American metropolis, in order to determine the presence or absence of noise by means of noise measurements and acoustic mapping. To characterize noise in the evaluated road stretches, 232 measurements were taken at different points. The Predictor software package was used for the noise mapping calculations. Noise sensitive areas, e.g., hospitals, were identified in the evaluated road stretches. Noise maps were calculated for two hospitals, showing the current levels of noise that reach their facades. Hypothetical scenarios were simulated by making changes in the composition of traffic and total number of vehicles, and an assessment was made of the potential influence of these modifications in reducing the noise levels reaching the facades of the buildings in question. The simulations indicated that a 50% reduction in total traffic flow, or a 50% reduction in heavy vehicle traffic flow, would reduce the noise levels by about 3 dB(A). - Highlights: • Evaluation of noise pollution in urban traffic hubs • Street systems • Environmental noise impacts • Noise mapping

  11. Evaluation of noise pollution in urban traffic hubs—Noise maps and measurements

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Fiedler, Paulo Eduardo Kirrian; Zannin, Paulo Henrique Trombetta, E-mail: paulo.zannin@pesquisador.cnpq.br

    2015-02-15

    A study was made of some of the main traffic hubs in a Latin American metropolis, in order to determine the presence or absence of noise by means of noise measurements and acoustic mapping. To characterize noise in the evaluated road stretches, 232 measurements were taken at different points. The Predictor software package was used for the noise mapping calculations. Noise sensitive areas, e.g., hospitals, were identified in the evaluated road stretches. Noise maps were calculated for two hospitals, showing the current levels of noise that reach their facades. Hypothetical scenarios were simulated by making changes in the composition of traffic and total number of vehicles, and an assessment was made of the potential influence of these modifications in reducing the noise levels reaching the facades of the buildings in question. The simulations indicated that a 50% reduction in total traffic flow, or a 50% reduction in heavy vehicle traffic flow, would reduce the noise levels by about 3 dB(A). - Highlights: • Evaluation of noise pollution in urban traffic hubs • Street systems • Environmental noise impacts • Noise mapping.

  12. Comparison of measured and predicted airfoil self-noise with application to wind turbine noise reduction

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Dassen, T.; Parchen, R.; Guidati, G.; Wagner, S.; Kang, S.; Khodak, A.E.

    1998-01-01

    In the ongoing JOULE-III project 'Development of Design Tools for Reduced Aerodynamic Noise Wind Turbines (DRAW)', prediction codes for inflow-turbulence (IT) noise and turbulent boundary layer trailing-edge (TE) noise, are developed and validated. It is shown that the differences in IT noise radiation between airfoils having a different shape, are correctly predicted. The first, preliminary comparison made between predicted and measured TE noise spectra yields satisfactory results. 17 refs

  13. A two-microphone noise reduction system for cochlear implant users with nearby microphones. Part II: Performance Evaluation

    OpenAIRE

    Kompis, Martin; Bertram, Matthias; Senn, Pascal; Müller, Joachim; Pelizzone, Marco; Häusler, Rudolf

    2008-01-01

    Users of cochlear implants (auditory aids, which stimulate the auditory nerve electrically at the inner ear) often suffer from poor speech understanding in noise. We evaluate a small (intermicrophone distance 7 mm) and computationally inexpensive adaptive noise reduction system suitable for behind-the-ear cochlear implant speech processors. The system is evaluated in simulated and real, anechoic and reverberant environments. Results from simulations show improvements of 3.4 to 9.3 dB in signa...

  14. Noise and vibration reduction technology in hybrid vehicle development; Hybrid sha kaihatsu ni okeru shindo soon teigen gijutsu

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yoshioa, T.; Sugita, H. [Toyota Motor Corp., Aichi (Japan)

    2000-03-01

    Accomplishing both environmental protection and good NVH performance has become a significant task in automotive development The first-in-the-world hybrid passenger car of mass production. 'Prius', has achieved superior NV performance compared with conventional vehicles with a 1.5-liter engine along with 50% reduction of fuel consumption and CO{sub 2} emissions. low HC, CO and NO{sub x} emissions. This paper describes NV reduction technology for solving problems peculiar to the hybrid vehicle such as engine start/stop vibration, drone noise at low engine speed and motor/generator noise and vibration. It also mentions application technology of low rolling resistance tires with light weight wheels and recycled material for sound proofing. (author)

  15. Speckle noise reduction technique for Lidar echo signal based on self-adaptive pulse-matching independent component analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Xu, Fan; Wang, Jiaxing; Zhu, Daiyin; Tu, Qi

    2018-04-01

    Speckle noise has always been a particularly tricky problem in improving the ranging capability and accuracy of Lidar system especially in harsh environment. Currently, effective speckle de-noising techniques are extremely scarce and should be further developed. In this study, a speckle noise reduction technique has been proposed based on independent component analysis (ICA). Since normally few changes happen in the shape of laser pulse itself, the authors employed the laser source as a reference pulse and executed the ICA decomposition to find the optimal matching position. In order to achieve the self-adaptability of algorithm, local Mean Square Error (MSE) has been defined as an appropriate criterion for investigating the iteration results. The obtained experimental results demonstrated that the self-adaptive pulse-matching ICA (PM-ICA) method could effectively decrease the speckle noise and recover the useful Lidar echo signal component with high quality. Especially, the proposed method achieves 4 dB more improvement of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) than a traditional homomorphic wavelet method.

  16. Improved Kalman Filter Method for Measurement Noise Reduction in Multi Sensor RFID Systems

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Min Chul Kim

    2011-10-01

    Full Text Available Recently, the range of available Radio Frequency Identification (RFID tags has been widened to include smart RFID tags which can monitor their varying surroundings. One of the most important factors for better performance of smart RFID system is accurate measurement from various sensors. In the multi-sensing environment, some noisy signals are obtained because of the changing surroundings. We propose in this paper an improved Kalman filter method to reduce noise and obtain correct data. Performance of Kalman filter is determined by a measurement and system noise covariance which are usually called the R and Q variables in the Kalman filter algorithm. Choosing a correct R and Q variable is one of the most important design factors for better performance of the Kalman filter. For this reason, we proposed an improved Kalman filter to advance an ability of noise reduction of the Kalman filter. The measurement noise covariance was only considered because the system architecture is simple and can be adjusted by the neural network. With this method, more accurate data can be obtained with smart RFID tags. In a simulation the proposed improved Kalman filter has 40.1%, 60.4% and 87.5% less Mean Squared Error (MSE than the conventional Kalman filter method for a temperature sensor, humidity sensor and oxygen sensor, respectively. The performance of the proposed method was also verified with some experiments.

  17. Improved Kalman filter method for measurement noise reduction in multi sensor RFID systems.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eom, Ki Hwan; Lee, Seung Joon; Kyung, Yeo Sun; Lee, Chang Won; Kim, Min Chul; Jung, Kyung Kwon

    2011-01-01

    Recently, the range of available radio frequency identification (RFID) tags has been widened to include smart RFID tags which can monitor their varying surroundings. One of the most important factors for better performance of smart RFID system is accurate measurement from various sensors. In the multi-sensing environment, some noisy signals are obtained because of the changing surroundings. We propose in this paper an improved Kalman filter method to reduce noise and obtain correct data. Performance of Kalman filter is determined by a measurement and system noise covariance which are usually called the R and Q variables in the Kalman filter algorithm. Choosing a correct R and Q variable is one of the most important design factors for better performance of the Kalman filter. For this reason, we proposed an improved Kalman filter to advance an ability of noise reduction of the Kalman filter. The measurement noise covariance was only considered because the system architecture is simple and can be adjusted by the neural network. With this method, more accurate data can be obtained with smart RFID tags. In a simulation the proposed improved Kalman filter has 40.1%, 60.4% and 87.5% less mean squared error (MSE) than the conventional Kalman filter method for a temperature sensor, humidity sensor and oxygen sensor, respectively. The performance of the proposed method was also verified with some experiments.

  18. Experimental and theoretical sound transmission. [reduction of interior noise in aircraft

    Science.gov (United States)

    Roskam, J.; Muirhead, V. U.; Smith, H. W.; Durenberger, D. W.

    1978-01-01

    The capabilities of the Kansas University- Flight Research Center for investigating panel sound transmission as a step toward the reduction of interior noise in general aviation aircraft were discussed. Data obtained on panels with holes, on honeycomb panels, and on various panel treatments at normal incidence were documented. The design of equipment for panel transmission loss tests at nonnormal (slanted) sound incidence was described. A comprehensive theory-based prediction method was developed and shows good agreement with experimental observations of the stiffness controlled, the region, the resonance controlled region, and the mass-law region of panel vibration.

  19. The impact of a noise reduction quality improvement project upon sound levels in the open-unit-design neonatal intensive care unit.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, W F

    2010-07-01

    To decrease measured sound levels in the neonatal intensive care unit through implementation of human factor and minor design modification strategies. Prospective time series. Two open-unit-design neonatal centers. Implementation of a coordinated program of noise reduction strategies did not result in any measurable improvement in levels of loudness or quiet. Two centers, using primarily human behavior noise reduction strategies, were unable to demonstrate measurable improvements in sound levels within the occupied open-unit-design neonatal intensive care unit.

  20. The Assessment of Noise Exposure and Noise Annoyance at a Petrochemical Company

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. Farhang Dehghan

    2013-12-01

    .Conclusion: Based on the obtained results of investigating the noise level (objective exposure as well as the noise annoyance (subjective exposure at the studied company, it is necessary to adopt the management –technical noise reduction measures at manufacturing sectors as the personal noise exposure and environmental noise exposure and also noise personal exposure of administrative staff can be decreased.

  1. Median Filter Noise Reduction of Image and Backpropagation Neural Network Model for Cervical Cancer Classification

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wutsqa, D. U.; Marwah, M.

    2017-06-01

    In this paper, we consider spatial operation median filter to reduce the noise in the cervical images yielded by colposcopy tool. The backpropagation neural network (BPNN) model is applied to the colposcopy images to classify cervical cancer. The classification process requires an image extraction by using a gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) method to obtain image features that are used as inputs of BPNN model. The advantage of noise reduction is evaluated by comparing the performances of BPNN models with and without spatial operation median filter. The experimental result shows that the spatial operation median filter can improve the accuracy of the BPNN model for cervical cancer classification.

  2. REDUCTION OF CLASSROOM NOISE LEVELS USING GROUP CONTINGENCIES

    OpenAIRE

    Ring, Brandon M.; Sigurdsson, Sigurdur O.; Eubanks, Sean L.; Silverman, Kenneth

    2014-01-01

    The therapeutic workplace is an employment-based abstinence reinforcement intervention for unemployed drug users where trainees receive on-the-job employment skills training in a classroom setting. The study is an extension of prior therapeutic workplace research, which suggested that trainees frequently violated noise standards. Participants received real-time graphed feedback of noise levels and had the opportunity to earn monetary group reinforcement for maintaining a low number of noise v...

  3. Two Methods of Mechanical Noise Reduction of Recorded Speech During Phonation in an MRI devic

    Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

    Přibil, J.; Horáček, Jaromír; Horák, Petr

    2011-01-01

    Roč. 11, č. 3 (2011), s. 92-98 ISSN 1335-8871 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA102/09/0989 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z20760514; CEZ:AV0Z20670512 Keywords : speech processing * noise reduction * NMR imaging Subject RIV: BI - Acoustics Impact factor: 0.418, year: 2011

  4. Meta-Analysis of Free-Response Studies, 1992-2008: Assessing the Noise Reduction Model in Parapsychology

    Science.gov (United States)

    Storm, Lance; Tressoldi, Patrizio E.; Di Risio, Lorenzo

    2010-01-01

    We report the results of meta-analyses on 3 types of free-response study: (a) ganzfeld (a technique that enhances a communication anomaly referred to as "psi"); (b) nonganzfeld noise reduction using alleged psi-enhancing techniques such as dream psi, meditation, relaxation, or hypnosis; and (c) standard free response (nonganzfeld, no noise…

  5. Innovative Technique for Noise Reduction in Spacecraft Doppler Tracking for Planetary Interior Studies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Notaro, V.; Armstrong, J. W.; Asmar, S.; Di Ruscio, A.; Iess, L.; Mariani, M., Jr.

    2017-12-01

    Precise measurements of spacecraft range rate, enabled by two-way microwave links, are used in radio science experiments for planetary geodesy including the determination of planetary gravitational fields for the purpose of modeling the interior structure. The final accuracies in the estimated gravity harmonic coefficients depend almost linearly on the Doppler noise in the link. We ran simulations to evaluate the accuracy improvement attainable in the estimation of the gravity harmonic coefficients of Venus (with a representative orbiter) and Mercury (with the BepiColombo spacecraft), using our proposed innovative noise-cancellation technique. We showed how the use of an additional, smaller and stiffer, receiving-only antenna could reduce the leading noise sources in a Ka-band two-way link such as tropospheric and antenna mechanical noises. This is achieved through a suitable linear combination (LC) of Doppler observables collected at the two antennas at different times. In our simulations, we considered a two-way link either from NASA's DSS 25 antenna in California or from ESA's DSA-3 antenna in Malargüe (Argentina). Moreover, we selected the 12-m Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX) in Chile as the three-way antenna and developed its tropospheric noise model using available atmospheric data and mechanical stability specifications. For an 8-hour Venus orbiter tracking pass in Chajnantor's winter/night conditions, the accuracy of the simulated LC Doppler observable at 10-s integration time is 6 mm/s, to be compared to 23 mm/s for the two-way link. For BepiColombo, we obtained 16.5 mm/s and 35 mm/s, respectively for the LC and two-way links. The benefits are even larger at longer time scales. Numerical simulations indicate that such noise reduction would provide significant improvements in the determination of Venus's and Mercury's gravity field coefficients. If implemented, this noise-reducing technique will be valuable for planetary geodesy missions, where the

  6. A Noise Reduction Preprocessor for Mobile Voice Communication

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rainer Martin

    2004-07-01

    Full Text Available We describe a speech enhancement algorithm which leads to significant quality and intelligibility improvements when used as a preprocessor to a low bit rate speech coder. This algorithm was developed in conjunction with the mixed excitation linear prediction (MELP coder which, by itself, is highly susceptible to environmental noise. The paper presents novel as well as known speech and noise estimation techniques and combines them into a highly effective speech enhancement system. The algorithm is based on short-time spectral amplitude estimation, soft-decision gain modification, tracking of the a priori probability of speech absence, and minimum statistics noise power estimation. Special emphasis is placed on enhancing the performance of the preprocessor in nonstationary noise environments.

  7. Speckle noise reduction for optical coherence tomography based on adaptive 2D dictionary

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lv, Hongli; Fu, Shujun; Zhang, Caiming; Zhai, Lin

    2018-05-01

    As a high-resolution biomedical imaging modality, optical coherence tomography (OCT) is widely used in medical sciences. However, OCT images often suffer from speckle noise, which can mask some important image information, and thus reduce the accuracy of clinical diagnosis. Taking full advantage of nonlocal self-similarity and adaptive 2D-dictionary-based sparse representation, in this work, a speckle noise reduction algorithm is proposed for despeckling OCT images. To reduce speckle noise while preserving local image features, similar nonlocal patches are first extracted from the noisy image and put into groups using a gamma- distribution-based block matching method. An adaptive 2D dictionary is then learned for each patch group. Unlike traditional vector-based sparse coding, we express each image patch by the linear combination of a few matrices. This image-to-matrix method can exploit the local correlation between pixels. Since each image patch might belong to several groups, the despeckled OCT image is finally obtained by aggregating all filtered image patches. The experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed method over other state-of-the-art despeckling methods, in terms of objective metrics and visual inspection.

  8. Students' Affordance of Teleologic Explanations and Anthropomorphic Language in Eliciting Concepts in Physics

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bautista, Romiro G.

    2015-01-01

    This study ascertains that the students' affordance of teleologic explanations and anthropomorphic language in eliciting concepts in Physics is influenced by their age and learning exposure and experience. Using Explicative-Reductive Method of Descriptive Research, this study focused on the determinants of students' affordance of…

  9. Autonomous Slat-Cove-Filler Device for Reduction of Aeroacoustic Noise Associated with Aircraft Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Turner, Travis L. (Inventor); Kidd, Reggie T. (Inventor); Lockard, David P (Inventor); Khorrami, Mehdi R. (Inventor); Streett, Craig L. (Inventor); Weber, Douglas Leo (Inventor)

    2016-01-01

    A slat cove filler is utilized to reduce airframe noise resulting from deployment of a leading edge slat of an aircraft wing. The slat cove filler is preferably made of a super elastic shape memory alloy, and the slat cove filler shifts between stowed and deployed shapes as the slat is deployed. The slat cove filler may be configured such that a separate powered actuator is not required to change the shape of the slat cove filler from its deployed shape to its stowed shape and vice-versa. The outer contour of the slat cove filler preferably follows a profile designed to maintain accelerating flow in the gap between the slat cove filler and wing leading edge to provide for noise reduction.

  10. Evaluation of model-based versus non-parametric monaural noise-reduction approaches for hearing aids.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Harlander, Niklas; Rosenkranz, Tobias; Hohmann, Volker

    2012-08-01

    Single channel noise reduction has been well investigated and seems to have reached its limits in terms of speech intelligibility improvement, however, the quality of such schemes can still be advanced. This study tests to what extent novel model-based processing schemes might improve performance in particular for non-stationary noise conditions. Two prototype model-based algorithms, a speech-model-based, and a auditory-model-based algorithm were compared to a state-of-the-art non-parametric minimum statistics algorithm. A speech intelligibility test, preference rating, and listening effort scaling were performed. Additionally, three objective quality measures for the signal, background, and overall distortions were applied. For a better comparison of all algorithms, particular attention was given to the usage of the similar Wiener-based gain rule. The perceptual investigation was performed with fourteen hearing-impaired subjects. The results revealed that the non-parametric algorithm and the auditory model-based algorithm did not affect speech intelligibility, whereas the speech-model-based algorithm slightly decreased intelligibility. In terms of subjective quality, both model-based algorithms perform better than the unprocessed condition and the reference in particular for highly non-stationary noise environments. Data support the hypothesis that model-based algorithms are promising for improving performance in non-stationary noise conditions.

  11. Noise Source Visualization Using a Digital Voice Recorder and Low-Cost Sensors

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yong Thung Cho

    2018-04-01

    Full Text Available Accurate sound visualization of noise sources is required for optimal noise control. Typically, noise measurement systems require microphones, an analog-digital converter, cables, a data acquisition system, etc., which may not be affordable for potential users. Also, many such systems are not highly portable and may not be convenient for travel. Handheld personal electronic devices such as smartphones and digital voice recorders with relatively lower costs and higher performance have become widely available recently. Even though such devices are highly portable, directly implementing them for noise measurement may lead to erroneous results since such equipment was originally designed for voice recording. In this study, external microphones were connected to a digital voice recorder to conduct measurements and the input received was processed for noise visualization. In this way, a low cost, compact sound visualization system was designed and introduced to visualize two actual noise sources for verification with different characteristics: an enclosed loud speaker and a small air compressor. Reasonable accuracy of noise visualization for these two sources was shown over a relatively wide frequency range. This very affordable and compact sound visualization system can be used for many actual noise visualization applications in addition to educational purposes.

  12. Deep Learning-Based Noise Reduction Approach to Improve Speech Intelligibility for Cochlear Implant Recipients.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lai, Ying-Hui; Tsao, Yu; Lu, Xugang; Chen, Fei; Su, Yu-Ting; Chen, Kuang-Chao; Chen, Yu-Hsuan; Chen, Li-Ching; Po-Hung Li, Lieber; Lee, Chin-Hui

    2018-01-20

    We investigate the clinical effectiveness of a novel deep learning-based noise reduction (NR) approach under noisy conditions with challenging noise types at low signal to noise ratio (SNR) levels for Mandarin-speaking cochlear implant (CI) recipients. The deep learning-based NR approach used in this study consists of two modules: noise classifier (NC) and deep denoising autoencoder (DDAE), thus termed (NC + DDAE). In a series of comprehensive experiments, we conduct qualitative and quantitative analyses on the NC module and the overall NC + DDAE approach. Moreover, we evaluate the speech recognition performance of the NC + DDAE NR and classical single-microphone NR approaches for Mandarin-speaking CI recipients under different noisy conditions. The testing set contains Mandarin sentences corrupted by two types of maskers, two-talker babble noise, and a construction jackhammer noise, at 0 and 5 dB SNR levels. Two conventional NR techniques and the proposed deep learning-based approach are used to process the noisy utterances. We qualitatively compare the NR approaches by the amplitude envelope and spectrogram plots of the processed utterances. Quantitative objective measures include (1) normalized covariance measure to test the intelligibility of the utterances processed by each of the NR approaches; and (2) speech recognition tests conducted by nine Mandarin-speaking CI recipients. These nine CI recipients use their own clinical speech processors during testing. The experimental results of objective evaluation and listening test indicate that under challenging listening conditions, the proposed NC + DDAE NR approach yields higher intelligibility scores than the two compared classical NR techniques, under both matched and mismatched training-testing conditions. When compared to the two well-known conventional NR techniques under challenging listening condition, the proposed NC + DDAE NR approach has superior noise suppression capabilities and gives less distortion

  13. A combined noise reduction and torque enhancement system for an I. C. engine

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hutchins, S.M.; Stothers, Ian; McDougall, N.M.

    1993-02-10

    The present invention provides a combined noise reduction and torque enhancement system for an internal combustion engine. It comprises means for periodically constricting or occluding the exhaust and/or inlet at least one frequency related to the rotation frequency of the engine. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the constriction means comprises a plug member arranged to be oscillated in an aperture along the axis of flow of gas in the exhaust and/or inlet. (author)

  14. Identification and Reduction of Turbomachinery Noise, Phase II

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Communities near airports are often exposed to high noise levels due to low flying aircraft in the takeoff and landing phases of flight. Propulsion source noise is...

  15. On the prediction of impact noise, V: The noise from drop hammers

    Science.gov (United States)

    Richards, E. J.; Carr, I.; Westcott, M.

    1983-06-01

    In earlier papers in this series, the concepts of "acceleration" and "ringing" noise have been studied in relation to impact machines, and values of radiation efficiency have been obtained for the various types of structural components. In the work reported in this paper the predicted and measured noise radiation from a drop hammer, both in full-scale and in {1}/{3}- scale model form, were examined. It is found that overall noise levels ( Leq per event) can be predicted from vibration measurements to within ± 1·5 dB, and to within ±2·5 dB in one-third octave bands. In turn this has permitted noise reduction techniques to be examined by studies of local component vibration levels rather than overall noise, a method which provides considerable enlightenment at the design stage. It is shown that on one particular drop hammer, the noise energy is shared surprisingly uniformly over four or five sources, and that when these have been reduced, the overall noise reduction is severely limited by the "acceleration" noise from the "tup" or "hammer" itself. As this is difficult to eliminate without a basic change in forging technology, it follows that "tup" enclosure or modification of the sharpness of the final "hard" impact are the only means available for any serious noise reduction. Also indicated is the reliability of using model techniques, suitably scaled in frequency and impulse magnitude, in developing machinery with impact characteristics.

  16. Survey of Traffic Noise Reduction Products, Materials, and Technologies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2008-12-01

    Noise is one of the most pervasive forms of environmental pollution. It is everywhere and affects our lives at : home, work and play. By definition, noise is any unwanted or excessive sound. Highway traffic noise is a : major issue for transportation...

  17. Improved CEEMDAN-wavelet transform de-noising method and its application in well logging noise reduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Jingxia; Guo, Yinghai; Shen, Yulin; Zhao, Difei; Li, Mi

    2018-06-01

    The use of geophysical logging data to identify lithology is an important groundwork in logging interpretation. Inevitably, noise is mixed in during data collection due to the equipment and other external factors and this will affect the further lithological identification and other logging interpretation. Therefore, to get a more accurate lithological identification it is necessary to adopt de-noising methods. In this study, a new de-noising method, namely improved complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN)-wavelet transform, is proposed, which integrates the superiorities of improved CEEMDAN and wavelet transform. Improved CEEMDAN, an effective self-adaptive multi-scale analysis method, is used to decompose non-stationary signals as the logging data to obtain the intrinsic mode function (IMF) of N different scales and one residual. Moreover, one self-adaptive scale selection method is used to determine the reconstruction scale k. Simultaneously, given the possible frequency aliasing problem between adjacent IMFs, a wavelet transform threshold de-noising method is used to reduce the noise of the (k-1)th IMF. Subsequently, the de-noised logging data are reconstructed by the de-noised (k-1)th IMF and the remaining low-frequency IMFs and the residual. Finally, empirical mode decomposition, improved CEEMDAN, wavelet transform and the proposed method are applied for analysis of the simulation and the actual data. Results show diverse performance of these de-noising methods with regard to accuracy for lithological identification. Compared with the other methods, the proposed method has the best self-adaptability and accuracy in lithological identification.

  18. The Use of Noise Dampening Mats to Reduce Heavy-Equipment Noise Exposures in Construction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sabah Saleh

    2017-06-01

    Full Text Available The performance of sound barriers was evaluated to determine their technical effectiveness and practicality in reducing noise exposures to operating engineers in construction. Commercially purchased sound dampening mats (SDMats were installed inside three heavy-equipment engine compartments. Sound pressure levels (SPLs were measured before and after installing the SDMats while the equipment was on idle and full-throttle settings where it normally operates. SPLs inside the heavy-equipment operator cabs were significantly reduced by 5.6–7.6 dBA on the full-throttle setting following installation of the SDMats (p<0.01. The evaluated engineering control intervention was simple to install, affordable, and substantially reduced the engine noise reaching the heavy-equipment operator, potentially reducing reliance on hearing-protection devices to protect construction workers from noise exposures.

  19. Real-time noise reduction for Mössbauer spectroscopy through online implementation of a modified Kalman filter

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Abrecht, David G., E-mail: david.abrecht@pnnl.gov [National Security Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 902 Battelle Blvd., Richland, WA 99352 (United States); Schwantes, Jon M. [National Security Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 902 Battelle Blvd., Richland, WA 99352 (United States); Kukkadapu, Ravi K. [Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 902 Battelle Blvd., Richland, WA 99352 (United States); McDonald, Benjamin S.; Eiden, Gregory C.; Sweet, Lucas E. [National Security Directorate, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, 902 Battelle Blvd., Richland, WA 99352 (United States)

    2015-02-11

    Spectrum-processing software that incorporates a Gaussian smoothing kernel within the statistics of first-order Kalman filtration has been developed to provide cross-channel spectral noise reduction for increased real-time signal-to-noise ratios for Mössbauer spectroscopy. The filter was optimized for the breadth of the Gaussian using the Mössbauer spectrum of natural iron foil, and comparisons among the peak broadening, signal-to-noise ratios, and shifts in the calculated hyperfine parameters are presented. The results of optimization give a maximum improvement in the signal-to-noise ratio of 51.1% over the unfiltered spectrum at a Gaussian breadth of 27 channels, or 2.5% of the total spectrum width. The full-width half-maximum of the spectrum peaks showed an increase of 19.6% at this optimum point, indicating a relatively weak increase in the peak broadening relative to the signal enhancement, leading to an overall increase in the observable signal. Calculations of the hyperfine parameters showed that no statistically significant deviations were introduced from the application of the filter, confirming the utility of this filter for spectroscopy applications.

  20. Noise reduction in Lidar signal using correlation-based EMD combined with soft thresholding and roughness penalty

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chang, Jianhua; Zhu, Lingyan; Li, Hongxu; Xu, Fan; Liu, Binggang; Yang, Zhenbo

    2018-01-01

    Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) is widely used to analyze the non-linear and non-stationary signals for noise reduction. In this study, a novel EMD-based denoising method, referred to as EMD with soft thresholding and roughness penalty (EMD-STRP), is proposed for the Lidar signal denoising. With the proposed method, the relevant and irrelevant intrinsic mode functions are first distinguished via a correlation coefficient. Then, the soft thresholding technique is applied to the irrelevant modes, and the roughness penalty technique is applied to the relevant modes to extract as much information as possible. The effectiveness of the proposed method was evaluated using three typical signals contaminated by white Gaussian noise. The denoising performance was then compared to the denoising capabilities of other techniques, such as correlation-based EMD partial reconstruction, correlation-based EMD hard thresholding, and wavelet transform. The use of EMD-STRP on the measured Lidar signal resulted in the noise being efficiently suppressed, with an improved signal to noise ratio of 22.25 dB and an extended detection range of 11 km.

  1. Reduction of belt CVT gear noise by gear train modification. Optimize vibration characteristics of gear train; Belt CVT no gear noise teigen gijutsu. Gear train shindo tokusei no saitekika

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Arimatsu, M; Kawakami, T [Nissan Motor Co. Ltd., Tokyo (Japan)

    1997-10-01

    With the reduction of vehicle noise, the requirements for an efficient method to reduce transmission gear noise have become stronger yearly. So far efforts to reduce gear noise have generally focused on ways of improving the gears themselves. In addition to these traditional methods, it proved very beneficial to us to optimize the gear train structure. Nissan has just released the new Belt CVT for 2.0L Front wheel drive vehicles. We have been analyzing vibration of the gear train by using a finite element model since the early development stage, and we could achieve the quiet gears effectively. 2 refs., 9 figs.

  2. Elastomeric Structural Attachment Concepts for Aircraft Flap Noise Reduction - Challenges and Approaches to Hyperelastic Structural Modeling and Analysis

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sreekantamurthy, Thammaiah; Turner, Travis L.; Moore, James B.; Su, Ji

    2014-01-01

    Airframe noise is a significant part of the overall noise of transport aircraft during the approach and landing phases of flight. Airframe noise reduction is currently emphasized under the Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) and Fixed Wing (FW) Project goals of NASA. A promising concept for trailing-edge-flap noise reduction is a flexible structural element or link that connects the side edges of the deployable flap to the adjacent main-wing structure. The proposed solution is distinguished by minimization of the span-wise extent of the structural link, thereby minimizing the aerodynamic load on the link structure at the expense of increased deformation requirement. Development of such a flexible structural link necessitated application of hyperelastic materials, atypical structural configurations and novel interface hardware. The resulting highly-deformable structural concept was termed the FLEXible Side Edge Link (FLEXSEL) concept. Prediction of atypical elastomeric deformation responses from detailed structural analysis was essential for evaluating feasible concepts that met the design constraints. The focus of this paper is to describe the many challenges encountered with hyperelastic finite element modeling and the nonlinear structural analysis of evolving FLEXSEL concepts. Detailed herein is the nonlinear analysis of FLEXSEL concepts that emerged during the project which include solid-section, foamcore, hollow, extended-span and pre-stressed concepts. Coupon-level analysis performed on elastomeric interface joints, which form a part of the FLEXSEL topology development, are also presented.

  3. Usefulness of acoustic noise reduction in brain MRI using Quiet-T{sub 2}-

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Lee, Se Jy [Dept. of Medical science Graduate school, Chonnam National University, Gwangju (Korea, Republic of); Kim, Young Keun [Dept. of Radiotechnology, Gwangju Health university, Gwangju (Korea, Republic of)

    2016-03-15

    Acoustic noise during magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the main source for patient discomfort. we report our preliminary experience with this technique in neuroimaging with regard to subjective and objective noise levels and image quality. 60 patients(29 males, 31 females, average age of 60.1) underwent routine brain MRI with 3.0 Tesla (MAGNETOM Tim Trio; Siemens, Germany) system and 12-channel head coil. Q-T{sub 2} and T{sub 2} sequence were performed. Measurement of sound pressure levels (SPL) and heart rate on Q-T{sub 2} and T{sub 2} was performed respectively. Quantitative analysis was carried out by measuring the SNR, CNR, and SIR values of Q-T{sub 2}, T{sub 2} and a statistical analysis was performed using independent sample T-test. Qualitative analysis was evaluated by the eyes for the overall quality image of Q-T{sub 2} and T{sub 2}. A 5-point evaluation scale was used, including excellent(5), good(4), fair(3), poor(2), and unacceptable(1). The average noise and peak noise decreased by 15dBA and 10dBA on T2 and Q-T2 test. Also, the average value of heartbeat rate was lower in Q-T2 for 120 seconds in each test, but there was no statistical significance. The quantitative analysis showed that there was no significant difference between CNR and SIR, and there was a significant difference (p<0.05) as SNR had a lower average value on Q-T{sub 2}. According to the qualitative analysis, the overall quality image of 59 case T{sub 2} and Q-T{sub 2} was evaluated as excellent at 5 points, and 1 case was evaluated as good at 4 points due to a motion artifact. Q-T{sub 2} is a promising technique for acoustic noise reduction and improved patient comfort.

  4. Noise Scaling and Community Noise Metrics for the Hybrid Wing Body Aircraft

    Science.gov (United States)

    Burley, Casey L.; Brooks, Thomas F.; Hutcheson, Florence V.; Doty, Michael J.; Lopes, Leonard V.; Nickol, Craig L.; Vicroy, Dan D.; Pope, D. Stuart

    2014-01-01

    An aircraft system noise assessment was performed for the hybrid wing body aircraft concept, known as the N2A-EXTE. This assessment is a result of an effort by NASA to explore a realistic HWB design that has the potential to substantially reduce noise and fuel burn. Under contract to NASA, Boeing designed the aircraft using practical aircraft design princip0les with incorporation of noise technologies projected to be available in the 2020 timeframe. NASA tested 5.8% scale-mode of the design in the NASA Langley 14- by 22-Foot Subsonic Tunnel to provide source noise directivity and installation effects for aircraft engine and airframe configurations. Analysis permitted direct scaling of the model-scale jet, airframe, and engine shielding effect measurements to full-scale. Use of these in combination with ANOPP predictions enabled computations of the cumulative (CUM) noise margins relative to FAA Stage 4 limits. The CUM margins were computed for a baseline N2A-EXTE configuration and for configurations with added noise reduction strategies. The strategies include reduced approach speed, over-the-rotor line and soft-vane fan technologies, vertical tail placement and orientation, and modified landing gear designs with fairings. Combining the inherent HWB engine shielding by the airframe with added noise technologies, the cumulative noise was assessed at 38.7 dB below FAA Stage 4 certification level, just 3.3 dB short of the NASA N+2 goal of 42 dB. This new result shows that the NASA N+2 goal is approachable and that significant reduction in overall aircraft noise is possible through configurations with noise reduction technologies and operational changes.

  5. Optimal Height Calculation and Modelling of Noise Barrier

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Raimondas Grubliauskas

    2011-04-01

    Full Text Available Transport is one of the main sources of noise having a particularly strong negative impact on the environment. In the city, one of the best methods to reduce the spread of noise in residential areas is a noise barrier. The article presents noise reduction barrier adaptation with empirical formulas calculating and modelling noise distribution. The simulation of noise dispersion has been performed applying the CadnaA program that allows modelling the noise levels of various developments under changing conditions. Calculation and simulation is obtained by assessing the level of noise reduction using the same variables. The investigation results are presented as noise distribution isolines. The selection of a different height of noise barriers are the results calculated at the heights of 1, 4 and 15 meters. The level of noise reduction at the maximum overlap of data, calculation and simulation has reached about 10%.Article in Lithuanian

  6. Historicizing affordance theory

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Pedersen, Sofie; Bang, Jytte Susanne

    2017-01-01

    The aim of this article is to discuss how mutually enriching points from both affordance theory and cultural-historical activity theory can promote theoretical ideas which may prove useful as analytical tools for the study of human life and human development. There are two issues that need...... to be overcome in order to explore the potentials of James Gibson’s affordance theory: it does not sufficiently theorize (a) development and (b) society. We claim that Gibson’s affordance theory still needs to be brought beyond “the axiom of immediacy.” Ambivalences in Gibson’s affordance theory...... societal character of affordance theory....

  7. Single-photoelectron noise reduction in scintillation detectors

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Marvin, T.P.

    1995-10-01

    The 1994--95 search at SLAC for mulicharged particles used four 21 x 21 x 130-cm 3 Bicron 408 scintillation counters to detect a signal at the single-photoelectron level. The competing noise requiring minimization was due to a combination of PM tube (8-inch Thorne EMI 9353KA) afterpulsing and ambient radiation-induced scintillator luminescence. A very slow decay (> 30 μs) component was observed and received particular attention. Efforts to reduce the SPE noise included photomultiplier tube base modifications, detector shielding and cooling, signal amplification, and veto procedures

  8. Reduction of external noise of mobile energy facilities by using active noise control system in muffler

    Science.gov (United States)

    Polivaev, O. I.; Kuznetsov, A. N.; Larionov, A. N.; Beliansky, R. G.

    2018-03-01

    The paper describes a method for the reducing emission of low-frequency noise of modern automotive vehicles into the environment. The importance of reducing the external noise of modern mobile energy facilities made in Russia is substantiated. Standard methods for controlling external noise in technology are of low efficiency when low-frequency sound waves are reduced. In this case, it is in the low-frequency zone of the sound range that the main power of the noise emitted by the machinery lies. The most effective way to reduce such sound waves is to use active noise control systems. A design of a muffler using a similar system is presented. This muffler allowed one to reduce the emission of increased noise levels into the environment by 7-11 dB and to increase acoustic comfort at the operator's workplace by 3-5 dB.

  9. GPR random noise reduction using BPD and EMD

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ostoori, Roya; Goudarzi, Alireza; Oskooi, Behrooz

    2018-04-01

    Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) exploration is a new high-frequency technology that explores near-surface objects and structures accurately. The high-frequency antenna of the GPR system makes it a high-resolution method compared to other geophysical methods. The frequency range of recorded GPR is so wide that random noise recording is inevitable due to acquisition. This kind of noise comes from unknown sources and its correlation to the adjacent traces is nearly zero. This characteristic of random noise along with the higher accuracy of GPR system makes denoising very important for interpretable results. The main objective of this paper is to reduce GPR random noise based on pursuing denoising using empirical mode decomposition. Our results showed that empirical mode decomposition in combination with basis pursuit denoising (BPD) provides satisfactory outputs due to the sifting process compared to the time-domain implementation of the BPD method on both synthetic and real examples. Our results demonstrate that because of the high computational costs, the BPD-empirical mode decomposition technique should only be used for heavily noisy signals.

  10. Combat aircraft noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sgarbozza, M.; Depitre, A.

    1992-04-01

    A discussion of the characteristics and the noise levels of combat aircraft and of a transport aircraft in taking off and landing are presented. Some methods of noise reduction are discussed, including the following: operational anti-noise procedures; and concepts of future engines (silent post-combustion and variable cycle). Some measurement results concerning the noise generated in flight at great speeds and low altitude will also be examined. Finally, the protection of the environment of French air bases against noise will be described and the possibilities of regulation examined.

  11. Localized, Non-Harmonic Active Flap Motions for Low Frequency In-Plane Rotor Noise Reduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sim, Ben W.; Potsdam, Mark; Kitaplioglu, Cahit; LeMasurier, Philip; Lorber, Peter; Andrews, Joseph

    2012-01-01

    A first-of-its-kind demonstration of the use of localized, non-harmonic active flap motions, for suppressing low frequency, in-plane rotor noise, is reported in this paper. Operational feasibility is verified via testing of the full-scale AATD/Sikorsky/UTRC active flap demonstration rotor in the NFAC's 40- by 80-Foot anechoic wind tunnel. Effectiveness of using localized, non-harmonic active flap motions are compared to conventional four-per-rev harmonic flap motions, and also active flap motions derived from closed-loop acoustics implementations. All three approaches resulted in approximately the same noise reductions over an in-plane three-by-three microphone array installed forward and near in-plane of the rotor in the nearfield. It is also reported that using an active flap in this localized, non-harmonic manner, resulted in no more that 2% rotor performance penalty, but had the tendency to incur higher hub vibration levels.

  12. High Velocity Jet Noise Source Location and Reduction. Task 6. Noise Abatement Nozzle Design Guide.

    Science.gov (United States)

    1979-04-01

    the Conical Nozzle 255 on the Bertin Aerotrain . xvi ji4 ’ . _______ p .. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS (Continued) Figure Page D-37. Predicted and Measured...Moving-Frame Noise from the 256 Conical Nozzle on the Bertin Aerotrain . D-38. Predicted and Measured Static Noise from the 104-Tube 257 Nozzle on the...Bertin Aerotrain . D-39. Predicted and Measured Moving-Frame Noise from the 104- 258 Tube Nozzle on the Bertin Aerotrain . D-40. Relative Velocity Index m

  13. Network Affordances

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Samson, Audrey; Soon, Winnie

    2015-01-01

    This paper examines the notion of network affordance within the context of network art. Building on Gibson's theory (Gibson, 1979) we understand affordance as the perceived and actual parameters of a thing. We expand on Gaver's affordance of predictability (Gaver, 1996) to include ecological...... and computational parameters of unpredictability. We illustrate the notion of unpredictability by considering four specific works that were included in a network art exhibiton, SPEED SHOW [2.0] Hong Kong. The paper discusses how the artworks are contingent upon the parameteric relations (Parisi, 2013......), of the network. We introduce network affordance as a dynamic framework that could articulate the experienced tension arising from the (visible) symbolic representation of computational processes and its hidden occurrences. We base our proposal on the experience of both organising the SPEED SHOW and participating...

  14. Research on Aerodynamic Noise Reduction for High-Speed Trains

    OpenAIRE

    Zhang, Yadong; Zhang, Jiye; Li, Tian; Zhang, Liang; Zhang, Weihua

    2016-01-01

    A broadband noise source model based on Lighthill’s acoustic theory was used to perform numerical simulations of the aerodynamic noise sources for a high-speed train. The near-field unsteady flow around a high-speed train was analysed based on a delayed detached-eddy simulation (DDES) using the finite volume method with high-order difference schemes. The far-field aerodynamic noise from a high-speed train was predicted using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD)/Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings (FW-H)...

  15. Entanglement enhancement through multirail noise reduction for continuous-variable measurement-based quantum-information processing

    Science.gov (United States)

    Su, Yung-Chao; Wu, Shin-Tza

    2017-09-01

    We study theoretically the teleportation of a controlled-phase (cz) gate through measurement-based quantum-information processing for continuous-variable systems. We examine the degree of entanglement in the output modes of the teleported cz-gate for two classes of resource states: the canonical cluster states that are constructed via direct implementations of two-mode squeezing operations and the linear-optical version of cluster states which are built from linear-optical networks of beam splitters and phase shifters. In order to reduce the excess noise arising from finite-squeezed resource states, teleportation through resource states with different multirail designs will be considered and the enhancement of entanglement in the teleported cz gates will be analyzed. For multirail cluster with an arbitrary number of rails, we obtain analytical expressions for the entanglement in the output modes and analyze in detail the results for both classes of resource states. At the same time, we also show that for uniformly squeezed clusters the multirail noise reduction can be optimized when the excess noise is allocated uniformly to the rails. To facilitate the analysis, we develop a trick with manipulations of quadrature operators that can reveal rather efficiently the measurement sequence and corrective operations needed for the measurement-based gate teleportation, which will also be explained in detail.

  16. Noise and its reduction in graphene based nanopore devices

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kumar, Ashvani; Park, Kyeong-Beom; Kim, Hyun-Mi; Kim, Ki-Bum

    2013-01-01

    Ionic current fluctuations in graphene nanopore devices are a ubiquitous phenomenon and are responsible for degraded spatial and temporal resolution. Here, we descriptively investigate the impact of different substrate materials (Si and quartz) and membrane thicknesses on noise characteristics of graphene nanopore devices. To mitigate the membrane fluctuations and pin-hole defects, a SiN x membrane is transferred onto the substrate and a pore of approximately 70 nm in diameter is perforated prior to the graphene transfer. Comprehensive noise study reveals that the few layer graphene transferred onto the quartz substrate possesses low noise level and higher signal to noise ratio as compared to single layer graphene, without deteriorating the spatial resolution. The findings here point to improvement of graphene based nanopore devices for exciting opportunities in future single-molecule genomic screening devices. (paper)

  17. New solution for transport and industrial noise protection through reflective noise barriers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Kralov Ivan

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available A new solution for protection of transportation and industrial noise through reflective noise barriers is proposed and investigated in this study. The new solution combines the advantages of the known barriers and has its own advantages in addition. The preliminary results show a very good level of noise reduction for this type of barriers.

  18. Observation of modulation speed enhancement, frequency modulation suppression, and phase noise reduction by detuned loading in a coupled-cavity semiconductor laser

    OpenAIRE

    Vahala, Kerry; Paslaski, Joel; Yariv, Amnon

    1985-01-01

    Simultaneous direct modulation response enhancement, phase noise (linewidth) reduction, and frequency modulation suppression are produced in a coupled-cavity semiconductor laser by the detuned loading mechanism.

  19. Handbook Of Noise And Vibration

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    1995-12-01

    This book is about noise and vibration. The first chapter has explanations of noise such as basic of sound, influence of noise, assessment of noise, measurement of prevention of noise and technology, case of noise measurement and soundproof. The second chapter describes vibration with outline, theory of vibration, interpretation of vibration, measurement for reduction of vibration, case of design of protection against vibration. It deals with related regulation and method of measurement.

  20. Noise control in aeroacoustics; Proceedings of the 1993 National Conference on Noise Control Engineering, NOISE-CON 93, Williamsburg, VA, May 2-5, 1993

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hubbard, Harvey H. (Editor)

    1993-01-01

    In the conference over 100 papers were presented in eight sessions: (1) Emission: Noise Sources; (2) Physical Phenomena; (3) Noise ControlElements; (4) Vibration and Shock: Generation, Transmission, Isolation, and Reduction; (5) Immission: Physical Aspects of Environmental Noise; (6) Immission: Effects of Noise; (7) Analysis; and (8) Requirements. In addition, the distinguished lecture series included presentations on the High Speed Civil Transport and on research from the United Kingdom on aircraft noise effects.

  1. Damping layout optimization for ship's cabin noise reduction based on statistical energy analysis

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    WU Weiguo

    2017-08-01

    Full Text Available An optimization analysis study concerning the damping control of ship's cabin noise was carried out in order to improve the effect and reduce the weight of damping. Based on the Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA method, a theoretical deduction and numerical analysis of the first-order sensitivity analysis of the A-weighted sound pressure level concerning the damping loss factor of the subsystem were carried out. On this basis, a mathematical optimization model was proposed and an optimization program developed. Next, the secondary development of VA One software was implemented through the use of MATLAB, while the cabin noise damping control layout optimization system was established. Finally, the optimization model of the ship was constructed and numerical experiments of damping control optimization conducted. The damping installation region was divided into five parts with different damping thicknesses. The total weight of damping was set as an objective function and the A-weighted sound pressure level of the target cabin was set as a constraint condition. The best damping thickness was obtained through the optimization program, and the total damping weight was reduced by 60.4%. The results show that the damping noise reduction effect of unit weight is significantly improved through the optimization method. This research successfully solves the installation position and thickness selection problems in the acoustic design of damping control, providing a reliable analysis method and guidance for the design.

  2. Reduction of noise in the neonatal intensive care unit using sound-activated noise meters.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Wang, D; Aubertin, C; Barrowman, N; Moreau, K; Dunn, S; Harrold, J

    2014-11-01

    To determine if sound-activated noise meters providing direct audit and visual feedback can reduce sound levels in a level 3 neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Sound levels (in dB) were compared between a 2-month period with noise meters present but without visual signal fluctuation and a subsequent 2 months with the noise meters providing direct audit and visual feedback. There was a significant increase in the percentage of time the sound level in the NICU was below 50 dB across all patient care areas (9.9%, 8.9% and 7.3%). This improvement was not observed in the desk area where there are no admitted patients. There was no change in the percentage of time the NICU was below 45 or 55 dB. Sound-activated noise meters seem effective in reducing sound levels in patient care areas. Conversations may have moved to non-patient care areas preventing a similar change there. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

  3. A new technique for noise reduction at coronary CT angiography with multi-phase data-averaging and non-rigid image registration

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Tatsugami, Fuminari; Higaki, Toru; Nakamura, Yuko; Yamagami, Takuji; Date, Shuji; Awai, Kazuo [Hiroshima University, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Minami-ku, Hiroshima (Japan); Fujioka, Chikako; Kiguchi, Masao [Hiroshima University, Department of Radiology, Minami-ku, Hiroshima (Japan); Kihara, Yasuki [Hiroshima University, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Minami-ku, Hiroshima (Japan)

    2015-01-15

    To investigate the feasibility of a newly developed noise reduction technique at coronary CT angiography (CTA) that uses multi-phase data-averaging and non-rigid image registration. Sixty-five patients underwent coronary CTA with prospective ECG-triggering. The range of the phase window was set at 70-80 % of the R-R interval. First, three sets of consecutive volume data at 70 %, 75 % and 80 % of the R-R interval were prepared. Second, we applied non-rigid registration to align the 70 % and 80 % images to the 75 % image. Finally, we performed weighted averaging of the three images and generated a de-noised image. The image noise and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) in the proximal coronary arteries between the conventional 75 % and the de-noised images were compared. Two radiologists evaluated the image quality using a 5-point scale (1, poor; 5, excellent). On de-noised images, mean image noise was significantly lower than on conventional 75 % images (18.3 HU ± 2.6 vs. 23.0 HU ± 3.3, P < 0.01) and the CNR was significantly higher (P < 0.01). The mean image quality score for conventional 75 % and de-noised images was 3.9 and 4.4, respectively (P < 0.01). Our method reduces image noise and improves image quality at coronary CTA. (orig.)

  4. Third version of vendor-specific model-based iterativereconstruction (Veo 3.0): evaluation of CT image quality in the abdomen using new noise reduction presets and varied slice optimization.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Telesmanich, Morgan E; Jensen, Corey T; Enriquez, Jose L; Wagner-Bartak, Nicolaus A; Liu, Xinming; Le, Ott; Wei, Wei; Chandler, Adam G; Tamm, Eric P

    2017-08-01

    To qualitatively and quantitatively compare abdominal CT images reconstructed with a newversion of model-based iterative reconstruction (Veo 3.0; GE Healthcare Waukesha, WI) utilizing varied presetsof resolution preference, noise reduction and slice optimization. This retrospective study was approved by our Institutional Review Board and was Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act compliant. The raw datafrom 30 consecutive patients who had undergone CT abdomen scanning were used to reconstructfour clinical presets of 3.75mm axial images using Veo 3.0: 5% resolution preference (RP05n), 5%noise reduction (NR05) and 40% noise reduction (NR40) with new 3.75mm "sliceoptimization," as well as one set using RP05 with conventional 0.625mm "slice optimization" (RP05c). The images were reviewed by two independent readers in a blinded, randomized manner using a 5-point Likert scale as well as a 5-point comparative scale. Multiple two-dimensional circular regions of interest were defined for noise and contrast-to-noise ratio measurements. Line profiles were drawn across the 7 lp cm -1 bar pattern of the Catphan 600 phantom for evaluation of spatial resolution. The NR05 image set was ranked as the best series in overall image quality (mean difference inrank 0.48, 95% CI [0.081-0.88], p = 0.01) and with specific reference to liver evaluation (meandifference 0.46, 95% CI [0.030-0.89], p = 0.03), when compared with the secondbest series ineach category. RP05n was ranked as the best for bone evaluation. NR40 was ranked assignificantly inferior across all assessed categories. Although the NR05 and RP05c image setshad nearly the same contrast-to-noise ratio and spatial resolution, NR05 was generally preferred. Image noise and spatial resolution increased along a spectrum with RP05n the highest and NR40the lowest. Compared to RP05n, the average noise was 21.01% lower for NR05, 26.88%lower for RP05c and 50.86% lower for NR40. Veo 3.0 clinical presets allow for

  5. Background reduction and noise discrimination in the proportional counting of tritium using pulse-shape analysis

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hochel, R C; Hayes, D W [Du Pont de Nemours (E.I.) and Co., Aiken, S.C. (USA). Savannah River Lab.

    1975-12-01

    A pulse-shape analysis (PSA) unit of commercial design has been incorporated into a proportional counting system to determine the effectiveness of pulse-shape discrimination in increasing the sensitivity of tritium counting. It was found that a quantitative determination of tritium could be obtained directly from the PSA time spectrum eliminating the need for beta-ray energy selection used in the pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) technique. The performance of the proportional counting system was tested using the PSA unit and anticoincidence shielding, both singly and combined, under several types of background. A background reduction factor of 169 was obtained from the combined PSA-anticoincidence system with only a 2% loss in tritium counting efficiency. The PSA method was also found to offer significant reductions in noise background.

  6. Noise reduction by sparse representation in learned dictionaries for application to blind tip reconstruction problem

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jóźwiak, Grzegorz

    2017-01-01

    Scanning probe microscopy (SPM) is a well known tool used for the investigation of phenomena in objects in the nanometer size range. However, quantitative results are limited by the size and the shape of the nanoprobe used in experiments. Blind tip reconstruction (BTR) is a very popular method used to reconstruct the upper boundary on the shape of the probe. This method is known to be very sensitive to all kinds of interference in the atomic force microscopy (AFM) image. Due to mathematical morphology calculus, the interference makes the BTR results biased rather than randomly disrupted. For this reason, the careful choice of methods used for image enhancement and denoising, as well as the shape of a calibration sample are very important. In the paper, the results of thorough investigations on the shape of a calibration standard are shown. A novel shape is proposed and a tool for the simulation of AFM images of this calibration standard was designed. It was shown that careful choice of the initial tip allows us to use images of hole structures to blindly reconstruct the shape of a probe. The simulator was used to test the impact of modern filtration algorithms on the BTR process. These techniques are based on sparse approximation with function dictionaries learned on the basis of an image itself. Various learning algorithms and parameters were tested to determine the optimal combination for sparse representation. It was observed that the strong reduction of noise does not guarantee strong reduction in reconstruction errors. It seems that further improvements will be possible by the combination of BTR and a noise reduction procedure. (paper)

  7. Noise-induced hearing loss: a recreational noise perspective.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ivory, Robert; Kane, Rebecca; Diaz, Rodney C

    2014-10-01

    This review will discuss the real-world risk factors involved in noise-induced hearing loss as a result of common and popular recreational activities prone to mid and high levels of noise exposure. Although there are currently no interventional measures available to reverse or mitigate preexisting hearing loss from noise, we discuss the vital importance of hearing loss prevention from noise exposure avoidance and reduction. Despite a seeming understanding of the effects of noise exposure from various recreational activities and devices, a large percentage of the general public who is at risk of such noise-induced hearing loss still chooses to refrain from using hearing protection instruments. While occupational exposures pose the greatest traditional risk to hearing conservation in selected workers, recreational risk factors for noise-induced hearing loss may be more insidious in overall effect given the indifferent attitude of much of the general public and particularly our youths toward hearing protection during recreational activities. Active counseling regarding the consequences of excessive noise exposure and the potential benefits to hearing from usage of hearing protection instruments is critical to providing best possible care in the hearing health professions.

  8. Active control of the noise

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Rodriguez V, Luis Alfonso; Lopez Q, Jose German

    2001-01-01

    The problems of acoustic noise are more and more preponderant in the measure in that the amount of equipment and industrial machinery is increased such as fans, transformers, compressors etc. the use of devices passive mechanics for the reduction of the noise is effective and very appreciated because its effects embrace a wide range of acoustic frequency. However, to low frequencies, such devices become too big and expensive besides that present a tendency to do not effective. The control of active noise, CAN, using the electronic generation anti-noise, constitutes an interesting solution to the problem because their operation principle allows achieving an appreciable reduction of the noise by means of the use of compact devices. The traditional techniques for the control of acoustic noise like barriers and silenced to attenuate it, are classified as passive and their works has been accepted as norm as for the treatment of problems of noise it refers. Such techniques are considered in general very effective in the attenuation of noise of wide band. However, for low frequency, the required passive structures are too big and expensive; also, their effectiveness diminishes flagrantly, that which makes them impractical in many applications. The active suppression is profiled like a practical alternative for the reduction of acoustic noise. The idea in the active treatment of the noise it contemplates the use of a device electro-acoustic, like a speaker for example that it cancels to the noise by the generation of sounds of Same width and of contrary phase (anti-noise). The cancellation phenomenon is carried out when the ant-noise combines acoustically with the noise, what is in the cancellation of both sounds. The effectiveness of the cancellation of the primary source of noise depends on the precision with which the width and the phase of the generated ant-noise are controlled. The active control of noise, ANC (activates noise control), it is being investigated for

  9. Research status on aero-acoustic noise from wind turbine blades

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yang, B

    2013-01-01

    This paper describes the noise mechanisms and categories of modern large wind turbine and main noise sources. Then the latest progresses in wind turbine noise researches are described from three aspects: noise prediction model, detection of noise sources by microphone array technique and methods for noise reduction. Although the turbine is restricted to horizontal axis wind turbines, the noise prediction model and reduction methods also can be applied to other turbines when the noise mechanisms are similar. Microphone array technique can be applied to locate any kind of noise sources

  10. Identification and reduction of vibration and noise of a glass tempering system

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ashhab, M S

    2015-01-01

    The vibration and noise of a glass tempering machine at a factory are studied. Experiments were conducted to identify the sources of vibration and noise. It was found that main sources for vibration and noise are two air barrels, the air pipes from the fans to the glass tempering machine and the fans location. Solutions were suggested to reduce vibration and noise from these three main sources. One of the solutions that were implemented is placing rubber dampers beneath the air barrels and pipes which almost cancelled the horizontal vibrations in the building structure and reduced the vertical vibrations to a low value most likely coming from noise. There are two types of noise, namely, radiation noise from the fans through the fans room walls and transmitted noise through the pipes caused by turbulence. A glass wool noise insulating layer was installed on the wall between the fans room and factory to reduce radiation noise through this wall. Part of the air pipe system in the factory is made of a light material which produced the highest levels of noise above 110 dBA. These air pipes were wrapped by glass wool rolls and the noise level near them was reduced to below 100 dBA which comes from other machine parts. In addition, noise levels were reduced between 2 and 15 dBA at different points in the factory. (paper)

  11. The iterative shrinkage method for impulsive noise reduction from images

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Beygi, Sajjad; Kafashan, Mohammadmehdi; Bahrami, Hamid Reza; Mugler, Dale H

    2012-01-01

    In this paper, we present a novel scheme to compensate impulsive noise from images using the sparse shrinkage method. In this scheme, we assume the remaining noise after using a simple median filtering in place of corrupted pixels, found by boundary discriminative noise detection method, to be Gaussian additive noise. This assumption will later be verified by the means of simulation. Knowing that the pure image in the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) domain is a sparse vector, we define an optimization problem to minimize the l 0 -norm of the estimated image vector from the noisy one in the DWT domain. l 0 -norm makes the optimization problem a combinatorial optimization problem which is NP-hard to solve. To come up with a solution for our optimization problem, we convert the l 0 -norm problem to a continuous optimization problem which is then solved to find the estimated image with reduced noise. In the simulation and discussion part, the performance of our proposed method in reducing impulsive noise is compared to that of existing methods in the literature. We show that our proposed algorithm generally performs better in terms of both subjective and objective evaluations and is less complex. (paper)

  12. Two dimension MDW OCDMA code cross-correlation for reduction of phase induced intensity noise

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Sh. Ahmed Israa

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, we first review 2-D MDW code cross correlation equations and table to be improved significantly by using code correlation properties. These codes can be used in the synchronous optical CDMA systems for multi access interference cancellation and maximum suppress the phase induced intensity noise. Low Psr is due to the reduction of interference noise that is induced by the 2-D MDW code PIIN suppression. High data rate causes increases in BER, requires high effective power and severely deteriorates the system performance. The 2-D W/T MDW code has an excellent system performance where the value of PIIN is suppressed as low as possible at the optimum Psr with high data bit rate. The 2-D MDW code shows better tolerance to PIIN in comparison to others with enhanced system performance. We prove by numerical analysis that the PIIN maximally suppressed by MDW code through the minimizing property of cross correlation in comparison to 2-D PDC and 2-D MQC OCDMA code.scheme systems.

  13. Two dimension MDW OCDMA code cross-correlation for reduction of phase induced intensity noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ahmed, Israa Sh.; Aljunid, Syed A.; Nordin, Junita M.; Dulaimi, Layth A. Khalil Al; Matem, Rima

    2017-11-01

    In this paper, we first review 2-D MDW code cross correlation equations and table to be improved significantly by using code correlation properties. These codes can be used in the synchronous optical CDMA systems for multi access interference cancellation and maximum suppress the phase induced intensity noise. Low Psr is due to the reduction of interference noise that is induced by the 2-D MDW code PIIN suppression. High data rate causes increases in BER, requires high effective power and severely deteriorates the system performance. The 2-D W/T MDW code has an excellent system performance where the value of PIIN is suppressed as low as possible at the optimum Psr with high data bit rate. The 2-D MDW code shows better tolerance to PIIN in comparison to others with enhanced system performance. We prove by numerical analysis that the PIIN maximally suppressed by MDW code through the minimizing property of cross correlation in comparison to 2-D PDC and 2-D MQC OCDMA code.scheme systems.

  14. Background reduction and noise discrimination in the proportional counting of tritium using pulse-shape analysis

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hochel, R.C.; Hayes, D.W.

    1975-01-01

    A pulse-shape analysis (PSA) unit of commercial design has been incorporated into a proportional counting system to determine the effectiveness of pulse-shape discrimination in increasing the sensitivity of tritium counting. It was found that a quantitative determination of tritium could be obtained directly from the PSA time spectrum eliminating the need for beta-ray energy selection used in the pulse-shape discrimination (PSD) technique. The performance of the proportional counting system was tested using the PSA unit and anticoincidence shielding, both singly and combined, under several types of background. A background reduction factor of 169 was obtained from the combined PSA-anticoincidence system with only a 2% loss in tritium counting efficiency. The PSA method was also found to offer significant reductions in noise background. (Auth.)

  15. Optimal noise reduction in 3D reconstructions of single particles using a volume-normalized filter

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sindelar, Charles V.; Grigorieff, Nikolaus

    2012-01-01

    The high noise level found in single-particle electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM) image data presents a special challenge for three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of the imaged molecules. The spectral signal-to-noise ratio (SSNR) and related Fourier shell correlation (FSC) functions are commonly used to assess and mitigate the noise-generated error in the reconstruction. Calculation of the SSNR and FSC usually includes the noise in the solvent region surrounding the particle and therefore does not accurately reflect the signal in the particle density itself. Here we show that the SSNR in a reconstructed 3D particle map is linearly proportional to the fractional volume occupied by the particle. Using this relationship, we devise a novel filter (the “single-particle Wiener filter”) to minimize the error in a reconstructed particle map, if the particle volume is known. Moreover, we show how to approximate this filter even when the volume of the particle is not known, by optimizing the signal within a representative interior region of the particle. We show that the new filter improves on previously proposed error-reduction schemes, including the conventional Wiener filter as well as figure-of-merit weighting, and quantify the relationship between all of these methods by theoretical analysis as well as numeric evaluation of both simulated and experimentally collected data. The single-particle Wiener filter is applicable across a broad range of existing 3D reconstruction techniques, but is particularly well suited to the Fourier inversion method, leading to an efficient and accurate implementation. PMID:22613568

  16. Design of indoor furniture with acoustic insulation and noise reduction function

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Ziqiang; Lyu, Jianhua; Chen, Ming

    2018-05-01

    In this article, the current status of noise pollution research is analyzed and indoor noise pollution hazard on human body is discussed taking noise pollution as entry point to better understand people's needs in this concern, and it comes to the conclusion that indoor furniture with noise insulation function is required; In addition, the design status and necessity of indoor furniture with noise insulation function are expounded and the material property, structure design essentials and form design are analyzed according to sound transmission principles. In the end, design case study is presented to provide an effective way for design of indoor furniture with acoustic insulation function that meets people's needs.

  17. Theoretical calculation on ICI reduction using digital coherent superposition of optical OFDM subcarrier pairs in the presence of laser phase noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yi, Xingwen; Xu, Bo; Zhang, Jing; Lin, Yun; Qiu, Kun

    2014-12-15

    Digital coherent superposition (DCS) of optical OFDM subcarrier pairs with Hermitian symmetry can reduce the inter-carrier-interference (ICI) noise resulted from phase noise. In this paper, we show two different implementations of DCS-OFDM that have the same performance in the presence of laser phase noise. We complete the theoretical calculation on ICI reduction by using the model of pure Wiener phase noise. By Taylor expansion of the ICI, we show that the ICI power is cancelled to the second order by DCS. The fourth order term is further derived out and only decided by the ratio of laser linewidth to OFDM subcarrier symbol rate, which can greatly simplify the system design. Finally, we verify our theoretical calculations in simulations and use the analytical results to predict the system performance. DCS-OFDM is expected to be beneficial to certain optical fiber transmissions.

  18. Noise Reduction planar bone imaging nuclear medicine with the use of wavelet transform: an assessment of its quality

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Casas Cardoso, Maria del Carmen; Perez Diaz, Marlen; Casas Cardoso, Gladis; Lorenzo Ginori, Juan; Paz Viera, Juan Enrique; Roque Diaz, Reinaldo; Cardenas Barreras, Julian

    2009-01-01

    Diagnostic imaging of Nuclear Medicine (MN), is highly used in Oncology, as it constitutes a noninvasive technique that allows early detection of tumors and assessment of therapeutic response of patients under treatment. However, particularly planar scintigraphy images, can be prone to problems of detectability of small lesions, because they are contaminated with noise, a phenomenon which is accentuated by the inability to increase the dose of the radiopharmaceutical or time acquisition of images of the patient over 'certain levels'. The aim of this work is to improve the detectability of tumors of bone. We describe an algorithm for random noise reduction using the wavelet transform (TW). The quality of the resulting images are evaluated through quantitative metrics such as Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), the Mean Square Error (NMSEA) and Structural Similarity Index (SSIM). It also includes a subjective assessment of image quality by expert criteria, using a variant of the methodology FROC (Free-Response ROC). It was found that some of the filters designed in the wavelet domain, significantly improve the quality of planar bone imaging in terms of increased signal to noise ratio without implying notable structural distortions, which facilitates clinical diagnosis. (author)

  19. Advanced supersonic propulsion study. [with emphasis on noise level reduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sabatella, J. A. (Editor)

    1974-01-01

    A study was conducted to determine the promising propulsion systems for advanced supersonic transport application, and to identify the critical propulsion technology requirements. It is shown that noise constraints have a major effect on the selection of the various engine types and cycle parameters. Several promising advanced propulsion systems were identified which show the potential of achieving lower levels of sideline jet noise than the first generation supersonic transport systems. The non-afterburning turbojet engine, utilizing a very high level of jet suppression, shows the potential to achieve FAR 36 noise level. The duct-heating turbofan with a low level of jet suppression is the most attractive engine for noise levels from FAR 36 to FAR 36 minus 5 EPNdb, and some series/parallel variable cycle engines show the potential of achieving noise levels down to FAR 36 minus 10 EPNdb with moderate additional penalty. The study also shows that an advanced supersonic commercial transport would benefit appreciably from advanced propulsion technology. The critical propulsion technology needed for a viable supersonic propulsion system, and the required specific propulsion technology programs are outlined.

  20. SU-F-18C-15: Model-Based Multiscale Noise Reduction On Low Dose Cone Beam Projection

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yao, W; Farr, J

    2014-01-01

    Purpose: To improve image quality of low dose cone beam CT for patient positioning in radiation therapy. Methods: In low dose cone beam CT (CBCT) imaging systems, Poisson process governs the randomness of photon fluence at x-ray source and the detector because of the independent binomial process of photon absorption in medium. On a CBCT projection, the variance of fluence consists of the variance of noiseless imaging structure and that of Poisson noise, which is proportional to the mean (noiseless) of the fluence at the detector. This requires multiscale filters to smoothen noise while keeping the structure information of the imaged object. We used a mathematical model of Poisson process to design multiscale filters and established the balance of noise correction and structure blurring. The algorithm was checked with low dose kilo-voltage CBCT projections acquired from a Varian OBI system. Results: From the investigation of low dose CBCT of a Catphan phantom and patients, it showed that our model-based multiscale technique could efficiently reduce noise and meanwhile keep the fine structure of the imaged object. After the image processing, the number of visible line pairs in Catphan phantom scanned with 4 ms pulse time was similar to that scanned with 32 ms, and soft tissue structure from simulated 4 ms patient head-and-neck images was also comparable with scanned 20 ms ones. Compared with fixed-scale technique, the image quality from multiscale one was improved. Conclusion: Use of projection-specific multiscale filters can reach better balance on noise reduction and structure information loss. The image quality of low dose CBCT can be improved by using multiscale filters

  1. AST Critical Propulsion and Noise Reduction Technologies for Future Commercial Subsonic Engines Area of Interest 1.0: Reliable and Affordable Control Systems

    Science.gov (United States)

    Myers, William; Winter, Steve

    2006-01-01

    The General Electric Reliable and Affordable Controls effort under the NASA Advanced Subsonic Technology (AST) Program has designed, fabricated, and tested advanced controls hardware and software to reduce emissions and improve engine safety and reliability. The original effort consisted of four elements: 1) a Hydraulic Multiplexer; 2) Active Combustor Control; 3) a Variable Displacement Vane Pump (VDVP); and 4) Intelligent Engine Control. The VDVP and Intelligent Engine Control elements were cancelled due to funding constraints and are reported here only to the state they progressed. The Hydraulic Multiplexing element developed and tested a prototype which improves reliability by combining the functionality of up to 16 solenoids and servo-valves into one component with a single electrically powered force motor. The Active Combustor Control element developed intelligent staging and control strategies for low emission combustors. This included development and tests of a Controlled Pressure Fuel Nozzle for fuel sequencing, a Fuel Multiplexer for individual fuel cup metering, and model-based control logic. Both the Hydraulic Multiplexer and Controlled Pressure Fuel Nozzle system were cleared for engine test. The Fuel Multiplexer was cleared for combustor rig test which must be followed by an engine test to achieve full maturation.

  2. Flap Edge Noise Reduction Fins

    Science.gov (United States)

    Khorrami, Mehdi R. (Inventor); Choudhan, Meelan M. (Inventor)

    2015-01-01

    A flap of the type that is movably connected to an aircraft wing to provide control of an aircraft in flight includes opposite ends, wherein at least a first opposite end includes a plurality of substantially rigid, laterally extending protrusions that are spaced apart to form a plurality of fluidly interconnected passageways. The passageways have openings adjacent to upper and lower sides of the flap, and the passageways include a plurality of bends such that high pressure fluid flows from a high pressure region to a low pressure region to provide a boundary condition that inhibits noise resulting from airflow around the end of the flap.

  3. Noise Reduction in Breath Sound Files Using Wavelet Transform Based Filter

    Science.gov (United States)

    Syahputra, M. F.; Situmeang, S. I. G.; Rahmat, R. F.; Budiarto, R.

    2017-04-01

    The development of science and technology in the field of healthcare increasingly provides convenience in diagnosing respiratory system problem. Recording the breath sounds is one example of these developments. Breath sounds are recorded using a digital stethoscope, and then stored in a file with sound format. This breath sounds will be analyzed by health practitioners to diagnose the symptoms of disease or illness. However, the breath sounds is not free from interference signals. Therefore, noise filter or signal interference reduction system is required so that breath sounds component which contains information signal can be clarified. In this study, we designed a filter called a wavelet transform based filter. The filter that is designed in this study is using Daubechies wavelet with four wavelet transform coefficients. Based on the testing of the ten types of breath sounds data, the data is obtained in the largest SNRdB bronchial for 74.3685 decibels.

  4. Impact of Noise and Noise Reduction on Processing Effort: A Pupillometry Study

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Wendt, Dorothea; Hietkamp, Renskje K; Lunner, Thomas

    2017-01-01

    of noise (intelligibility level) and different NR schemes on effort were evaluated by measuring the pupil dilation of listeners. In 2 different experiments, performance accuracy and peak pupil dilation (PPD) were measured in 24 listeners with hearing impairment while they performed a speech recognition...... task. The listeners were tested at 2 different signal to noise ratios corresponding to either the individual 50% correct (L50) or the 95% correct (L95) performance level in a 4-talker babble condition with and without the use of a NR scheme. In experiment 1, the PPD differed in response to both changes...... in the speech intelligibility level (L50 versus L95) and NR scheme. The PPD increased with decreasing intelligibility, indicating higher processing effort under the L50 condition compared with the L95 condition. Moreover, the PPD decreased when the NR scheme was applied, suggesting that the processing effort...

  5. Actant affordances: a brief history of affordance theory and a ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Affordance theory provides a useful lens to explore the action opportunities that arise between users and technology, especially in education. However developments in the theory have resulted both in confusion and misapplication, due partly to issues related to affordance theory's ontology. This paper outlines two ...

  6. 55 Actant affordances: a brief history of affordance theory and a ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    He combined affordances and perceptual information in a simple matrix, as shown in figure ... Secondly it shows up cases of False Affordances that appear to be useful ..... Distributed Cognitions: Psychological and Educational Considerations.

  7. Comparison of various decentralised structural and cavity feedback control strategies for transmitted noise reduction through a double panel structure

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ho, Jen-Hsuan; Berkhoff, Arthur

    2014-03-01

    This paper compares various decentralised control strategies, including structural and acoustic actuator-sensor configuration designs, to reduce noise transmission through a double panel structure. The comparison is based on identical control stability indexes. The double panel structure consists of two panels with air in between and offers the advantages of low sound transmission at high frequencies, low heat transmission, and low weight. The double panel structure is widely used, such as in the aerospace and automotive industries. Nevertheless, the resonance of the cavity and the poor sound transmission loss at low frequencies limit the double panel's noise control performance. Applying active structural acoustic control to the panels or active noise control to the cavity has been discussed in many papers. In this paper, the resonances of the panels and the cavity are considered simultaneously to further reduce the transmitted noise through an existing double panel structure. A structural-acoustic coupled model is developed to investigate and compare various structural control and cavity control methods. Numerical analysis and real-time control results show that structural control should be applied to both panels. Three types of cavity control sources are presented and compared. The results indicate that the largest noise reduction is obtained with cavity control by loudspeakers modified to operate as incident pressure sources.

  8. Noise reduction performance of thermobonded nonwovens

    OpenAIRE

    Carvalho, R.; Rana, S.; Fangueiro, Raúl; Soutinho, Hélder Filipe Cunha

    2012-01-01

    Acoustic insulation is an important requirement for the human life today, since noise affects the efficiency of day-to-day activities and even cause various health problems Materials based on fibrous structures show very good acoustic insulation properties, which however strongly depends on the type of structures used. The present paper reports the qualitative analysis of the acoustic insulation behavior of various thermo-bonded nonwoven fabrics. The results showed that the acoust...

  9. The effect of training on noise reduction in neonatal intensive care units.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Calikusu Incekar, Mujde; Balci, Serap

    2017-07-01

    Noise, an environmental stimulus, is especially important in the neurobehavioral development of newborns and brain development of infants at high risk. Conditions in the neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) may cause certain sensory stimuli that are not appropriate for the development of newborns, especially preterm infants. This study was conducted in order to determine noise levels in the NICU and to evaluate the effect of training provided for noise control. This study was conducted as a pretest-posttest quasiexperimental design between September and November 2014 in a 30-bed NICU of a tertiary hospital in Istanbul. A sample group consisting of 30 people (26 nurses, 4 care workers). Noise measurement devices were used in the Training Program of Noise Control. Of the health professionals, 96.7% were women, 86.7% were nurses, and 63.3% were university graduates. Some 36.7% of the health professionals had worked within the unit for more than 5 years. Noise measurements of full implementations were made over three 24-h periods. Noise measurements were taken before and after the training on Monday, Friday, and Sunday. Noise levels after training diminished in all three measurements, and the decrease was found statistically significant (P Noise Control Training for health professionals who work in NICUs is an effective way of reducing noise. We recommend that this training should be given to NICU health professionals and noise levels should be determined through measurements at specific times. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

  10. A Two-Sensor Noise Reduction System: Applications for Hands-Free Car Kit

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Guérin Alexandre

    2003-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents a two-microphone speech enhancer designed to remove noise in hands-free car kits. The algorithm, based on the magnitude squared coherence, uses speech correlation and noise decorrelation to separate speech from noise. The remaining correlated noise is reduced using cross-spectral subtraction. Particular attention is focused on the estimation of the different spectral densities (noise and noisy signals power spectral densities which are critical for the quality of the algorithm. We also propose a continuous noise estimation, avoiding the need of vocal activity detector. Results on recorded signals are provided, showing the superiority of the two-sensor approach to single microphone techniques.

  11. Noise tolerant spatiotemporal chaos computing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kia, Behnam; Kia, Sarvenaz; Lindner, John F; Sinha, Sudeshna; Ditto, William L

    2014-12-01

    We introduce and design a noise tolerant chaos computing system based on a coupled map lattice (CML) and the noise reduction capabilities inherent in coupled dynamical systems. The resulting spatiotemporal chaos computing system is more robust to noise than a single map chaos computing system. In this CML based approach to computing, under the coupled dynamics, the local noise from different nodes of the lattice diffuses across the lattice, and it attenuates each other's effects, resulting in a system with less noise content and a more robust chaos computing architecture.

  12. Open noise barriers based on sonic crystals. Advances in noise control in transport infraestructures

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Peiro Torres, M.P.; Redondo Pastor, J.; Bravo Plana-Sala, J.M.; Sanchez Perez, J.V.

    2016-07-01

    Noise control is an environmental problem of first magnitude nowadays. In this work, we present a new concept of acoustic screen designed to control the specific noise generated by transport infrastructures, based on new materials called sonic crystals. These materials are formed by arrangements of acoustic scatterers in air, and provide a new and different mechanism in the fight against noise from those of the classical screens. This mechanism is usually called multiple scattering and is due to their structuring in addition to their physical properties. Due to the separation between scatterers, these barriers are transparent to air and water allowing a reduction on their foundations. Tests carried out in a wind tunnel show a reduction of 42% in the overturning momentum compared to classical barriers. The acoustical performance of these barriers is shown in this work, explaining the new characteristics provided in the control of noise. Finally, an example of these barriers is presented and classified according to acoustic standardization tests. The acoustic barrier reported in this work provides a high technological solution in the field of noise control. (Author)

  13. Poisson noise reduction from X-ray images by region classification ...

    Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

    Thakur Kirti

    means Poisson noise filter which is one of the current state-of-the-art methods. Benefits of the proposed ... This modality is used to detect fractures in bones, tumours, cough or ..... metric peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR). It is observed from ...

  14. Theory And Working Of Noise And Vibration

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Jeong, Il Rok

    1988-09-01

    This book deals with theory of noise including physical property of noise like term and characteristic of sound, occurrence of sound, characteristic of noise pollution and main cause of occurrence of noise, technique of prevention of noise with noise reduction, construction guide for prevention of noise, and measure of interior noise. It also has the theory of vibration such as an introduction of vibration, and technology of prevention of vibration, official test method of environmental pollution, and summary of protection of the environment.

  15. Noise reduction in real time x-ray images

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Tsuda, Motohisa; Kimura, Yutaro

    1986-01-01

    The signal-to-noise ratio of real-time digital X-ray imaging systems consisting of an X-ray image intensifer-television chain was investigated while concentrating on the effect of the X-ray quantum nature. Along with conventional signal accumulation, logarithmic conversion and subtraction, a new technique called the peak hold method is introduced. Theoretical and simulational studies were made with practical parameters. Theory and simulation showed good agreement. An accumulation of signal is most effective for improving the signal-to-noise ratio; the peak-hold method comes next. The peak hold method, however, offers a new image-display mode. Moreover, this method is superior to signal accumulation for specific conditions. (author)

  16. Noise Reduction of MEMS Gyroscope Based on Direct Modeling for an Angular Rate Signal

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Liang Xue

    2015-02-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, a novel approach for processing the outputs signal of the microelectromechanical systems (MEMS gyroscopes was presented to reduce the bias drift and noise. The principle for the noise reduction was presented, and an optimal Kalman filter (KF was designed by a steady-state filter gain obtained from the analysis of KF observability. In particular, the true angular rate signal was directly modeled to obtain an optimal estimate and make a self-compensation for the gyroscope without needing other sensor’s information, whether in static or dynamic condition. A linear fit equation that describes the relationship between the KF bandwidth and modeling parameter of true angular rate was derived from the analysis of KF frequency response. The test results indicated that the MEMS gyroscope having an ARW noise of 4.87°/h0.5 and a bias instability of 44.41°/h were reduced to 0.4°/h0.5 and 4.13°/h by the KF under a given bandwidth (10 Hz, respectively. The 1σ estimated error was reduced from 1.9°/s to 0.14°/s and 1.7°/s to 0.5°/s in the constant rate test and swing rate test, respectively. It also showed that the filtered angular rate signal could well reflect the dynamic characteristic of the input rate signal in dynamic conditions. The presented algorithm is proved to be effective at improving the measurement precision of the MEMS gyroscope.

  17. Risk factor noise - otological aspects

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Haas, E

    1984-06-11

    After a short review of the anatomy and physiology of the inner ear the pathogenesis of chronic noise-induced hearing loss is discussed. The exposure to noise results first in a temporary but reversible threshold shift. But if the exposure to noise was exceedingly high or if the rest period would have required further noise reduction, a state of so-called auditory fatigue develops, finally leading to noise-induced hearing loss, a state which is considered irreversible. The noise-perception varies greatly among individuals and thus it is impossible to determine a certain noise intensity above which noise leasions will to be expected. It is generally accepted, that longterm exposure to noise above 85 dB (A) may lead to hearing loss in a portion of the exposed persons.

  18. Assuring Access to Affordable Coverage

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — Under the Affordable Care Act, millions of uninsured Americans will gain access to affordable coverage through Affordable Insurance Exchanges and improvements in...

  19. Noise aspects at aerodynamic blade optimisation projects

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Schepers, J.G. [Netherlands Energy Research Foundation, Petten (Netherlands)

    1997-12-31

    This paper shows an example of an aerodynamic blade optimisation, using the program PVOPT. PVOPT calculates the optimal wind turbine blade geometry such that the maximum energy yield is obtained. Using the aerodynamic optimal blade design as a basis, the possibilities of noise reduction are investigated. The aerodynamic optimised geometry from PVOPT is the `real` optimum (up to the latest decimal). The most important conclusion from this study is, that it is worthwhile to investigate the behaviour of the objective function (in the present case the energy yield) around the optimum: If the optimum is flat, there is a possibility to apply modifications to the optimum configuration with only a limited loss in energy yield. It is obvious that the modified configurations emits a different (and possibly lower) noise level. In the BLADOPT program (the successor of PVOPT) it will be possible to quantify the noise level and hence to assess the reduced noise emission more thoroughly. At present the most promising approaches for noise reduction are believed to be a reduction of the rotor speed (if at all possible), and a reduction of the tip angle by means of low lift profiles, or decreased twist at the outboard stations. These modifications were possible without a significant loss in energy yield. (LN)

  20. Adaptive non-local means on local principle neighborhood for noise/artifacts reduction in low-dose CT images.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhang, Yuanke; Lu, Hongbing; Rong, Junyan; Meng, Jing; Shang, Junliang; Ren, Pinghong; Zhang, Junying

    2017-09-01

    Low-dose CT (LDCT) technique can reduce the x-ray radiation exposure to patients at the cost of degraded images with severe noise and artifacts. Non-local means (NLM) filtering has shown its potential in improving LDCT image quality. However, currently most NLM-based approaches employ a weighted average operation directly on all neighbor pixels with a fixed filtering parameter throughout the NLM filtering process, ignoring the non-stationary noise nature of LDCT images. In this paper, an adaptive NLM filtering scheme on local principle neighborhoods (PC-NLM) is proposed for structure-preserving noise/artifacts reduction in LDCT images. Instead of using neighboring patches directly, in the PC-NLM scheme, the principle component analysis (PCA) is first applied on local neighboring patches of the target patch to decompose the local patches into uncorrelated principle components (PCs), then a NLM filtering is used to regularize each PC of the target patch and finally the regularized components is transformed to get the target patch in image domain. Especially, in the NLM scheme, the filtering parameter is estimated adaptively from local noise level of the neighborhood as well as the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the corresponding PC, which guarantees a "weaker" NLM filtering on PCs with higher SNR and a "stronger" filtering on PCs with lower SNR. The PC-NLM procedure is iteratively performed several times for better removal of the noise and artifacts, and an adaptive iteration strategy is developed to reduce the computational load by determining whether a patch should be processed or not in next round of the PC-NLM filtering. The effectiveness of the presented PC-NLM algorithm is validated by experimental phantom studies and clinical studies. The results show that it can achieve promising gain over some state-of-the-art methods in terms of artifact suppression and structure preservation. With the use of PCA on local neighborhoods to extract principal structural

  1. Identification and Reduction of Turbomachinery Noise, Phase I

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Noise has become a primary consideration in the design and development of many products, particulary in aerospace, automotive and consumer product industries....

  2. A blood pressure monitor with robust noise reduction system under linear cuff inflation and deflation.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Usuda, Takashi; Kobayashi, Naoki; Takeda, Sunao; Kotake, Yoshifumi

    2010-01-01

    We have developed the non-invasive blood pressure monitor which can measure the blood pressure quickly and robustly. This monitor combines two measurement mode: the linear inflation and the linear deflation. On the inflation mode, we realized a faster measurement with rapid inflation rate. On the deflation mode, we realized a robust noise reduction. When there is neither noise nor arrhythmia, the inflation mode incorporated on this monitor provides precise, quick and comfortable measurement. Once the inflation mode fails to calculate appropriate blood pressure due to body movement or arrhythmia, then the monitor switches automatically to the deflation mode and measure blood pressure by using digital signal processing as wavelet analysis, filter bank, filter combined with FFT and Inverse FFT. The inflation mode succeeded 2440 measurements out of 3099 measurements (79%) in an operating room and a rehabilitation room. The new designed blood pressure monitor provides the fastest measurement for patient with normal circulation and robust measurement for patients with body movement or severe arrhythmia. Also this fast measurement method provides comfortableness for patients.

  3. Optimal design of minimum mean-square error noise reduction algorithms using the simulated annealing technique.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bai, Mingsian R; Hsieh, Ping-Ju; Hur, Kur-Nan

    2009-02-01

    The performance of the minimum mean-square error noise reduction (MMSE-NR) algorithm in conjunction with time-recursive averaging (TRA) for noise estimation is found to be very sensitive to the choice of two recursion parameters. To address this problem in a more systematic manner, this paper proposes an optimization method to efficiently search the optimal parameters of the MMSE-TRA-NR algorithms. The objective function is based on a regression model, whereas the optimization process is carried out with the simulated annealing algorithm that is well suited for problems with many local optima. Another NR algorithm proposed in the paper employs linear prediction coding as a preprocessor for extracting the correlated portion of human speech. Objective and subjective tests were undertaken to compare the optimized MMSE-TRA-NR algorithm with several conventional NR algorithms. The results of subjective tests were processed by using analysis of variance to justify the statistic significance. A post hoc test, Tukey's Honestly Significant Difference, was conducted to further assess the pairwise difference between the NR algorithms.

  4. Reduction of Non-stationary Noise using a Non-negative Latent Variable Decomposition

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Schmidt, Mikkel Nørgaard; Larsen, Jan

    2008-01-01

    We present a method for suppression of non-stationary noise in single channel recordings of speech. The method is based on a non-negative latent variable decomposition model for the speech and noise signals, learned directly from a noisy mixture. In non-speech regions an over complete basis...... is learned for the noise that is then used to jointly estimate the speech and the noise from the mixture. We compare the method to the classical spectral subtraction approach, where the noise spectrum is estimated as the average over non-speech frames. The proposed method significantly outperforms...

  5. Core Noise: Overview of Upcoming LDI Combustor Test

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hultgren, Lennart S.

    2012-01-01

    This presentation is a technical summary of and outlook for NASA-internal and NASA-sponsored external research on core (combustor and turbine) noise funded by the Fundamental Aeronautics Program Fixed Wing Project. The presentation covers: the emerging importance of core noise due to turbofan design trends and its relevance to the NASA N+3 noise-reduction goal; the core noise components and the rationale for the current emphasis on combustor noise; and the current and planned research activities in the combustor-noise area. Two NASA-sponsored research programs, with particular emphasis on indirect combustor noise, "Acoustic Database for Core Noise Sources", Honeywell Aerospace (NNC11TA40T) and "Measurement and Modeling of Entropic Noise Sources in a Single-Stage Low-Pressure Turbine", U. Illinois/U. Notre Dame (NNX11AI74A) are briefly described. Recent progress in the development of CMC-based acoustic liners for broadband noise reduction suitable for turbofan-core application is outlined. Combustor-design trends and the potential impacts on combustor acoustics are discussed. A NASA GRC developed nine-point lean-direct-injection (LDI) fuel injector is briefly described. The modification of an upcoming thermo-acoustic instability evaluation of the GRC injector in a combustor rig to also provide acoustic information relevant to community noise is presented. The NASA Fundamental Aeronautics Program has the principal objective of overcoming today's national challenges in air transportation. The reduction of aircraft noise is critical to enabling the anticipated large increase in future air traffic. The Quiet Performance Research Theme of the Fixed Wing Project aims to develop concepts and technologies to dramatically reduce the perceived community noise attributable to aircraft with minimal impact on weight and performance.

  6. Flow and Noise Control: Review and Assessment of Future Directions

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thomas, Russell H.; Choudhari, Meelan M.; Joslin, Ronald D.

    2002-01-01

    Technologies for developing radically new aerovehicles that would combine quantum leaps in cost, safety, and performance benefits with environmental friendliness have appeared on the horizon. This report provides both an assessment of the current state-of-the-art in flow and noise control and a vision for the potential gains to be made, in terms of performance benefit for civil and military aircraft and a unique potential for noise reduction, via future advances in flow and noise technologies. This report outlines specific areas of research that will enable the breakthroughs necessary to bring this vision to reality. Recent developments in many topics within flow and noise control are reviewed. The flow control overview provides succinct summaries of various approaches for drag reduction and improved maneuvering. Both exterior and interior noise problems are examined, including dominant noise sources, physics of noise generation and propagation, and both established and proposed concepts for noise reduction. Synergy between flow and noise control is a focus and, more broadly, the need to pursue research in a more concurrent approach involving multiple disciplines. Also discussed are emerging technologies such as nanotechnology that may have a significant impact on the progress of flow and noise control.

  7. A Two-Microphone Noise Reduction System for Cochlear Implant Users with Nearby Microphones—Part I: Signal Processing Algorithm Design and Development

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Marco Pelizzone

    2008-06-01

    Full Text Available Users of cochlear implant systems, that is, of auditory aids which stimulate the auditory nerve at the cochlea electrically, often complain about poor speech understanding in noisy environments. Despite the proven advantages of multimicrophone directional noise reduction systems for conventional hearing aids, only one major manufacturer has so far implemented such a system in a product, presumably because of the added power consumption and size. We present a physically small (intermicrophone distance 7 mm and computationally inexpensive adaptive noise reduction system suitable for behind-the-ear cochlear implant speech processors. Supporting algorithms, which allow the adjustment of the opening angle and the maximum noise suppression, are proposed and evaluated. A portable real-time device for test in real acoustic environments is presented.

  8. Characterization and reduction of noise in Mo/Au transition edge sensors

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lindeman, Mark A.; Bandler, Simon; Brekosky, Regis P.; Chervenak, James A.; Figueroa-Feliciano, Enectali; Finkbeiner, Fred M.; Saab, Tarek; Stahle, Caroline K.

    2004-01-01

    We measured noise in a variety of Mo/Au transition-edge sensor (TES) X-ray calorimeters. We investigated the relationship between the noise, bias, and the superconducting phase transition in the TESs. Our square TES calorimeters have achieved very good energy resolutions (2.4 eV at 1.5 keV) but their resolutions have been limited by broadband white excess noise generated by the TES when it is biased in the phase transition. We have recently fabricated Mo/Cu TESs with interdigitated normal metal bars deposited on top of the bilayer. The new TES calorimeters have demonstrated little or no excess noise in the phase transition. These results point the way to development of TES calorimeters with higher energy resolution

  9. Drone noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tinney, Charles; Sirohi, Jayant; University of Texas at Austin Team

    2017-11-01

    A basic understanding of the noise produced by single and multirotor drones operating at static thrust conditions is presented. This work acts as an extension to previous efforts conducted at The University of Texas at Austin (Tinney et al. 2017, AHS Forum 73). Propeller diameters ranging from 8 inch to 12 inch are examined for configurations comprising an isolated rotor, a quadcopter configuration and a hexacopter configuration, and with a constant drone pitch of 2.25. An azimuthal array of half-inch microphones, placed between 2 and 3 hub-center diameters from the drone center, are used to assess the acoustic near-field. Thrust levels, acquired using a six degree-of-freedom load cell, are then used to correlate acoustic noise levels to aerodynamic performance for each drone configuration. The findings reveal a nearly logarithmic increase in noise with increasing thrust. However, for the same thrust condition, considerable noise reduction is achieved by increasing the number of propeller blades thereby reducing the blade passage frequency and both the thickness and loading noise sources that accompany it.

  10. Is quality affordable?

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Robert Lindfield

    2008-12-01

    Full Text Available The question “Is quality affordable?” is loaded with dynamite!Can a person who lives on less than US $1 per day afford a high-quality cataract operation? If the answer is ‘No’, then do we offer that person poor or low-quality services? Do people living in poverty have a ‘right’ to high-quality eye or health care? If the answer is ‘Yes’, then at what price and who should pay? Should we ignore quality and focus on affordability? Or should we provide high-quality services in the hope that someone else will pay?These are difficult questions, which policy makers, managers, and clinicians must face and try to answer.

  11. Experiment and Simulation Analysis on Noise Attenuation of Al/MF Cylindrical Shells

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Bin Li

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available For the issue concerning internal noise reduction of Al-made cylindrical shell structure, the noise control method of laying melamine foam (MF layer is adopted for in-shell noise attenuation experiments of Al and Al/MF cylindrical shells and corresponding internal noise response spectrograms are obtained. Based on the Virtual.Lab acoustics software, a finite element model is established for the analysis of noise in the Al/MF cylinder shell and numerical simulation computation is conducted for the acoustic mode and in-shell acoustic response; the correctness of the finite element model is verified via comparison with measured data. On this basis, influence rules of different MF laying rate and different laying thickness on acoustic cavity resonance response within the low and medium frequency range of 100–400 Hz are studied. It is indicated that noise reduction increases with MF laying rate, but the amplification decreases along with the rising of MF laying rate; noise reduction per unit thickness decreases with the increase of laying thickness, while noise reduction per unit area increases.

  12. Reduction of noise influence during the periodical inspection of the nuclear power plant

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Hikono, Masaru

    2002-01-01

    At the nuclear power plant under the regular inspection, the sound level and the worker's impression of the environmental noises were measured. The environmental noise was the level with a possibility to cause the noise-induced deafness and have the psychological influence on the workers such as ''Get irritated''. These results imply the necessity of the noise countermeasure. For the noise influence relaxation, we examined the effectiveness of ear protections (e.g., ear plugs) and the intelligibility improvement of the paging system, prepared the noise management manual and the educational leaflet for the support of worker's self-defense. The results of the examinations showed that ear plug was effective especially in the high-noise environment and that the improvement of paging system increased the intelligibility. (author)

  13. Affordable Care Act (ACA)

    Data.gov (United States)

    Social Security Administration — The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a federal statute enacted with a goal of increasing the quality and affordability of health insurance. Through a web service, CMS...

  14. Characteristics of noise-canceling headphones to reduce the hearing hazard for MP3 users.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liang, Maojin; Zhao, Fei; French, David; Zheng, Yiqing

    2012-06-01

    Three pairs of headphones [standard iPod ear buds and two noise-canceling headphones (NCHs)] were chosen to investigate frequency characteristics of noise reduction, together with their attenuation effects on preferred listening levels (PLLs) in the presence of various types of background noise. Twenty-six subjects with normal hearing chose their PLLs in quiet, street noise, and subway noise using the three headphones and with the noise-canceling system on/off. Both sets of NCHs reduced noise levels at mid- and high-frequencies. Further noise reductions occurred in low frequencies with the noise canceling system switched on. In street noise, both NCHs had similar noise reduction effects. In subway noise, better noise reduction effects were found in the expensive NCH and with noise-canceling on. A two way repeated measures analysis of variance showed that both listening conditions and headphone styles were significant influencing factors on the PLLs. Subjects tended to increase their PLLs as the background noise level increased. Compared with ear buds, PLLs obtained from NCHs-on in the presence of background noise were reduced up to 4 dB. Therefore, proper selection and use of NCHs appears beneficial in reducing the risk of hearing damage caused by high music listening levels in the presence of background noise.

  15. Robust frequency diversity based algorithm for clutter noise reduction of ultrasonic signals using multiple sub-spectrum phase coherence

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Gongzhang, R.; Xiao, B.; Lardner, T.; Gachagan, A. [Centre for Ultrasonic Engineering, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, G1 1XW (United Kingdom); Li, M. [School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ (United Kingdom)

    2014-02-18

    This paper presents a robust frequency diversity based algorithm for clutter reduction in ultrasonic A-scan waveforms. The performance of conventional spectral-temporal techniques like Split Spectrum Processing (SSP) is highly dependent on the parameter selection, especially when the signal to noise ratio (SNR) is low. Although spatial beamforming offers noise reduction with less sensitivity to parameter variation, phased array techniques are not always available. The proposed algorithm first selects an ascending series of frequency bands. A signal is reconstructed for each selected band in which a defect is present when all frequency components are in uniform sign. Combining all reconstructed signals through averaging gives a probability profile of potential defect position. To facilitate data collection and validate the proposed algorithm, Full Matrix Capture is applied on the austenitic steel and high nickel alloy (HNA) samples with 5MHz transducer arrays. When processing A-scan signals with unrefined parameters, the proposed algorithm enhances SNR by 20dB for both samples and consequently, defects are more visible in B-scan images created from the large amount of A-scan traces. Importantly, the proposed algorithm is considered robust, while SSP is shown to fail on the austenitic steel data and achieves less SNR enhancement on the HNA data.

  16. Noise Reduction in High-Throughput Gene Perturbation Screens

    Science.gov (United States)

    Motivation: Accurate interpretation of perturbation screens is essential for a successful functional investigation. However, the screened phenotypes are often distorted by noise, and their analysis requires specialized statistical analysis tools. The number and scope of statistical methods available...

  17. Reduction of Background Noise in the NASA Ames 40- by 80-Foot Wind Tunnel

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jaeger, Stephen M.; Allen, Christopher S.; Soderman, Paul T.; Olson, Larry E. (Technical Monitor)

    1995-01-01

    Background noise in both open-jet and closed wind tunnels adversely affects the signal-to-noise ratio of acoustic measurements. To measure the noise of increasingly quieter aircraft models, the background noise will have to be reduced by physical means or through signal processing. In a closed wind tunnel, such as the NASA Ames 40- by 80- Foot Wind Tunnel, the principle background noise sources can be classified as: (1) fan drive noise; (2) microphone self-noise; (3) aerodynamically induced noise from test-dependent hardware such as model struts and junctions; and (4) noise from the test section walls and vane set. This paper describes the steps taken to minimize the influence of each of these background noise sources in the 40 x 80.

  18. Reduction of noise influence during the periodical inspection of the nuclear power plant

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Hikono, Masaru [Inst. of Nuclear Safety System Inc., Mihama, Fukui (Japan)

    2002-09-01

    At the nuclear power plant under the regular inspection, the sound level and the worker's impression of the environmental noises were measured. The environmental noise was the level with a possibility to cause the noise-induced deafness and have the psychological influence on the workers such as ''Get irritated''. These results imply the necessity of the noise countermeasure. For the noise influence relaxation, we examined the effectiveness of ear protections (e.g., ear plugs) and the intelligibility improvement of the paging system, prepared the noise management manual and the educational leaflet for the support of worker's self-defense. The results of the examinations showed that ear plug was effective especially in the high-noise environment and that the improvement of paging system increased the intelligibility. (author)

  19. Underwater noise reduction of marine pile driving using a double pile.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2015-12-01

    Impact pile driving of steel piles in marine environments produces extremely high sound levels in the water. : It has been shown that current pile driving noise attenuation techniques, such as bubble curtains and : cofferdams, provide limited noise r...

  20. Poultry Plant Noise Control

    Science.gov (United States)

    1982-01-01

    A demonstration conducted last winter at the Tip Top Poultry Plant intended to show poultry plant managers from all over the U.S. potential solutions to the problem of plant noise. Plastic covers used over sound absorbing materials need to meet cleanability requirements, high- pressure water cleaning and other harsh maintenance procedures peculiar to the poultry processing industry. For the demonstration, Fiber Flex, Inc. manufactured and donated 750 noise panels; Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation donated the fiberglas cores; and the cover material was purchased from Howe and Bainbridge. The Engineering Experiment Station (EES) conducted before and after noise surveys and is evaluating the effect of noise reduction on turnover and productivity in the demonstration plant. EES plans to conduct a noise abatement workshop and update a handbook to help poultry processors with noise problems. EES study and demonstration may be applicable to other food processing plants where similar sanitary constraints exist.

  1. Noise Reduction and Correction in the IPNS Linac ESEM

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dooling, J. C.; Brumwell, F. R.; Donley, L.; McMichael, G. E.; Stipp, V. F.

    2004-11-01

    The Energy Spread and Energy Monitor (ESEM) is an on-line, non-intrusive diagnostic used to characterize the output beam from the 200-MHz, 50-MeV IPNS linac. The energy spread is determined from a 3-size, longitudinal emittance measurement; whereas the energy is derived from time of flight (TOF) analysis. Signals are detected on 50-ohm, stripline beam position monitors (BPMs) terminated in their characteristic impedance. Each BPM is constructed with four striplines: top, bottom, left and right. The ESEM signals are taken from the bottom stripline in four separate BPM locations in the 50-MeV transport line between the linac and the synchrotron. Deterministic linac noise is sampled before and after the 70-microsecond macropulse. The noise phasor is vectorially subtracted from the beam signal. Noise subtraction is required at several frequencies, especially the fundamental and fifth harmonics (200 MHz and 1 GHz). It is also necessary to correct for attenuation and dispersion in the co-axial signal cables. Presently, the analysis assumes a single particle distribution to determine energy and energy spread. Work is on-going to allow for more realistic longitudinal distributions to be included in the analysis.

  2. A Data-Driven Noise Reduction Method and Its Application for the Enhancement of Stress Wave Signals

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hai-Lin Feng

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available Ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD has been recently used to recover a signal from observed noisy data. Typically this is performed by partial reconstruction or thresholding operation. In this paper we describe an efficient noise reduction method. EEMD is used to decompose a signal into several intrinsic mode functions (IMFs. The time intervals between two adjacent zero-crossings within the IMF, called instantaneous half period (IHP, are used as a criterion to detect and classify the noise oscillations. The undesirable waveforms with a larger IHP are set to zero. Furthermore, the optimum threshold in this approach can be derived from the signal itself using the consecutive mean square error (CMSE. The method is fully data driven, and it requires no prior knowledge of the target signals. This method can be verified with the simulative program by using Matlab. The denoising results are proper. In comparison with other EEMD based methods, it is concluded that the means adopted in this paper is suitable to preprocess the stress wave signals in the wood nondestructive testing.

  3. Thermal noise reduction for present and future gravitational wave detectors

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Amico, P.; Bosi, L.; Gammaitoni, L.; Losurdo, G.; Marchesoni, F.; Mazzoni, M.; Punturo, M. E-mail: michele.punturo@pg.infn.it; Stanga, R.; Toncelli, A.; Tonelli, M.; Travasso, F.; Vetrano, F.; Vocca, H

    2004-02-01

    Thermal noise in mirror suspension is and will be the most severe fundamental limit to the low-frequency sensitivity of interferometric gravitational wave detectors currently under construction. The technical solutions, adopted in the Virgo detector, optimize the current suspension scheme, but new materials and new designs are needed to further reduce the suspension thermal noise. Silicon fibers are promising candidates both for room temperature advanced detectors and for future cryogenic interferometric detectors.

  4. Affordances theory in multilingualism studies

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Larissa Aronin

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available The concept of affordances originating in Gibson’s work (Gibson, 1977 is gaining ground in multilingualism studies (cf. Aronin and Singleton, 2010; Singleton and Aronin, 2007; Dewaele, 2010. Nevertheless, studies investigating affordances in respect of teaching, learning or using languages are still somewhat rare and tend to treat isolated aspects of multilingualism. This is despite the fact that the theory of affordances can actually provide a valuable, supplementary, up-to-date framework within which a clearer, sharper description and explication of the intriguing range of attributes of multilingual communities, educational institutions and individuals, as well as teaching practices, become feasible. It is important that not only researchers and practitioners (teachers, educators, parents, community and political actors but also language users and learners themselves should be aware of how to identify or, if necessary, design new affordances for language acquisition and learning. The aim of this article is to adapt the concept of affordances to multilingualism studies and additional language teaching, and in so doing advance theoretical understanding in this context. To this end the article contains a brief summary of the findings so far available. The article also goes further into defining the ways of how affordances work in relation to multilingualism and second language teaching and puts forward an integrated model of affordances.

  5. Reduction of Classroom Noise Levels Using Group Contingencies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ring, Brandon M.; Sigurdsson, Sigurdur O.; Eubanks, Sean L.; Silverman, Kenneth

    2014-01-01

    The therapeutic workplace is an employment-based abstinence reinforcement intervention for unemployed drug users where trainees receive on-the-job employment skills training in a classroom setting. The study is an extension of prior therapeutic workplace research, which suggested that trainees frequently violated noise standards. Participants…

  6. Directional Processing and Noise Reduction in Hearing Aids: Individual and Situational Influences on Preferred Setting.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neher, Tobias; Wagener, Kirsten C; Fischer, Rosa-Linde

    2016-09-01

    A better understanding of individual differences in hearing aid (HA) outcome is a prerequisite for more personalized HA fittings. Currently, knowledge of how different user factors relate to response to directional processing (DIR) and noise reduction (NR) is sparse. To extend a recent study linking preference for DIR and NR to pure-tone average hearing thresholds (PTA) and cognitive factors by investigating if (1) equivalent links exist for different types of DIR and NR, (2) self-reported noise sensitivity and personality can account for additional variability in preferred DIR and NR settings, and (3) spatial target speech configuration interacts with individual DIR preference. Using a correlational study design, overall preference for different combinations of DIR and NR programmed into a commercial HA was assessed in a complex speech-in-noise situation and related to PTA, cognitive function, and different personality traits. Sixty experienced HA users aged 60-82 yr with controlled variation in PTA and working memory capacity took part in this study. All of them had participated in the earlier study, as part of which they were tested on a measure of "executive control" tapping into cognitive functions such as working memory, mental flexibility, and selective attention. Six HA settings based on unilateral (within-device) or bilateral (across-device) DIR combined with inactive, moderate, or strong single-microphone NR were programmed into a pair of behind-the-ear HAs together with individually prescribed amplification. Overall preference was assessed using a free-field simulation of a busy cafeteria situation with either a single frontal talker or two talkers at ±30° azimuth as the target speech. In addition, two questionnaires targeting noise sensitivity and the "Big Five" personality traits were administered. Data were analyzed using multiple regression analyses and repeated-measures analyses of variance with a focus on potential interactions between the HA

  7. Three-dimensional anisotropic adaptive filtering of projection data for noise reduction in cone beam CT

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Maier, Andreas; Wigstroem, Lars; Hofmann, Hannes G.; Hornegger, Joachim; Zhu Lei; Strobel, Norbert; Fahrig, Rebecca [Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305 (United States); Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305 (United States) and Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization, Linkoeping University, Linkoeping (Sweden); Pattern Recognition Laboratory, Department of Computer Science, Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, 91054, Erlangen (Germany); Nuclear and Radiological Engineering and Medical Physics Programs, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332 (United States); Siemens AG Healthcare, Forchheim 91301 (Germany); Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305 (United States)

    2011-11-15

    Purpose: The combination of quickly rotating C-arm gantry with digital flat panel has enabled the acquisition of three-dimensional data (3D) in the interventional suite. However, image quality is still somewhat limited since the hardware has not been optimized for CT imaging. Adaptive anisotropic filtering has the ability to improve image quality by reducing the noise level and therewith the radiation dose without introducing noticeable blurring. By applying the filtering prior to 3D reconstruction, noise-induced streak artifacts are reduced as compared to processing in the image domain. Methods: 3D anisotropic adaptive filtering was used to process an ensemble of 2D x-ray views acquired along a circular trajectory around an object. After arranging the input data into a 3D space (2D projections + angle), the orientation of structures was estimated using a set of differently oriented filters. The resulting tensor representation of local orientation was utilized to control the anisotropic filtering. Low-pass filtering is applied only along structures to maintain high spatial frequency components perpendicular to these. The evaluation of the proposed algorithm includes numerical simulations, phantom experiments, and in-vivo data which were acquired using an AXIOM Artis dTA C-arm system (Siemens AG, Healthcare Sector, Forchheim, Germany). Spatial resolution and noise levels were compared with and without adaptive filtering. A human observer study was carried out to evaluate low-contrast detectability. Results: The adaptive anisotropic filtering algorithm was found to significantly improve low-contrast detectability by reducing the noise level by half (reduction of the standard deviation in certain areas from 74 to 30 HU). Virtually no degradation of high contrast spatial resolution was observed in the modulation transfer function (MTF) analysis. Although the algorithm is computationally intensive, hardware acceleration using Nvidia's CUDA Interface provided an 8

  8. Three-dimensional anisotropic adaptive filtering of projection data for noise reduction in cone beam CT

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Maier, Andreas; Wigstroem, Lars; Hofmann, Hannes G.; Hornegger, Joachim; Zhu Lei; Strobel, Norbert; Fahrig, Rebecca

    2011-01-01

    Purpose: The combination of quickly rotating C-arm gantry with digital flat panel has enabled the acquisition of three-dimensional data (3D) in the interventional suite. However, image quality is still somewhat limited since the hardware has not been optimized for CT imaging. Adaptive anisotropic filtering has the ability to improve image quality by reducing the noise level and therewith the radiation dose without introducing noticeable blurring. By applying the filtering prior to 3D reconstruction, noise-induced streak artifacts are reduced as compared to processing in the image domain. Methods: 3D anisotropic adaptive filtering was used to process an ensemble of 2D x-ray views acquired along a circular trajectory around an object. After arranging the input data into a 3D space (2D projections + angle), the orientation of structures was estimated using a set of differently oriented filters. The resulting tensor representation of local orientation was utilized to control the anisotropic filtering. Low-pass filtering is applied only along structures to maintain high spatial frequency components perpendicular to these. The evaluation of the proposed algorithm includes numerical simulations, phantom experiments, and in-vivo data which were acquired using an AXIOM Artis dTA C-arm system (Siemens AG, Healthcare Sector, Forchheim, Germany). Spatial resolution and noise levels were compared with and without adaptive filtering. A human observer study was carried out to evaluate low-contrast detectability. Results: The adaptive anisotropic filtering algorithm was found to significantly improve low-contrast detectability by reducing the noise level by half (reduction of the standard deviation in certain areas from 74 to 30 HU). Virtually no degradation of high contrast spatial resolution was observed in the modulation transfer function (MTF) analysis. Although the algorithm is computationally intensive, hardware acceleration using Nvidia's CUDA Interface provided an 8.9-fold

  9. Active noise control primer

    CERN Document Server

    Snyder, Scott D

    2000-01-01

    Active noise control - the reduction of noise by generating an acoustic signal that actively interferes with the noise - has become an active area of basic research and engineering applications. The aim of this book is to present all of the basic knowledge one needs for assessing how useful active noise control will be for a given problem and then to provide some guidance for designing, setting up, and tuning an active noise-control system. Written for students who have no prior knowledge of acoustics, signal processing, or noise control but who do have a reasonable grasp of basic physics and mathematics, the book is short and descriptive. It leaves for more advanced texts or research monographs all mathematical details and proofs concerning vibrations, signal processing and the like. The book can thus be used in independent study, in a classroom with laboratories, or in conjunction with a kit for experiment or demonstration. Topics covered include: basic acoustics; human perception and sound; sound intensity...

  10. Reduction of a cerium(III) siloxide complex to afford a quadruple-decker arene-bridged cerium(II) sandwich

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kelly, Rory P.; Scopelliti, Rosario; Mazzanti, Marinella [Institut des Sciences et Ingenierie Chimiques, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne (Switzerland); Maron, Laurent [Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie des Nano-objets, Institut National des Sciences Appliquees, Toulouse (France)

    2017-12-04

    Organometallic multi-decker sandwich complexes containing f-elements remain rare, despite their attractive magnetic and electronic properties. The reduction of the Ce{sup III} siloxide complex, [KCeL{sub 4}] (1; L=OSi(OtBu){sub 3}), with excess potassium in a THF/toluene mixture afforded a quadruple-decker arene-bridged complex, [K(2.2.2-crypt)]{sub 2}[{(KL_3Ce)(μ-η"6:η"6-C_7H_8)}{sub 2}Ce] (3). The structure of 3 features a [Ce(C{sub 7}H{sub 8}){sub 2}] sandwich capped by [KL{sub 3}Ce] moieties with a linear arrangement of the Ce ions. Structural parameters, UV/Vis/NIR data, and DFT studies indicate the presence of Ce{sup II} ions involved in δ bonding between the Ce cations and toluene dianions. Complex 3 is a rare lanthanide multi-decker complex and the first containing non-classical divalent lanthanide ions. Moreover, oxidation of 1 by AgOTf (OTf=O{sub 3}SCF{sub 3}) yielded the Ce{sup IV} complex, [CeL{sub 4}] (2), showing that siloxide ligands can stabilize Ce in three oxidation states. (copyright 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH and Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

  11. Study on Noise Prediction Model and Control Schemes for Substation

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gao, Yang; Liu, Songtao

    2014-01-01

    With the government's emphasis on environmental issues of power transmission and transformation project, noise pollution has become a prominent problem now. The noise from the working transformer, reactor, and other electrical equipment in the substation will bring negative effect to the ambient environment. This paper focuses on using acoustic software for the simulation and calculation method to control substation noise. According to the characteristics of the substation noise and the techniques of noise reduction, a substation's acoustic field model was established with the SoundPLAN software to predict the scope of substation noise. On this basis, 4 reasonable noise control schemes were advanced to provide some helpful references for noise control during the new substation's design and construction process. And the feasibility and application effect of these control schemes can be verified by using the method of simulation modeling. The simulation results show that the substation always has the problem of excessive noise at boundary under the conventional measures. The excess noise can be efficiently reduced by taking the corresponding noise reduction methods. PMID:24672356

  12. The effects of noise reduction by earmuffs on the physiologic and behavioral responses in very low birth weight preterm infants.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Duran, Rıdvan; Ciftdemir, Nükhet Aladağ; Ozbek, Ulfet Vatansever; Berberoğlu, Ufuk; Durankuş, Ferit; Süt, Necdet; Acunaş, Betül

    2012-10-01

    Preterm infants are exposed to loud noises during their stay in the neonatal intensive care unit which can lead to physiologic and behavioral alterations and even hearing loss. The use of earmuffs can reduce sound level and these changes. The objective of the present study is to evaluate the effectiveness of the earmuffs in preterm infants solely cared for in closed incubators. A comparative prospective study comprising 20 clinically stable preterm infants weighing less than 1500 g cared in closed incubator was conducted. Preterm infants acted as their own controls whereby they were observed without earmuffs (Group 1) for 2 days and with earmuffs (Group 2) on consecutive 2 days. The preterm infants' physiologic responses and Anderson Behavioral State Scoring System (ABSS) scores were assessed over 30s every 2h for 8h during daytime for 4 days. Out of 20 preterm infants, 6 were male and 14 female with a mean birth weight of 1220 ± 209 g, gestational age of 29.9 ± 2.1 weeks. The total number of measurements was 320. The mean ABSS scores of Group 1 and 2 were 3.07±1.1 and 1.34 ± 0.3, respectively. Statistically significant difference was noted between the means of ABSS scores (pNoise level reduction was associated with significant improvement in behavioral states of ABSS. We suggest that noise reduction in preterm infants with earmuffs is helpful by improving sleep efficiency and increasing time of quiet sleep. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

  13. Experimental investigation of wavy leading edges on rod-aerofoil interaction noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Weijie; Qiao, Weiyang; Tong, Fan; Wang, Liangfeng; Wang, Xunnian

    2018-05-01

    Experimental studies are performed to investigate the effect of wavy leading edges on rod-aerofoil interaction noise in an open-jet anechoic wind tunnel. NACA 0012 aerofoils with straight and wavy leading edges (denoted by SLE and WLE, respectively) are embedded in the wake of a circular rod. The WLEs are in the form of sinusoidal profiles of amplitude, A, and wavelength, W. Parametric studies of the amplitude and wavelength characteristics are conducted to understand the effect of WLEs on noise reduction. It is observed that the sound power reduction level is sensitive to both the amplitude and wavelength of the WLEs. The WLE with the largest amplitude and smallest wavelength can achieve the most considerable noise reduction effect of up to 4 dB. The influences of rod diameter, d, and free-stream velocity, U0, on the noise reduction effect of the WLEs are also investigated. In addition, a parametric study of the influence of separating rod-aerofoil distance on the acoustic radiation of the SLE case and on the sound power reduction level of the WLE cases is performed. It is found that a critical spacing exists where the acoustic radiation and noise reduction can be divided into two different "modes".

  14. Effects of secondary loudspeaker properties on broadband feedforward active duct noise control.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chan, Yum-Ji; Huang, Lixi; Lam, James

    2013-07-01

    Dependence of the performance of feedforward active duct noise control on secondary loudspeaker parameters is investigated. Noise reduction performance can be improved if the force factor of the secondary loudspeaker is higher. For example, broadband noise reduction improvement up to 1.6 dB is predicted by increasing the force factor by 50%. In addition, a secondary loudspeaker with a larger force factor was found to have quicker convergence in the adaptive algorithm in experiment. In simulations, noise reduction is improved in using an adaptive algorithm by using a secondary loudspeaker with a heavier moving mass. It is predicted that an extra broadband noise reduction of more than 7 dB can be gained using an adaptive filter if the force factor, moving mass and coil inductance of a commercially available loudspeaker are doubled. Methods to increase the force factor beyond those of commercially available loudspeakers are proposed.

  15. Dynamic properties of energy affordability measures

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Heindl, Peter; Schuessler, Rudolf

    2015-01-01

    Measures of affordability and of fuel poverty are applied in practice to assess the affordability of energy services, for example, or of water or housing. The extensive body of literature on affordability measures has little overlap with the existing literature on poverty measurement. A comprehensive assessment of the response of affordability measures as a result of changes in the distribution of income or expenditure (the dynamic properties) is missing. This paper aims to fill this gap by providing a conceptual discussion on the ‘dynamics’ of both energy affordability measures and fuel poverty measures. Several types of measures are examined in a microsimulation framework. Our results indicate that some measures exhibit odd dynamic behavior. This includes measures used in practice, such as the low income/high cost measure and the double median of expenditure share indicator. Odd dynamic behavior causes the risk of drawing false policy recommendations from the measures. Thus, an appropriate response of affordability measures to changes in relevant variables is a prerequisite for defining meaningful measures that inform about affordability or deprivation in certain domains of consumption. - Highlights: • We investigate changes in fuel poverty measures as result from changes in income and expenditure. • More generally, we investigate dynamic behavior of affordability measures using microsimulation. • We propose axioms regarding dynamic behavior of affordability measures. • Some measures which are used in practice show unintuitive dynamic behavior. • Inappropriate dynamic behavior causes a risk of false policy implications.

  16. Measurement of MOSFET LF Noise Under Large Signal RF Excitation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van der Wel, A.P.; Klumperink, Eric A.M.; Nauta, Bram

    A new measurement technique is presented that allows measurement of MOSFET LF noise under large signal RF excitation. Measurements indicate that MOSFETS exhibit a reduction in LF noise when they are cycled from inversion to accummulation and that this reduction does not depend on the frequency of

  17. Noise reduction by support vector regression with a Ricker wavelet kernel

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Deng, Xiaoying; Yang, Dinghui; Xie, Jing

    2009-01-01

    We propose a noise filtering technology based on the least-squares support vector regression (LS-SVR), to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of seismic data. We modified it by using an admissible support vector (SV) kernel, namely the Ricker wavelet kernel, to replace the conventional radial basis function (RBF) kernel in seismic data processing. We investigated the selection of the regularization parameter for the LS-SVR and derived a concise selecting formula directly from the noisy data. We used the proposed method for choosing the regularization parameter which not only had the advantage of high speed but could also obtain almost the same effectiveness as an optimal parameter method. We conducted experiments using synthetic data corrupted by the random noise of different types and levels, and found that our method was superior to the wavelet transform-based approach and the Wiener filtering. We also applied the method to two field seismic data sets and concluded that it was able to effectively suppress the random noise and improve the data quality in terms of SNR

  18. Noise reduction by support vector regression with a Ricker wavelet kernel

    Science.gov (United States)

    Deng, Xiaoying; Yang, Dinghui; Xie, Jing

    2009-06-01

    We propose a noise filtering technology based on the least-squares support vector regression (LS-SVR), to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of seismic data. We modified it by using an admissible support vector (SV) kernel, namely the Ricker wavelet kernel, to replace the conventional radial basis function (RBF) kernel in seismic data processing. We investigated the selection of the regularization parameter for the LS-SVR and derived a concise selecting formula directly from the noisy data. We used the proposed method for choosing the regularization parameter which not only had the advantage of high speed but could also obtain almost the same effectiveness as an optimal parameter method. We conducted experiments using synthetic data corrupted by the random noise of different types and levels, and found that our method was superior to the wavelet transform-based approach and the Wiener filtering. We also applied the method to two field seismic data sets and concluded that it was able to effectively suppress the random noise and improve the data quality in terms of SNR.

  19. Students' affordance of teleologic explanations and antrhropomorphic language in eliciting concepts in physics

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Romiro Gordo Bautista

    2015-03-01

    Full Text Available This study ascertains the students’ affordance of teleologic explanations and anthropomorphic language in eliciting concepts in Physics as influenced by their age and learning exposure and experience. Using Explicative-Reductive Method of Descriptive Research, this study focused on the determinants of students’ affordance of teleologic-anthropomorphic reasoning to select concepts in Physics: Kinematics, Dynamics, Statics and Introduction to Thermodynamics.  It was found out that the respondents had intermittently committed teleologic-anthropomorphic languages across age and nature of their secondary education. Furthermore, teleologic-anthropomorphic languages were found correctible by classroom interventions as indicated by the test results on age and curricular exposure.

  20. Soundscape elaboration from anthrophonic adaptation of community noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Teddy Badai Samodra, FX

    2018-03-01

    Under the situation of an urban environment, noise has been a critical issue in affecting the indoor environment. A reliable approach is required for evaluation of the community noise as one factor of anthrophonic in the urban environment. This research investigates the level of noise exposure from different community noise sources and elaborates the advantage of the noise disadvantages for soundscape innovation. Integrated building element design as a protector for noise control and speech intelligibility compliance using field experiment and MATLAB programming and modeling are also carried out. Meanwhile, for simulation analysis and building acoustic optimization, Sound Reduction-Speech Intelligibility and Reverberation Time are the main parameters for identifying tropical building model as case study object. The results show that the noise control should consider its integration with the other critical issue, thermal control, in an urban environment. The 1.1 second of reverberation time for speech activities and noise reduction more than 28.66 dBA for critical frequency (20 Hz), the speech intelligibility index could be reached more than fair assessment, 0.45. Furthermore, the environmental psychology adaptation result “Close The Opening” as the best method in high noise condition and personal adjustment as the easiest and the most adaptable way.

  1. Progress on noise policies from 2008 to 2011

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lawrence Finegold

    2012-01-01

    Full Text Available ICBEN Team 9, Noise Policy and Economics, provides an update on international progress on noise mitigation policies and strategies, best practices, and guidelines for environmental noise management for each ICBEN Congress. As described in this brief paper and in more detail in the associated paper prepared for the ICBEN 2011 Congress in London, there were a considerable amount of new relevant documents in many countries on these topics since the last ICBEN Congress in 2008. As before, much of this progress was made in the European Union, although other areas of the world demonstrated a continuing commitment to improvement on these issues, especially in Asia and North America. The Team 9 topics are particularly important because they embody the implementation of the results of the work of the other ICBEN International Noise Teams on the effects of noise exposure and, in addition, address the evolving and vital area of economics. The latter focus area includes topics such as cost-benefit analysis, which is crucial for governments to implement adequate and affordable noise mitigation policies. The ICBEN Team 9 review was prepared through inputs for the authors and through inputs by various Team 9 members. Interested readers are encouraged to read the more extensive Team 9 review paper available in the Proceedings of the ICBEN 2011 Congress.

  2. Shinkansen noise: Research and achievements in countermeasures for Shinkansen noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kikuchi, I.

    1988-01-01

    In 1982, the Tohoku and Joetsu Shinkansen lines were opened. The result is the present Shinkansen network that runs through Japan from north to south, leading to a remarkable improvement in railway services, together with the provision of new, efficient connections with conventional lines. Since the opening of the Tokaido Shinkansen, the high utility of the Shinkansen as a high speed, large volume, and safe mode of transport has been gaining a high reputation. On the other hand, social demands for environmental preservation increased in strength with the advent of the period of Japan's high economic growth. Such demands were posed in the form of complaints about air and water pollution and noise from transportation. The problems of noise and vibration from Shinkansen train operation were posed mainly in relation to railway viaducts in urban areas. The Japanese National Railways (JNR) has made all-out efforts in technical development for noise reduction, obtained many achievements, and put them into practical use one by one on the Shinkansen lines. In the early stage of studies, there were many virgin areas for JNR staff, such as measurement technology, estimation methods, and noise alleviation technology. With the start of full-scale testing at a general test center in 1975, various studies and the development of effective measures made a great step forward. In March 1985, the maximum speed on the Tohoku Shinkansen was increased to 240 km/h, enhancing the Shinkansen reputation and resulting in a considerable growth of traffic. As a matter of course, new measures for noise reduction were taken for this line. In view of the history and results of voluminous studies over many years on the Shinkansen noise problem, and also of the roles and surrounding conditions of the Shinkansen as a mode of transport, however, new tasks are being posed concerning such aspects as how to accomplish environmental preservation in the future.

  3. Instrument Variables for Reducing Noise in Parallel MRI Reconstruction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Yuchou Chang

    2017-01-01

    Full Text Available Generalized autocalibrating partially parallel acquisition (GRAPPA has been a widely used parallel MRI technique. However, noise deteriorates the reconstructed image when reduction factor increases or even at low reduction factor for some noisy datasets. Noise, initially generated from scanner, propagates noise-related errors during fitting and interpolation procedures of GRAPPA to distort the final reconstructed image quality. The basic idea we proposed to improve GRAPPA is to remove noise from a system identification perspective. In this paper, we first analyze the GRAPPA noise problem from a noisy input-output system perspective; then, a new framework based on errors-in-variables (EIV model is developed for analyzing noise generation mechanism in GRAPPA and designing a concrete method—instrument variables (IV GRAPPA to remove noise. The proposed EIV framework provides possibilities that noiseless GRAPPA reconstruction could be achieved by existing methods that solve EIV problem other than IV method. Experimental results show that the proposed reconstruction algorithm can better remove the noise compared to the conventional GRAPPA, as validated with both of phantom and in vivo brain data.

  4. Experimental Study for Reduction of Noises and Vibrations in Hermetic Type Compressor

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sano, Kiyoshi; Kawahara, Sadao; Akazawa, Teruyuki; Ishii, Noriaki

    A brushless DC motor with a permanent magnet rotor has been adopted for a scroll compressor for domestic-use air-conditioners because of a demand for compressor high efficiency. A waveform of the driving voltage in the inverter power supply unit is chopped by the PWM signal. Its duty ratio is increased/decreased to control the DC voltage in order to provide a wide range of rotation frequencies for the compressor. The driving voltage includes the carrier frequency and its harmonic components, which produce an electro-magnetic force in the moter, resulting in high electro-magnetic noise. In the present report, the author clarifies the relationships between the noise and the waveform of driving voltage and frequency response function of the motor. A method to improve the frequency response function by changing the stator shape in order to reduce electro-magnetic noise is presented. Subsequently, the influence on electro-magnetic noise from the waveform of driving voltage is examined. Furthermore, the electro-magnetic noises during inverter driving of an induction motor are presented.

  5. Helicopter Noise Reduction Design Trade-Off Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    1977-01-01

    teeth . f orces gene ratea duriffg geaIr mIteshijog exl’ U: shaft vi brit ion which is’ trarvImi tted struc- ,tjyr, iy to th~e (,tsri 5Oli,&t through...mroticns , IJse uclo d, Lui goner oted usingq separate rotor performance cal cula Lion Ilvethods. bef- rotor. Perfornancef- cal culationl methods used...rotor noise directionality, the existence of a well defined minimum near the rotor plane is universally accepted. This minimum can be very sharp with

  6. High-Fidelity Simulation of Turbofan Noise, Phase I

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — Broadband fan noise -- closely tied to turbulent flow on and around the fan blades -- represents a key challenge to the noise reduction community due to the...

  7. Affordance

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Olesen, Mogens

    2016-01-01

    This entry presents the concept of affordances as part of an ecological approach to understanding how agents interact with objects in their environment. It examines some of the central developments of the concept, from J. J. Gibson’s original definition within psychology and Donald Norman’s design...

  8. [Evaluation of a transient noise reduction strategy on the loudness perception and sound quality].

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Haihong; Zhang, Hua; Chen, Xueqing; Wu, Yanjun; Kong, Ying; Wang, Shuo; Li, Jing

    2010-10-01

    A current technology for detecting and controlling transient noise in hearing aids (AntiShock) was evaluated. The objective was to evaluate AntiShock on loudness control and whether results in negative changes in sound quality of speech, transient noise and environmental noise and provide implications for hearing aid fitting. Twenty-four subjects with sensorineural hearing loss participated in the study. In a single-blinded paradigm, the subjects were asked to rate loudness of transient noise and distortion of speech, transient noise and environmental noise with the AntiShock in both on and off conditions. (1) The percentage of the transient noise rated as soft, comfortable, loud, too loud was 3.0%, 72.7%, 22.9% and 1.4%, respectively. There were significant differences in mean scores of loudness perception among listening conditions and between genders by a Two-Way ANOVA, the P values were 0.009 and 0.001, respectively. (2) The percentage of the speech rated as mild distorted, understandable, clear and very clear was 2.5%, 30.6%, 32.9% and 34.0%, respectively. There were significant differences in mean scores of speech distortion under different listening conditions by an One-Way ANOVA (P 0.05). (4) The percentage of the environmental noise rated as mild distorted, clear but soft, clear and natural was 0.4%, 0.8% and 98.8%, respectively. No significant differences in mean scores of nature of environmental noise was found between different listening conditions by an Independent-Samples T Test (P > 0.05). AntiShock showed positive effects on the loudness control of the transient noise. Quality of speech, transient noise and environmental noise were not impacted by AntiShock.

  9. Aircraft Engine Noise Research and Testing at the NASA Glenn Research Center

    Science.gov (United States)

    Elliott, Dave

    2015-01-01

    The presentation will begin with a brief introduction to the NASA Glenn Research Center as well as an overview of how aircraft engine noise research fits within the organization. Some of the NASA programs and projects with noise content will be covered along with the associated goals of aircraft noise reduction. Topics covered within the noise research being presented will include noise prediction versus experimental results, along with engine fan, jet, and core noise. Details of the acoustic research conducted at NASA Glenn will include the test facilities available, recent test hardware, and data acquisition and analysis methods. Lastly some of the actual noise reduction methods investigated along with their results will be shown.

  10. Acute IPPS - Readmissions Reduction Program

    Data.gov (United States)

    U.S. Department of Health & Human Services — Section 3025 of the Affordable Care Act added section 1886(q) to the Social Security Act establishing the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program, which requires CMS...

  11. A Design of Experiments Investigation of Offset Streams for Supersonic Jet Noise Reduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Henderson, Brenda; Papamoschou, Dimitri

    2014-01-01

    An experimental investigation into the noise characteristics of a dual-stream jet with four airfoils inserted in the fan nozzle was conducted. The intent of the airfoils was to deflect the fan stream relative to the core stream and, therefore, impact the development of the secondary potential core and noise radiated in the peak jet-noise direction. The experiments used a full-factorial Design of Experiments (DoE) approach to identify parameters and parameter interactions impacting noise radiation at two azimuthal microphone array locations, one of which represented a sideline viewing angle. The parameters studied included airfoil angle-of-attack, airfoil azimuthal location within the fan nozzle, and airfoil axial location relative to the fan-nozzle trailing edge. Jet conditions included subsonic and supersonic fan-stream Mach numbers. Heated jets conditions were simulated with a mixture of helium and air to replicate the exhaust velocity and density of the hot jets. The introduction of the airfoils was shown to impact noise radiated at polar angles in peak-jet noise direction and to have no impact on noise radiated at small and broadside polar angles and to have no impact on broadband-shock-associated noise. The DoE analysis showed the main effects impacting noise radiation at sideline-azimuthal-viewing angles included airfoil azimuthal angle for the airfoils on the lower side of the jet near the sideline array and airfoil trailing edge distance (with airfoils located at the nozzle trailing edge produced the lowest sound pressure levels). For an array located directly beneath the jet (and on the side of the jet from which the fan stream was deflected), the main effects impacting noise radiation included airfoil angle-of-attack and airfoil azimuthal angle for the airfoils located on the observation side of the jet as well and trailing edge distance. Interaction terms between multiple configuration parameters were shown to have significant impact on the radiated

  12. Blade vortex interaction noise reduction techniques for a rotorcraft

    Science.gov (United States)

    Charles, Bruce D. (Inventor); Hassan, Ahmed A. (Inventor); Tadghighi, Hormoz (Inventor); JanakiRam, Ram D. (Inventor); Sankar, Lakshmi N. (Inventor)

    1996-01-01

    An active control device for reducing blade-vortex interactions (BVI) noise generated by a rotorcraft, such as a helicopter, comprises a trailing edge flap located near the tip of each of the rotorcraft's rotor blades. The flap may be actuated in any conventional way, and is scheduled to be actuated to a deflected position during rotation of the rotor blade through predetermined regions of the rotor azimuth, and is further scheduled to be actuated to a retracted position through the remaining regions of the rotor azimuth. Through the careful azimuth-dependent deployment and retraction of the flap over the rotor disk, blade tip vortices which are the primary source for BVI noise are (a) made weaker and (b) pushed farther away from the rotor disk (that is, larger blade-vortex separation distances are achieved).

  13. Adaptive Subband Filtering Method for MEMS Accelerometer Noise Reduction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Piotr PIETRZAK

    2008-12-01

    Full Text Available Silicon microaccelerometers can be considered as an alternative to high-priced piezoelectric sensors. Unfortunately, relatively high noise floor of commercially available MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems sensors limits the possibility of their usage in condition monitoring systems of rotating machines. The solution of this problem is the method of signal filtering described in the paper. It is based on adaptive subband filtering employing Adaptive Line Enhancer. For filter weights adaptation, two novel algorithms have been developed. They are based on the NLMS algorithm. Both of them significantly simplify its software and hardware implementation and accelerate the adaptation process. The paper also presents the software (Matlab and hardware (FPGA implementation of the proposed noise filter. In addition, the results of the performed tests are reported. They confirm high efficiency of the solution.

  14. Collaborative Affordances of Medical Records

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Bardram, Jakob Eyvind; Houben, Steven

    2017-01-01

    by Sellen and Harper (2003) on the affordances of physical paper. Sellen and Harper describe how the physical properties of paper affords easy reading, navigation, mark-up, and writing, but focuses, we argue, mainly on individual use of paper and digital technology. As an extension to this, Collaborative...... Affordances; being portable across patient wards and the entire hospital, by providing collocated access, by providing a shared overview of medical data, and by giving clinicians ways to maintain mutual awareness. We then discuss how the concept of Collaborative Affordances can be used in the design of new...... technology by providing a design study of a ‘Hybrid Patient Record’ (HyPR), which is designed to seamlessly blend and integrate paper-based with electronic patient records....

  15. DART Core/Combustor-Noise Initial Test Results

    Science.gov (United States)

    Boyle, Devin K.; Henderson, Brenda S.; Hultgren, Lennart S.

    2017-01-01

    Contributions from the combustor to the overall propulsion noise of civilian transport aircraft are starting to become important due to turbofan design trends and advances in mitigation of other noise sources. Future propulsion systems for ultra-efficient commercial air vehicles are projected to be of increasingly higher bypass ratio from larger fans combined with much smaller cores, with ultra-clean burning fuel-flexible combustors. Unless effective noise-reduction strategies are developed, combustor noise is likely to become a prominent contributor to overall airport community noise in the future. The new NASA DGEN Aero0propulsion Research Turbofan (DART) is a cost-efficient testbed for the study of core-noise physics and mitigation. This presentation gives a brief description of the recently completed DART core combustor-noise baseline test in the NASA GRC Aero-Acoustic Propulsion Laboratory (AAPL). Acoustic data was simultaneously acquired using the AAPL overhead microphone array in the engine aft quadrant far field, a single midfield microphone, and two semi-infinite-tube unsteady pressure sensors at the core-nozzle exit. An initial assessment shows that the data is of high quality and compares well with results from a quick 2014 feasibility test. Combustor noise components of measured total-noise signatures were educed using a two-signal source-separation method an dare found to occur in the expected frequency range. The research described herein is aligned with the NASA Ultra-Efficient Commercial Transport strategic thrust and is supported by the NASA Advanced Air Vehicle Program, Advanced Air Transport Technology Project, under the Aircraft Noise Reduction Subproject.

  16. Optimization of actuator arrays for aircraft interior noise control

    Science.gov (United States)

    Cabell, R. H.; Lester, H. C.; Mathur, G. P.; Tran, B. N.

    1993-01-01

    A numerical procedure for grouping actuators in order to reduce the number of degrees of freedom in an active noise control system is evaluated using experimental data. Piezoceramic actuators for reducing aircraft interior noise are arranged into groups using a nonlinear optimization routine and clustering algorithm. An actuator group is created when two or more actuators are driven with the same control input. This procedure is suitable for active control applications where actuators are already mounted on a structure. The feasibility of this technique is demonstrated using measured data from the aft cabin of a Douglas DC-9 fuselage. The measured data include transfer functions between 34 piezoceramic actuators and 29 interior microphones and microphone responses due to the primary noise produced by external speakers. Control inputs for the grouped actuators were calculated so that a cost function, defined as a quadratic pressure term and a penalty term, was a minimum. The measured transfer functions and microphone responses are checked by comparing calculated noise reductions with measured noise reductions for four frequencies. The grouping procedure is then used to determine actuator groups that improve overall interior noise reductions by 5.3 to 15 dB, compared to the baseline experimental configuration.

  17. Symmetric airfoil geometry effects on leading edge noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Gill, James; Zhang, X; Joseph, P

    2013-10-01

    Computational aeroacoustic methods are applied to the modeling of noise due to interactions between gusts and the leading edge of real symmetric airfoils. Single frequency harmonic gusts are interacted with various airfoil geometries at zero angle of attack. The effects of airfoil thickness and leading edge radius on noise are investigated systematically and independently for the first time, at higher frequencies than previously used in computational methods. Increases in both leading edge radius and thickness are found to reduce the predicted noise. This noise reduction effect becomes greater with increasing frequency and Mach number. The dominant noise reduction mechanism for airfoils with real geometry is found to be related to the leading edge stagnation region. It is shown that accurate leading edge noise predictions can be made when assuming an inviscid meanflow, but that it is not valid to assume a uniform meanflow. Analytic flat plate predictions are found to over-predict the noise due to a NACA 0002 airfoil by up to 3 dB at high frequencies. The accuracy of analytic flat plate solutions can be expected to decrease with increasing airfoil thickness, leading edge radius, gust frequency, and Mach number.

  18. Origin and Reduction of 1 /f Magnetic Flux Noise in Superconducting Devices

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kumar, P.; Sendelbach, S.; Beck, M. A.; Freeland, J. W.; Wang, Zhe; Wang, Hui; Yu, Clare C.; Wu, R. Q.; Pappas, D. P.; McDermott, R.

    2016-10-01

    Magnetic flux noise is a dominant source of dephasing and energy relaxation in superconducting qubits. The noise power spectral density varies with frequency as 1 /fα, with α ≲1 , and spans 13 orders of magnitude. Recent work indicates that the noise is from unpaired magnetic defects on the surfaces of the superconducting devices. Here, we demonstrate that adsorbed molecular O2 is the dominant contributor to magnetism in superconducting thin films. We show that this magnetism can be reduced by appropriate surface treatment or improvement in the sample vacuum environment. We observe a suppression of static spin susceptibility by more than an order of magnitude and a suppression of 1 /f magnetic flux noise power spectral density of up to a factor of 5. These advances open the door to the realization of superconducting qubits with improved quantum coherence.

  19. Sensitivity of PPI analysis to differences in noise reduction strategies.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Barton, M; Marecek, R; Rektor, I; Filip, P; Janousova, E; Mikl, M

    2015-09-30

    In some fields of fMRI data analysis, using correct methods for dealing with noise is crucial for achieving meaningful results. This paper provides a quantitative assessment of the effects of different preprocessing and noise filtering strategies on psychophysiological interactions (PPI) methods for analyzing fMRI data where noise management has not yet been established. Both real and simulated fMRI data were used to assess these effects. Four regions of interest (ROIs) were chosen for the PPI analysis on the basis of their engagement during two tasks. PPI analysis was performed for 32 different preprocessing and analysis settings, which included data filtering with RETROICOR or no such filtering; different filtering of the ROI "seed" signal with a nuisance data-driven time series; and the involvement of these data-driven time series in the subsequent PPI GLM analysis. The extent of the statistically significant results was quantified at the group level using simple descriptive statistics. Simulated data were generated to assess statistical improvement of different filtering strategies. We observed that different approaches for dealing with noise in PPI analysis yield differing results in real data. In simulated data, we found RETROICOR, seed signal filtering and the addition of data-driven covariates to the PPI design matrix significantly improves results. We recommend the use of RETROICOR, and data-driven filtering of the whole data, or alternatively, seed signal filtering with data-driven signals and the addition of data-driven covariates to the PPI design matrix. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

  20. Speckle noise reduction in breast ultrasound images: SMU (srad median unsharp) approch

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Njeh, I.; Sassi, O. B.; Ben Hamida, A.; Chtourou, K.

    2011-01-01

    Image denoising has become a very essential for better information extraction from the image and mainly from so noised ones, such as ultrasound images. In certain cases, for instance in ultrasound images, the noise can restrain information which is valuable for the general practitioner. Consequently medical images are very inconsistent, and it is crucial to operate case to case. This paper presents a novel algorithm SMU (Srad Median Unsharp) for noise suppression in ultrasound breast images in order to realize a computer aided diagnosis (CAD) for breast cancer.

  1. Noise Optimization in Diesel Engines

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    S. Narayan

    2014-04-01

    Full Text Available Euro 6 norms emphasize on reduction of emissions from the engines. New injection methods are being adopted for homogenous mixture formation in diesel engines. During steady state conditions homogenous combustion gave noise levels in lower frequencies. In this work noise produced in a 440 cc diesel engine has been investigated. The engine was run under various operating conditions varying various injection parameters.

  2. Comparisons of spectral characteristics of wind noise between omnidirectional and directional microphones.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chung, King

    2012-06-01

    Wind noise reduction is a topic of ongoing research and development for hearing aids and cochlear implants. The purposes of this study were to examine spectral characteristics of wind noise generated by directional (DIR) and omnidirectional (OMNI) microphones on different styles of hearing aids and to derive wind noise reduction strategies. Three digital hearing aids (BTE, ITE, and ITC) were fitted to Knowles Electronic Manikin for Acoustic Research. They were programmed to have linear amplification and matching frequency responses between the DIR and OMNI modes. Flow noise recordings were made from 0° to 360° azimuths at flow velocities of 4.5, 9.0, and 13.5 m/s in a quiet wind tunnel. Noise levels were analyzed in one-third octave bands from 100 to 8000 Hz. Comparison of wind noise revealed that DIR generally produced higher noise levels than OMNI for all hearing aids, but it could result in lower levels than OMNI at some frequencies and head angles. Wind noise reduction algorithms can be designed to detect noise levels of DIR and OMNI outputs in each frequency channel, remove the constraint to switch to OMNI in low-frequency channel(s) only, and adopt the microphone mode with lower noise levels to take advantage of the microphone differences.

  3. Measurement time and statistics for a noise thermometer with a synthetic-noise reference

    Science.gov (United States)

    White, D. R.; Benz, S. P.; Labenski, J. R.; Nam, S. W.; Qu, J. F.; Rogalla, H.; Tew, W. L.

    2008-08-01

    This paper describes methods for reducing the statistical uncertainty in measurements made by noise thermometers using digital cross-correlators and, in particular, for thermometers using pseudo-random noise for the reference signal. First, a discrete-frequency expression for the correlation bandwidth for conventional noise thermometers is derived. It is shown how an alternative frequency-domain computation can be used to eliminate the spectral response of the correlator and increase the correlation bandwidth. The corresponding expressions for the uncertainty in the measurement of pseudo-random noise in the presence of uncorrelated thermal noise are then derived. The measurement uncertainty in this case is less than that for true thermal-noise measurements. For pseudo-random sources generating a frequency comb, an additional small reduction in uncertainty is possible, but at the cost of increasing the thermometer's sensitivity to non-linearity errors. A procedure is described for allocating integration times to further reduce the total uncertainty in temperature measurements. Finally, an important systematic error arising from the calculation of ratios of statistical variables is described.

  4. Highly Diastereoselective Synthesis of 2-(1-N-Boc-aminoalkyl)thiazole-5-carboxylates by Reduction of tert-Butylsulfinyl Ketimines.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Magata, Takuji; Hirokawa, Yoshimi; Furokawa, Aya; Takeuchi, Kazuhisa; Ohtomo, Yoshiaki; Kino, Toshitaka; Kominami, Jun; Nakai, Yuto; Kitamura, Maria; Maezaki, Naoyoshi

    2018-01-01

    Positional isomers of naturally occurring peptide subunits were synthesized via highly diastereoselective reduction of tert-butylsulfinyl ketimines as a key reaction. While NaBH 4 reduction of ketimines derived from 2-thiazolyl ketones afforded the (R S ,R)-isomer with moderate diastereoselectivity, L-Selectride ® reduction afforded the (R S ,S)-isomer as the sole product. In contrast, ketimines derived from tert-butyl 2-thiazolyl ketone afforded the (R S ,R)-isomer with low diastereoselectivity by both NaBH 4 and L-Selectride ® reduction. Stereochemistry of the reaction was discussed based on calculation of the conformational energies for ketimines.

  5. The influence of road traffic noise on sleep

    Science.gov (United States)

    Eberhardt, J. L.

    1988-12-01

    The influence of road traffic noise on the sleep of adults and 6-11 year old children was studied by using electrophysiological methods. Young adults, unaccustomed to traffic noise, were disturbed by continuous and intermittent traffic noise at 45 dB(A). No sleep disturbances were found for continuous traffic noise at 36 dB(A). Car passages with a peak noise level of 55 dB(A) caused awakenings. The equivalent sound pressure level ( Leq) did not correlate with sleep disturbance effects. A better noise dose description was found in the number of vehicles per night that made most noise. Children wer about 10 dB(A) less sensitive than adults to awakening reactions, and even less sensitive with respect to disturbances of REM sleep and deep sleep. Total habituation to road traffic noise did not occur, even after at least one year of exposure. Sound reduction in the bedroom induced increased amounts of deep sleep for adults and reduced falling-asleep time for children. Road traffic noise during the first hours of a night's sleep tended to disturb sleep more than when it ocurred later in the night, the main effects being a reduction of the total amount of REM sleep during the night and an increased duration of intermittent wakefulness during the hours of exposure.

  6. Developmental Mechanisms Underlying Improved Contrast Thresholds for Discriminations of Orientation Signals Embedded in Noise

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Seong Taek eJeon

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available We combined an external noise paradigm with an efficient procedure for obtaining contrast thresholds (Lesmes et al., 2006 in order to model developmental changes during childhood. Specifically, we measured the contrast thresholds of 5-, 7-, 9-year-olds and adults (n = 20/age in a two alternative forced-choice orientation discrimination task over a wide range of external noise levels and at three levels of accuracy. Overall, as age increased, contrast thresholds decreased over the entire range of external noise levels tested. The decrease was greatest between 5 and 7 years of age. The reduction in threshold after age 5 was greater in the high than the low external noise region, a pattern implying greater tolerance to the irrelevant background noise as children became older. To model the mechanisms underlying these developmental changes in terms of internal noise components, we adapted the original perceptual template model (Lu and Dosher, 1998 and normalized the magnitude of performance changes against the performance of 5-year-olds. The resulting model provided an excellent fit (r2 = 0.985 to the contrast thresholds at multiple levels of accuracy (60, 75, and 90% across a wide range of external noise levels. The improvements in contrast thresholds with age were best modelled by a combination of reductions in internal additive noise, reductions in internal multiplicative noise, and improvements in excluding external noise by template retuning. In line with the data, the improvement was greatest between 5 and 7 years of age, accompanied by a 39% reduction in additive noise, 71% reduction in multiplicative noise, and 45% improvement in external noise exclusion. The modelled improvements likely reflect developmental changes at the cortical level, rather than changes in front-end structural properties (Kiorpes et al., 2003.

  7. Traffic noise monitoring at road intersections in urban settlement ...

    African Journals Online (AJOL)

    Traffic noise monitoring at road intersections in urban settlement: Case study of Ramat Park Benin City. ... bus drivers) were responsible for the noise emission while enforcement of traffic laws in the state and relocation of the motor park close to the square were recommended control measures for noise reduction.

  8. The effects of acoustical refurbishment of classrooms on teachers’ perceived noise exposure and noise-related health symptoms

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Kristiansen, Jesper; Lund, Søren Peter; Persson, Roger

    2015-01-01

    lessons with circa 2 dB(A) in both schools. Conclusion: The acoustical refurbishment was associated with a reduction in classroom reverberation time and activity sound levels in both schools. The acoustical refurbishment was associated with a reduction in the teachers’ perceived noise exposure...... of RT and activity sound levels were measured before and after refurbishment. Data on perceived noise exposure, disturbance attributed to different noise sources, voice symptoms, and fatigue after work were collected over a year in a total of six consecutive questionnaires. Results: Refurbished......, the mean classroom reverberation time was 0.68 (school A) and 0.57 (school B) and 0.55 s in sham refurbished classrooms. After refurbishment, the RT was approximately 0.4 s in both schools. Activity sound level measurements confirmed that the intervention had reduced the equivalent sound levels during...

  9. TIPS bilateral noise reduction in 4D CT perfusion scans produces high-quality cerebral blood flow maps

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Mendrik, Adrienne M; Van Ginneken, Bram; Viergever, Max A [Image Sciences Institute, University Medical Center Utrecht, Heidelberglaan 100, 3584 CX Utrecht (Netherlands); Vonken, Evert-jan; De Jong, Hugo W; Riordan, Alan; Van Seeters, Tom; Smit, Ewoud J; Prokop, Mathias, E-mail: a.m.mendrik@gmail.com [Radiology Department, University Medical Center Utrecht, Heidelberglaan 100, 3584 CX Utrecht (Netherlands)

    2011-07-07

    Cerebral computed tomography perfusion (CTP) scans are acquired to detect areas of abnormal perfusion in patients with cerebrovascular diseases. These 4D CTP scans consist of multiple sequential 3D CT scans over time. Therefore, to reduce radiation exposure to the patient, the amount of x-ray radiation that can be used per sequential scan is limited, which results in a high level of noise. To detect areas of abnormal perfusion, perfusion parameters are derived from the CTP data, such as the cerebral blood flow (CBF). Algorithms to determine perfusion parameters, especially singular value decomposition, are very sensitive to noise. Therefore, noise reduction is an important preprocessing step for CTP analysis. In this paper, we propose a time-intensity profile similarity (TIPS) bilateral filter to reduce noise in 4D CTP scans, while preserving the time-intensity profiles (fourth dimension) that are essential for determining the perfusion parameters. The proposed TIPS bilateral filter is compared to standard Gaussian filtering, and 4D and 3D (applied separately to each sequential scan) bilateral filtering on both phantom and patient data. Results on the phantom data show that the TIPS bilateral filter is best able to approach the ground truth (noise-free phantom), compared to the other filtering methods (lowest root mean square error). An observer study is performed using CBF maps derived from fifteen CTP scans of acute stroke patients filtered with standard Gaussian, 3D, 4D and TIPS bilateral filtering. These CBF maps were blindly presented to two observers that indicated which map they preferred for (1) gray/white matter differentiation, (2) detectability of infarcted area and (3) overall image quality. Based on these results, the TIPS bilateral filter ranked best and its CBF maps were scored to have the best overall image quality in 100% of the cases by both observers. Furthermore, quantitative CBF and cerebral blood volume values in both the phantom and the

  10. Reduction of Discrete-Frequency Fan Noise Using Slitlike Expansion Chambers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Akira Sadamoto

    2003-01-01

    Full Text Available As is generally known, discrete-frequency noises are radiated from fans due to rotor-stator interaction. Their fundamental frequency is the blade-passage frequency, which is determined by the number of rotor blades and their rotating speeds. To reduce such noises, several types of silencers have been designed. Among them, the authors noted a slitlike expansion chamber (hereafter referred to as slit, for simplicity and have studied its performance. A slit is a simple expansion chamber with a very short axial length that is placed in a duct. A slit with a circular cross-section that is concentric with a circular duct may be studied using the same interpretation as is used for a side-branch resonator muffler (closed-end tube connected to a duct; that is, the resonant frequency of a slit depends on its depth (with an open-end correction. It is expected, hence, that a slit might be applicable as a simple and axially compact silencer that is effective on discrete-frequency noises. In this article, the properties of a slit are introduced, and the applicability of a slit to actual rotating machinery is described using experimental data.

  11. An inverter-based capacitive trans-impedance amplifier readout with offset cancellation and temporal noise reduction for IR focal plane array

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Hsin-Han; Hsieh, Chih-Cheng

    2013-09-01

    This paper presents a readout integrated circuit (ROIC) with inverter-based capacitive trans-impedance amplifier (CTIA) and pseudo-multiple sampling technique for infrared focal plane array (IRFPA). The proposed inverter-based CTIA with a coupling capacitor [1], executing auto-zeroing technique to cancel out the varied offset voltage from process variation, is used to substitute differential amplifier in conventional CTIA. The tunable detector bias is applied from a global external bias before exposure. This scheme not only retains stable detector bias voltage and signal injection efficiency, but also reduces the pixel area as well. Pseudo-multiple sampling technique [2] is adopted to reduce the temporal noise of readout circuit. The noise reduction performance is comparable to the conventional multiple sampling operation without need of longer readout time proportional to the number of samples. A CMOS image sensor chip with 55×65 pixel array has been fabricated in 0.18um CMOS technology. It achieves a 12um×12um pixel size, a frame rate of 72 fps, a power-per-pixel of 0.66uW/pixel, and a readout temporal noise of 1.06mVrms (16 times of pseudo-multiple sampling), respectively.

  12. Noise source identification for ducted fan systems

    OpenAIRE

    BENNETT, GARETH; FITZPATRICK, JOHN AIDAN

    2008-01-01

    PUBLISHED Coherence based source analysis techniques can be used to identify the contribution of combustion noise in the exhaust of a jet engine and hence enable the design of noise reduction devices. However, when the combustion noise propagates in a non-linear fashion the identified contribution using ordinary coherence methods will be inaccurate. In this paper, an analysis technique to enable the contribution of linear and non-linear mechanisms to the propagated sound ...

  13. A reliable ground bounce noise reduction technique for nanoscale CMOS circuits

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sharma, Vijay Kumar; Pattanaik, Manisha

    2015-11-01

    Power gating is the most effective method to reduce the standby leakage power by adding header/footer high-VTH sleep transistors between actual and virtual power/ground rails. When a power gating circuit transitions from sleep mode to active mode, a large instantaneous charge current flows through the sleep transistors. Ground bounce noise (GBN) is the high voltage fluctuation on real ground rail during sleep mode to active mode transitions of power gating circuits. GBN disturbs the logic states of internal nodes of circuits. A novel and reliable power gating structure is proposed in this article to reduce the problem of GBN. The proposed structure contains low-VTH transistors in place of high-VTH footer. The proposed power gating structure not only reduces the GBN but also improves other performance metrics. A large mitigation of leakage power in both modes eliminates the need of high-VTH transistors. A comprehensive and comparative evaluation of proposed technique is presented in this article for a chain of 5-CMOS inverters. The simulation results are compared to other well-known GBN reduction circuit techniques at 22 nm predictive technology model (PTM) bulk CMOS model using HSPICE tool. Robustness against process, voltage and temperature (PVT) variations is estimated through Monte-Carlo simulations.

  14. Evaluation of Novel Liner Concepts for Fan and Airframe Noise Reduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, M. G.; Howerton, B. M.

    2016-01-01

    This paper presents a review of four novel liner concepts: soft vanes, over-the-rotor liners, external liners, and flap side-edge liners. A number of similarities in the design and evaluation of these concepts emerged during these investigations. Since these were the first attempts to study these particular liner concepts, there was limited information to guide the design process. In all cases, the target frequencies (or frequency range) were known, but the optimum acoustic impedance and optimum liner placement were typically not known. For these cases, the maximum available surface was used and a c-impedance was targeted based on the assumption the sound field impinges on the surface at normal incidence. This choice proved fruitful for every application. An impedance prediction model was used to design variable-depth liner configurations, and a graphical design code (ILIAD) was developed to aid in this process. The ability to build increasingly complex liner configurations via additive manufacturing was key, such that multiple designs could quickly be tested in a normal incidence impedance tube. The Two-Thickness Method was used to evaluate available bulk materials, such that bulk liners could also be considered for each application. These novel liner concepts provide sufficient noise reduction to warrant further investigations.

  15. Social affordances and the possibility of ecological linguistics.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kono, Tetsuya

    2009-12-01

    This paper includes an effort to extend the notion of affordance from a philosophical point of view the importance of ecological approach for social psychology, ethics, and linguistics. Affordances are not always merely physical but also interpersonal and social. I will conceptualize affordance in general and social affordance in particular, and will elucidate the relation between intentional action and affordances, and that between affordances and free will. I will also focus on the relation between social institution and affordance. An extended theory of affordances can provide a way to analyze in concrete ways how social institution works as an implicit background of interpersonal interactions. Ecological approach considers social institution as the producer and maintainer of affordances. Social institutions construct the niches for human beings. Finally, I will argue the possibility of the ecological linguistics. Language is a social institution. The system of signs is the way to articulate and differentiate interpersonal affordances. Language acquires its meaning, i.e. communicative power in the interpersonal interactions, and interpersonal interactions, in turn, develop and are elaborated through the usage of signs. Communication is seen as never aimed to transmit inner ideas to others, but to guide and adjust the behaviors of others thorough articulating the affordance of responsible-ness.

  16. Acoustics. Measurement of sound insulation in buildings and of building elements. Laboratory measurements of the reduction of transmitted impact noise by floor coverings on a heavyweight standard floor

    CERN Document Server

    British Standards Institution. London

    1998-01-01

    Acoustics. Measurement of sound insulation in buildings and of building elements. Laboratory measurements of the reduction of transmitted impact noise by floor coverings on a heavyweight standard floor

  17. Measurements and Predictions of the Noise from Three-Stream Jets

    Science.gov (United States)

    Henderson, Brenda S.; Leib, Stewart J.; Wernet, Mark P.

    2015-01-01

    An experimental and numerical investigation of the noise produced by high-subsonic and supersonic three-stream jets was conducted. The exhaust system consisted of externally-mixed-convergent nozzles and an external plug. Bypass- and tertiary-to-core area ratios between 1.0 and 2.5, and 0.4 and 1.0, respectively, were studied. Axisymmetric and offset tertiary nozzles were investigated for heated and unheated conditions. For axisymmetric configurations, the addition of the third stream was found to reduce peak- and high-frequency acoustic levels in the peak-jet-noise direction, with greater reductions at the lower bypass-to-core area ratios. For the offset configurations, an offset duct was found to decrease acoustic levels on the thick side of the tertiary nozzle relative to those produced by the simulated two-stream jet with up to 8 dB mid-frequency noise reduction at large angles to the jet inlet axis. Noise reduction in the peak-jet-noise direction was greater for supersonic core speeds than for subsonic core speeds. The addition of a tertiary nozzle insert used to divert the third-stream jet to one side of the nozzle system provided no noise reduction. Noise predictions are presented for selected cases using a method based on an acoustic analogy with mean flow interaction effects accounted for using a Green's function, computed in terms of its coupled azimuthal modes for the offset cases, and a source model previously used for round and rectangular jets. Comparisons of the prediction results with data show that the noise model predicts the observed increase in low-frequency noise with the introduction of a third, axisymmetric stream, but not the high-frequency reduction. For an offset third stream, the model predicts the observed trend of decreased sound levels on the thick side of the jet compared with the thin side, but the predicted azimuthal variations are much less than those seen in the data. Also, the shift of the spectral peak to lower frequencies with

  18. Patterns in Health Care Access and Affordability Among Cancer Survivors During Implementation of the Affordable Care Act.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nipp, Ryan D; Shui, Amy M; Perez, Giselle K; Kirchhoff, Anne C; Peppercorn, Jeffrey M; Moy, Beverly; Kuhlthau, Karen; Park, Elyse R

    2018-03-29

    Cancer survivors face ongoing health issues and need access to affordable health care, yet studies examining health care access and affordability in this population are lacking. To evaluate health care access and affordability in a national sample of cancer survivors compared with adults without cancer and to evaluate temporal trends during implementation of the Affordable Care Act. We used data from the National Health Interview Survey from 2010 through 2016 to conduct a population-based study of 30 364 participants aged 18 years or older. We grouped participants as cancer survivors (n = 15 182) and those with no reported history of cancer, whom we refer to as control respondents (n = 15 182), matched on age. We excluded individuals reporting a cancer diagnosis prior to age 18 years and those with nonmelanoma skin cancers. We compared issues with health care access (eg, delayed or forgone care) and affordability (eg, unable to afford medications or health care services) between cancer survivors and control respondents. We also explored trends over time in the proportion of cancer survivors reporting these difficulties. Of the 30 364 participants, 18 356 (57.4%) were women. The mean (SD) age was 63.5 (23.5) years. Cancer survivors were more likely to be insured (14 412 [94.8%] vs 13 978 [92.2%], P care (odds ratio [OR], 1.38; 95% CI, 1.16-1.63), forgone medical care (OR, 1.76; 95% CI, 1.45-2.12), and/or inability to afford medications (OR, 1.77; 95% CI, 1.46-2.14) and health care services (OR, 1.46; 95% CI, 1.27-1.68) (P care decreased each year (B = 0.47; P = .047), and the proportion of those needing and not getting medical care also decreased each year (B = 0.35; P = .04). In addition, the proportion of cancer survivors who reported being unable to afford prescription medication decreased each year (B=0.66; P = .004) and the proportion of those unable to afford at least 1 of 6 services decreased each year (B = 0

  19. Landing Gear Door Liners for Airframe Noise Reduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jones, Michael G. (Inventor); Howerton, Brian M. (Inventor); Van De Ven, Thomas (Inventor)

    2014-01-01

    A landing gear door for retractable landing gear of aircraft includes an acoustic liner. The acoustic liner includes one or more internal cavities or chambers having one or more openings that inhibit the generation of sound at the surface and/or absorb sound generated during operation of the aircraft. The landing gear door may include a plurality of internal chambers having different geometries to thereby absorb broadband noise.

  20. Signatures of nonlinearity in single cell noise-induced oscillations.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Thomas, Philipp; Straube, Arthur V; Timmer, Jens; Fleck, Christian; Grima, Ramon

    2013-10-21

    A class of theoretical models seeks to explain rhythmic single cell data by postulating that they are generated by intrinsic noise in biochemical systems whose deterministic models exhibit only damped oscillations. The main features of such noise-induced oscillations are quantified by the power spectrum which measures the dependence of the oscillatory signal's power with frequency. In this paper we derive an approximate closed-form expression for the power spectrum of any monostable biochemical system close to a Hopf bifurcation, where noise-induced oscillations are most pronounced. Unlike the commonly used linear noise approximation which is valid in the macroscopic limit of large volumes, our theory is valid over a wide range of volumes and hence affords a more suitable description of single cell noise-induced oscillations. Our theory predicts that the spectra have three universal features: (i) a dominant peak at some frequency, (ii) a smaller peak at twice the frequency of the dominant peak and (iii) a peak at zero frequency. Of these, the linear noise approximation predicts only the first feature while the remaining two stem from the combination of intrinsic noise and nonlinearity in the law of mass action. The theoretical expressions are shown to accurately match the power spectra determined from stochastic simulations of mitotic and circadian oscillators. Furthermore it is shown how recently acquired single cell rhythmic fibroblast data displays all the features predicted by our theory and that the experimental spectrum is well described by our theory but not by the conventional linear noise approximation. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  1. Spatial noise in staring IR focal plane arrays

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Scribner, D.A.; Kruer, M.R.; Sarkady, K.; Gridley, J.C.

    1988-01-01

    Problems with nonuniformity correction algorithms due to nonlinear pixel response and 1/f noise have been shown previously to cause spatial noise which can be significantly greater than temporal noise. The residual spatial noise after correction cannot be reduced with time averaging. Because of spatial noise the sensitivity of staring FPA sensors is often less than predicted on the basis of the temporal noise of the individual elements. A review is given of methods for measuring and analyzing spatial noise (after nonuniformity correction) in staring infrared focal plane arrays. Automated measurement techniques are described briefly, including necessary equipment and data reduction procedures. An example of spatial noise measurements is given using a staring InSb Charge Injection Device (CID) array

  2. SELECTED PROBLEMS OF PROTECTION AGAINST ROAD TRAFFIC NOISE

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Władysław Gardziejczyk

    2015-11-01

    Full Text Available The paper presents factors for assessment of road traffic noise level and possible actions towards the minimization of excessive noise in the roadway neighborhood. Changes of equivalent sound level values were analyzed in relation to traffic intensity, categorization and vehicles speed. In relation to measures reducing noise level in roadway’s surroundings particular attention was given to anti-noise protections and tyre/noise reduction. Acoustic effectiveness of specific solutions was showed based on chosen examples. It was proved that when admissible noise level is slightly exceeded the need for noise barrier use may be replaced by a proper design and maintenance of road pavement or by enforcement of speed limit.

  3. Noise Reduction Efforts for Special Operations C-130 Aircraft Using Active Synchrophaser Control

    National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

    Hammond, Daryl; McKinley, Richard; Hale, Bill

    1998-01-01

    .... A more complicated approach uses an active noise cancellation (ANC) system, which offers improved performance that can augment passive methods to significantly reduce both internal and external aircraft noise...

  4. Noise Reduction Properties of an Experimental Bituminous Slurry with Crumb Rubber Incorporated by the Dry Process

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Moisés Bueno

    2014-08-01

    Full Text Available Nowadays, cold technology for asphalt pavement in the field of road construction is considered as an alternative solution to conventional procedures from both an economic and environmental point of view. Among these techniques, bituminous slurry surfacing is obtaining an important role due to the properties of the obtained wearing course. The functional performance of this type of surfaces is directly related to its rough texture. Nevertheless, this parameter has a significant influence on the tire/road noise generation. To reduce this undesirable effect on the sound performance, new designs of elastic bituminous slurries have been developed. Within the FENIX project, this work presents the acoustical characterization of an experimental bituminous slurry with crumb rubber from wasted automobile tires incorporated by the dry process. The obtained results show that, under controlled operational parameters, the close proximity sound levels associated to the experimental slurry are considerably lower than those emitted by a conventional slurry wearing course. However, after one year of supporting traffic loads and different weather conditions, the evaluated bituminous slurry, although it conserves the original noise reduction properties in relation to the conventional one, noticeably increases the generated sound emission. Therefore, it is required to continue improving the design of experimental surfaces in order to enhance its long-term performance.

  5. A two-microphone noise reduction system for cochlear implant users with nearby microphones. Part I: Signal processing algorithm design and development

    OpenAIRE

    Kompis, Martin; Bertram, Matthias; François, Jacques; Pelizzone, Marco

    2008-01-01

    Users of cochlear implant systems, that is, of auditory aids which stimulate the auditory nerve at the cochlea electrically, often complain about poor speech understanding in noisy environments. Despite the proven advantages of multimicrophone directional noise reduction systems for conventional hearing aids, only one major manufacturer has so far implemented such a system in a product, presumably because of the added power consumption and size. We present a physically small (intermicrophone ...

  6. Effective data-domain noise and streak reduction for X-ray CT

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yang, Zhi; Zamyatin, Alexander A. [Toshiba Medical Research Institute USA, Inc., Vernon Hills, IL (United States); Akino, Naruomi [Toshiba Medical System Corporation, Tokyo (Japan)

    2011-07-01

    Streaks and noise caused by photon starvation can seriously impair the diagnostic value of the CT imaging. Existing processing methods often have several parameters to tune. The parameters can be ad hoc to the data sets. Iterative methods can achieve better results, however, at the cost of more hardware resources or longer processing time. This paper reports a new scheme of adaptive Gaussian filtering, which is based on the diffusion-derived scale-space concept. In scale-space view, filtering by Gaussians of different sizes is similar to decompose the data into a sequence of scales. The scale measure, which is the variance of the filter, should be linearly related to the noise standard deviation instead of the variance of the noise. This is a fundamental deviation in the way of using filters. The new filter has only one parameter that remains stable once tuned. Singlepass processing can usually reach the desired results. (orig.)

  7. A noise reduction technique based on nonlinear kernel function for heart sound analysis.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Mondal, Ashok; Saxena, Ishan; Tang, Hong; Banerjee, Poulami

    2017-02-13

    The main difficulty encountered in interpretation of cardiac sound is interference of noise. The contaminated noise obscures the relevant information which are useful for recognition of heart diseases. The unwanted signals are produced mainly by lungs and surrounding environment. In this paper, a novel heart sound de-noising technique has been introduced based on a combined framework of wavelet packet transform (WPT) and singular value decomposition (SVD). The most informative node of wavelet tree is selected on the criteria of mutual information measurement. Next, the coefficient corresponding to the selected node is processed by SVD technique to suppress noisy component from heart sound signal. To justify the efficacy of the proposed technique, several experiments have been conducted with heart sound dataset, including normal and pathological cases at different signal to noise ratios. The significance of the method is validated by statistical analysis of the results. The biological information preserved in de-noised heart sound (HS) signal is evaluated by k-means clustering algorithm and Fit Factor calculation. The overall results show that proposed method is superior than the baseline methods.

  8. Vital affordances, occupying niches

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Dokumaci, Arseli

    2017-01-01

    This article proposes a new conceptual approach to disability and performance through a contribution that comes entirely from outside the disciplines; a re-theorisation of Gibson’s [1979. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates] theory of affordances....... Drawing on three visual ethnographies with differently disabled individuals, and building upon my previous consideration of performance as ‘affordance creation’ in itself [Dokumaci, A. 2013. “On Falling Ill.” Performance Research 18 (4): 107–115], the article conceptualises affordances as a form of micro......-activism–one that can allow us to unpack the entanglements of disability, performance, and matter. Putting Gibson’s theory in conversation with Canguilhem’s philosophy of life, it proposes the concept ‘vital affordances’ as a new way to think through this micro-activism, and the way disabled individuals might transform...

  9. Radiation dose reduction using 100-kVp and a sinogram-affirmed iterative reconstruction algorithm in adolescent head CT: Impact on grey-white matter contrast and image noise.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Nagayama, Yasunori; Nakaura, Takeshi; Tsuji, Akinori; Urata, Joji; Furusawa, Mitsuhiro; Yuki, Hideaki; Hirarta, Kenichiro; Kidoh, Masafumi; Oda, Seitaro; Utsunomiya, Daisuke; Yamashita, Yasuyuki

    2017-07-01

    To retrospectively evaluate the image quality and radiation dose of 100-kVp scans with sinogram-affirmed iterative reconstruction (IR) for unenhanced head CT in adolescents. Sixty-nine patients aged 12-17 years underwent head CT under 120- (n = 34) or 100-kVp (n = 35) protocols. The 120-kVp images were reconstructed with filtered back-projection (FBP), 100-kVp images with FBP (100-kVp-F) and sinogram-affirmed IR (100-kVp-S). We compared the effective dose (ED), grey-white matter (GM-WM) contrast, image noise, and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) between protocols in supratentorial (ST) and posterior fossa (PS). We also assessed GM-WM contrast, image noise, sharpness, artifacts, and overall image quality on a four-point scale. ED was 46% lower with 100- than 120-kVp (p < 0.001). GM-WM contrast was higher, and image noise was lower, on 100-kVp-S than 120-kVp at ST (p < 0.001). CNR of 100-kVp-S was higher than of 120-kVp (p < 0.001). GM-WM contrast of 100-kVp-S was subjectively rated as better than of 120-kVp (p < 0.001). There were no significant differences in the other criteria between 100-kVp-S and 120-kVp (p = 0.072-0.966). The 100-kVp with sinogram-affirmed IR facilitated dramatic radiation reduction and better GM-WM contrast without increasing image noise in adolescent head CT. • 100-kVp head CT provides 46% radiation dose reduction compared with 120-kVp. • 100-kVp scanning improves subjective and objective GM-WM contrast. • Sinogram-affirmed IR decreases head CT image noise, especially in supratentorial region. • 100-kVp protocol with sinogram-affirmed IR is suited for adolescent head CT.

  10. Effects of noise and working memory capacity on memory processing of speech for hearing-aid users.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Ng, Elaine Hoi Ning; Rudner, Mary; Lunner, Thomas; Pedersen, Michael Syskind; Rönnberg, Jerker

    2013-07-01

    It has been shown that noise reduction algorithms can reduce the negative effects of noise on memory processing in persons with normal hearing. The objective of the present study was to investigate whether a similar effect can be obtained for persons with hearing impairment and whether such an effect is dependent on individual differences in working memory capacity. A sentence-final word identification and recall (SWIR) test was conducted in two noise backgrounds with and without noise reduction as well as in quiet. Working memory capacity was measured using a reading span (RS) test. Twenty-six experienced hearing-aid users with moderate to moderately severe sensorineural hearing loss. Noise impaired recall performance. Competing speech disrupted memory performance more than speech-shaped noise. For late list items the disruptive effect of the competing speech background was virtually cancelled out by noise reduction for persons with high working memory capacity. Noise reduction can reduce the adverse effect of noise on memory for speech for persons with good working memory capacity. We argue that the mechanism behind this is faster word identification that enhances encoding into working memory.

  11. Annoyance rating of wind turbine noise

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Iredale, R.

    1993-01-01

    Annoyance rating is important, but more important still is agreement on techniques for formulating minimal complaint criteria for design and specification purposes thus integrating noise control into the plant at the outset. A minimal complaint design criteria is suggested that finds its origin in the logic and techniques used successfully over many years for a wide range of power plant and other installations. The criterion is based on the masking of the wind turbine noise by the wind generated background noise. Satisfactory use of the criterion depends on the specification of inaudibility for the tones generated by the mechanical plant. Wind turbines generate more drive train noise than is realized and this contains many tones which tend to characterize the noise. Reduction of drive train noise would not only reduce the overall noise level but also give it a more acceptable character providing a margin against complaint in unusual circumstances of propagation. This requires very careful design of noise and vibration control in individual components. Vibration isolation between the support structures and the nacelle also requires careful attention. (UK)

  12. The Transformation of Ergonomic Affordances into Cultural Affordances: The Case of the Alnuset System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chiappini, Giampaolo

    2012-01-01

    Is it possible to study the ergonomic affordances offered by a system designed for educational aims and their transformation into cultural affordances? To this purpose, what references can we adopt? This work describes the theoretical framework used to realise this study referring to AlNuSet, a system realised within the EC ReMath project to…

  13. Tobacco affordability, sales and excise revenues in the 28 European Union countries in 2011-2014

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Konstantin Krasovsky

    2017-05-01

    Tobacco taxation can ensure both tobacco consumption decline and revenue increase only if taxation is a key factor of tobacco affordability reduction. Otherwise, in years of economic recession consumption declines, but revenue does not increase; while in years of economic growth revenue increases, but consumption does not decline.

  14. Affordances Theory in Multilingualism Studies

    Science.gov (United States)

    Aronin, Larissa; Singleton, David

    2012-01-01

    The concept of affordances originating in Gibson's work (Gibson, 1977) is gaining ground in multilingualism studies (cf. Aronin and Singleton, 2010; Singleton and Aronin, 2007; Dewaele, 2010). Nevertheless, studies investigating affordances in respect of teaching, learning or using languages are still somewhat rare and tend to treat isolated…

  15. Noise Reduction Design of the Volute for a Centrifugal Compressor

    Science.gov (United States)

    Song, Zhen; Wen, Huabing; Hong, Liangxing; Jin, Yudong

    2017-08-01

    In order to effectively control the aerodynamic noise of a compressor, this paper takes into consideration a marine exhaust turbocharger compressor as a research object. According to the different design concept of volute section, tongue and exit cone, six different volute models were established. The finite volume method is used to calculate the flow field, whiles the finite element method is used for the acoustic calculation. Comparison and analysis of different structure designs from three aspects: noise level, isentropic efficiency and Static pressure recovery coefficient. The results showed that under the concept of volute section model 1 yielded the best result, under the concept of tongue analysis model 3 yielded the best result and finally under exit cone analysis model 6 yielded the best results.

  16. Phase Noise Tolerant QPSK Receiver Using Phase Sensitive Wavelength Conversion

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Da Ros, Francesco; Xu, Jing; Lei, Lei

    2013-01-01

    A novel QPSK receiver based on a phase noise reduction pre-stage exploiting PSA in a HNLF and balanced detection is presented. Receiver sensitivity improvement over a conventional balanced receiver is demonstrated.......A novel QPSK receiver based on a phase noise reduction pre-stage exploiting PSA in a HNLF and balanced detection is presented. Receiver sensitivity improvement over a conventional balanced receiver is demonstrated....

  17. Prediction and reduction of aircraft noise in outdoor environments

    Science.gov (United States)

    Tong, Bao N.

    This dissertation investigates the noise due to an en-route aircraft cruising at high altitudes. It offers an improved understanding into the combined effects of atmospheric propagation, ground reflection, and source motion on the impact of en-route aircraft noise. A numerical model has been developed to compute pressure time-histories due to a uniformly moving source above a flat ground surface in the presence of a horizontally stratified atmosphere. For a moving source at high elevations, contributions from a direct and specularly reflected wave are sufficient in predicting the sound field close to the ground. In the absence of wind effects, the predicted sound field from a single overhead flight trajectory can be used to interpolate pressure time histories at all other receiver locations via a simplified ray model for the incoherent sound field. This approach provides an efficient method for generating pressure time histories in a three-dimensional space for noise impact studies. A variety of different noise propagation methods are adapted to a uniformly moving source to evaluate the accuracy and efficiency of their predictions. The techniques include: analytical methods, the Fast Field Program (FFP), and asymptotic analysis methods (e.g., ray tracing and more advanced formulations). Source motion effects are introduced via either a retarded time analysis or a Lorentz transform approach depending on the complexity of the problem. The noise spectrum from a single emission frequency, moving source has broadband characteristics. This is a consequence of the Doppler shift which continuously modifies the perceived frequency of the source as it moves relative to a stationary observer on the ground. Thus, the instantaneous wavefronts must be considered in both the frequency dependent ground impedance model and the atmospheric absorption model. It can be shown that the Doppler factor is invariant along each ray path. This gives rise to a path dependent atmospheric

  18. Suppression of tonal noise in a centrifugal fan using guide vanes

    Science.gov (United States)

    Paramasivam, Kishokanna; Rajoo, Srithar; Romagnoli, Alessandro

    2015-11-01

    This paper presents the work aiming for tonal noise reduction in a centrifugal fan. In previous studies, it is well documented that tonal noise is the dominant noise source generated in centrifugal fans. Tonal noise is generated due to the aerodynamic interaction between the rotating impeller and stationary diffuser vanes. The generation of tonal noise is related to the pressure fluctuation at the leading edge of the stationary vane. The tonal noise is periodic in time which occurs at the blade passing frequency (BPF) and its harmonics. Much of previous studies, have shown that the stationary vane causes the tonal noise and generation of non-rotational turbulent noise. However, omitting stationary vanes will lead to the increase of non-rotational turbulent noise resulted from the high velocity of the flow leaving the impeller. Hence in order to reduce the tonal noise and the non-rotational noise, guide vanes were designed as part of this study to replace the diffuser vanes, which were originally used in the chosen centrifugal fan. The leading edge of the guide vane is tapered. This modification reduces the strength of pressure fluctuation resulting from the interaction between the impeller outflow and stationary vane. The sound pressure level at blade passing frequency (BPF) is reduced by 6.8 dB, the 2nd BPF is reduced by 4.1 dB and the 3rd BPF reduced by about 17.5 dB. The overall reduction was 0.9 dB. The centrifugal fan with tapered guide vanes radiates lower tonal noise compared to the existing diffuser vanes. These reductions are achieved without compromising the performance of the centrifugal fan. The behavior of the fluid flow was studied using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools and the acoustics characteristics were determined through experiments in an anechoic chamber.

  19. Hearing aid noise suppression and working memory function

    OpenAIRE

    Fischer, Rosa-Linde; Neher, Tobias; Wagener, Kirsten C.

    2017-01-01

    OBJECTIVE: Research findings concerning the relation between benefit from hearing aid (HA) noise suppression and working memory function are inconsistent. The current study thus investigated the effects of three noise suppression algorithms on auditory working memory and the relation with reading span.DESIGN: Using a computer simulation of bilaterally fitted HAs, four settings were tested: (1) unprocessed, (2) directional microphones, (3) single-channel noise reduction and (4) binaural cohere...

  20. The Effects of Hearing Aid Directional Microphone and Noise Reduction Processing on Listening Effort in Older Adults with Hearing Loss.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Desjardins, Jamie L

    2016-01-01

    Older listeners with hearing loss may exert more cognitive resources to maintain a level of listening performance similar to that of younger listeners with normal hearing. Unfortunately, this increase in cognitive load, which is often conceptualized as increased listening effort, may come at the cost of cognitive processing resources that might otherwise be available for other tasks. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the independent and combined effects of a hearing aid directional microphone and a noise reduction (NR) algorithm on reducing the listening effort older listeners with hearing loss expend on a speech-in-noise task. Participants were fitted with study worn commercially available behind-the-ear hearing aids. Listening effort on a sentence recognition in noise task was measured using an objective auditory-visual dual-task paradigm. The primary task required participants to repeat sentences presented in quiet and in a four-talker babble. The secondary task was a digital visual pursuit rotor-tracking test, for which participants were instructed to use a computer mouse to track a moving target around an ellipse that was displayed on a computer screen. Each of the two tasks was presented separately and concurrently at a fixed overall speech recognition performance level of 50% correct with and without the directional microphone and/or the NR algorithm activated in the hearing aids. In addition, participants reported how effortful it was to listen to the sentences in quiet and in background noise in the different hearing aid listening conditions. Fifteen older listeners with mild sloping to severe sensorineural hearing loss participated in this study. Listening effort in background noise was significantly reduced with the directional microphones activated in the hearing aids. However, there was no significant change in listening effort with the hearing aid NR algorithm compared to no noise processing. Correlation analysis between objective and self

  1. Interior noise analysis of a construction equipment cabin based on airborne and structure-borne noise predictions

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Kim, Sung Hee; Hong, Suk Yoon [Seoul National University, Seoul (Korea, Republic of); Song, Jee Hun [Chonnam National University, Gwangju (Korea, Republic of); Joo, Won Ho [Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd, Ulsan (Korea, Republic of)

    2012-04-15

    Noise from construction equipment affects not only surrounding residents, but also the operators of the machines. Noise that affects drivers must be evaluated during the preliminary design stage. This paper suggests an interior noise analysis procedure for construction equipment cabins. The analysis procedure, which can be used in the preliminary design stage, was investigated for airborne and structure borne noise. The total interior noise of a cabin was predicted from the airborne noise analysis and structure-borne noise analysis. The analysis procedure consists of four steps: modeling, vibration analysis, acoustic analysis and total interior noise analysis. A mesh model of a cabin for numerical analysis was made at the modeling step. At the vibration analysis step, the mesh model was verified and modal analysis and frequency response analysis are performed. At the acoustic analysis step, the vibration results from the vibration analysis step were used as initial values for radiated noise analysis and noise reduction analysis. Finally, the total cabin interior noise was predicted using the acoustic results from the acoustic analysis step. Each step was applied to a cabin of a middle-sized excavator and verified by comparison with measured data. The cabin interior noise of a middle-sized wheel loader and a large-sized forklift were predicted using the analysis procedure of the four steps and were compared with measured data. The interior noise analysis procedure of construction equipment cabins is expected to be used during the preliminary design stage.

  2. Interior noise analysis of a construction equipment cabin based on airborne and structure-borne noise predictions

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Kim, Sung Hee; Hong, Suk Yoon; Song, Jee Hun; Joo, Won Ho

    2012-01-01

    Noise from construction equipment affects not only surrounding residents, but also the operators of the machines. Noise that affects drivers must be evaluated during the preliminary design stage. This paper suggests an interior noise analysis procedure for construction equipment cabins. The analysis procedure, which can be used in the preliminary design stage, was investigated for airborne and structure borne noise. The total interior noise of a cabin was predicted from the airborne noise analysis and structure-borne noise analysis. The analysis procedure consists of four steps: modeling, vibration analysis, acoustic analysis and total interior noise analysis. A mesh model of a cabin for numerical analysis was made at the modeling step. At the vibration analysis step, the mesh model was verified and modal analysis and frequency response analysis are performed. At the acoustic analysis step, the vibration results from the vibration analysis step were used as initial values for radiated noise analysis and noise reduction analysis. Finally, the total cabin interior noise was predicted using the acoustic results from the acoustic analysis step. Each step was applied to a cabin of a middle-sized excavator and verified by comparison with measured data. The cabin interior noise of a middle-sized wheel loader and a large-sized forklift were predicted using the analysis procedure of the four steps and were compared with measured data. The interior noise analysis procedure of construction equipment cabins is expected to be used during the preliminary design stage

  3. P2-37: Processing Affordance Information from Invisible Tool Images

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Shinho Cho

    2012-10-01

    Full Text Available A recent study showed that viewing manipulable objects such as images of tools induces the neural activation of posterior parietal areas. This neural activation is observed even when visual awareness of the image is visually suppressed. (Fang and He, 2005 Nature Neuroscience 10 1380–1385; Almeida et al, 2010 Psychological Science 21 772–778. However, the specific visuomotor information in tool images that drives the activation of dorsal areas is still unclear. We measured priming effect of invisible tool prime (left or right handed orientation. Observers distinguished the orientation of target tools (appropriate for left vs right handed grip briefly presented following visually suppressed primes (Experiment1. Also we measured the suppression time of tool images whose handle direction was presented in a left- or right-handed orientation. A dynamic noise pattern was presented to one of the observer's eyes at full contrast, while images of tools (left or right handed were simultaneously presented to the left or right visual field of the other eye. The subjects were asked to respond to the appearance of any partial or full part of the test image (Experiment 2. Results showed that (1 observers responded faster in the congruent condition (the same orientation between prime and target and (2 tool images shown in the right visual field took less time to gain dominance against the dynamic noise. These results suggest that even without overt recognition of presented tools, an object's affordance can be registered and processed in the brain. A recent study showed that viewing manipulable objects such as images of tools induces the neural activation of posterior parietal areas. This neural activation is observed even when visual awareness of the image is visually suppressed (Almeida et al., 2010 Psychological Science 21 772–778; Fang and He, 2005 Nature Neuroscience 10 1380–1385. However, the specific visuomotor information in tool images that

  4. Assessment of engine noise shielding by the wings of current turbofan aircraft

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Alves Vieira, A.E.; Snellen, M.; Simons, D.G.; Gibbs, B.

    2017-01-01

    The shielding of engine noise by the aircraft wings and fuselage can lead to a significant reduction on perceived noise on ground. Most research on noise shielding is focused on BlendedWing Body (BWB) configurations because of the large dimension of the fuselage. However, noise shielding is also

  5. A multiscale filter for noise reduction of low-dose cone beam projections.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Yao, Weiguang; Farr, Jonathan B

    2015-08-21

    The Poisson or compound Poisson process governs the randomness of photon fluence in cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) imaging systems. The probability density function depends on the mean (noiseless) of the fluence at a certain detector. This dependence indicates the natural requirement of multiscale filters to smooth noise while preserving structures of the imaged object on the low-dose cone beam projection. In this work, we used a Gaussian filter, exp(-x2/2σ(2)(f)) as the multiscale filter to de-noise the low-dose cone beam projections. We analytically obtained the expression of σ(f), which represents the scale of the filter, by minimizing local noise-to-signal ratio. We analytically derived the variance of residual noise from the Poisson or compound Poisson processes after Gaussian filtering. From the derived analytical form of the variance of residual noise, optimal σ(2)(f)) is proved to be proportional to the noiseless fluence and modulated by local structure strength expressed as the linear fitting error of the structure. A strategy was used to obtain the reliable linear fitting error: smoothing the projection along the longitudinal direction to calculate the linear fitting error along the lateral direction and vice versa. The performance of our multiscale filter was examined on low-dose cone beam projections of a Catphan phantom and a head-and-neck patient. After performing the filter on the Catphan phantom projections scanned with pulse time 4 ms, the number of visible line pairs was similar to that scanned with 16 ms, and the contrast-to-noise ratio of the inserts was higher than that scanned with 16 ms about 64% in average. For the simulated head-and-neck patient projections with pulse time 4 ms, the visibility of soft tissue structures in the patient was comparable to that scanned with 20 ms. The image processing took less than 0.5 s per projection with 1024   ×   768 pixels.

  6. The ART of representation: Memory reduction and noise tolerance in a neural network vision system

    Science.gov (United States)

    Langley, Christopher S.

    The Feature Cerebellar Model Arithmetic Computer (FCMAC) is a multiple-input-single-output neural network that can provide three-degree-of-freedom (3-DOF) pose estimation for a robotic vision system. The FCMAC provides sufficient accuracy to enable a manipulator to grasp an object from an arbitrary pose within its workspace. The network learns an appearance-based representation of an object by storing coarsely quantized feature patterns. As all unique patterns are encoded, the network size grows uncontrollably. A new architecture is introduced herein, which combines the FCMAC with an Adaptive Resonance Theory (ART) network. The ART module categorizes patterns observed during training into a set of prototypes that are used to build the FCMAC. As a result, the network no longer grows without bound, but constrains itself to a user-specified size. Pose estimates remain accurate since the ART layer tends to discard the least relevant information first. The smaller network performs recall faster, and in some cases is better for generalization, resulting in a reduction of error at recall time. The ART-Under-Constraint (ART-C) algorithm is extended to include initial filling with randomly selected patterns (referred to as ART-F). In experiments using a real-world data set, the new network performed equally well using less than one tenth the number of coarse patterns as a regular FCMAC. The FCMAC is also extended to include real-valued input activations. As a result, the network can be tuned to reject a variety of types of noise in the image feature detection. A quantitative analysis of noise tolerance was performed using four synthetic noise algorithms, and a qualitative investigation was made using noisy real-world image data. In validation experiments, the FCMAC system outperformed Radial Basis Function (RBF) networks for the 3-DOF problem, and had accuracy comparable to that of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and superior to that of Shape Context Matching (SCM), both

  7. Poisson–Gaussian Noise Analysis and Estimation for Low-Dose X-ray Images in the NSCT Domain

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Sangyoon; Lee, Min Seok; Kang, Moon Gi

    2018-01-01

    The noise distribution of images obtained by X-ray sensors in low-dosage situations can be analyzed using the Poisson and Gaussian mixture model. Multiscale conversion is one of the most popular noise reduction methods used in recent years. Estimation of the noise distribution of each subband in the multiscale domain is the most important factor in performing noise reduction, with non-subsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) representing an effective method for scale and direction decomposition. In this study, we use artificially generated noise to analyze and estimate the Poisson–Gaussian noise of low-dose X-ray images in the NSCT domain. The noise distribution of the subband coefficients is analyzed using the noiseless low-band coefficients and the variance of the noisy subband coefficients. The noise-after-transform also follows a Poisson–Gaussian distribution, and the relationship between the noise parameters of the subband and the full-band image is identified. We then analyze noise of actual images to validate the theoretical analysis. Comparison of the proposed noise estimation method with an existing noise reduction method confirms that the proposed method outperforms traditional methods. PMID:29596335

  8. Poisson-Gaussian Noise Analysis and Estimation for Low-Dose X-ray Images in the NSCT Domain.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Sangyoon; Lee, Min Seok; Kang, Moon Gi

    2018-03-29

    The noise distribution of images obtained by X-ray sensors in low-dosage situations can be analyzed using the Poisson and Gaussian mixture model. Multiscale conversion is one of the most popular noise reduction methods used in recent years. Estimation of the noise distribution of each subband in the multiscale domain is the most important factor in performing noise reduction, with non-subsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) representing an effective method for scale and direction decomposition. In this study, we use artificially generated noise to analyze and estimate the Poisson-Gaussian noise of low-dose X-ray images in the NSCT domain. The noise distribution of the subband coefficients is analyzed using the noiseless low-band coefficients and the variance of the noisy subband coefficients. The noise-after-transform also follows a Poisson-Gaussian distribution, and the relationship between the noise parameters of the subband and the full-band image is identified. We then analyze noise of actual images to validate the theoretical analysis. Comparison of the proposed noise estimation method with an existing noise reduction method confirms that the proposed method outperforms traditional methods.

  9. Applications of aero-acoustic analysis to wind turbine noise control

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lowson, M.V.

    1992-01-01

    Wind turbine noise generation mechanisms are essentially equivalent to the aero-acoustic mechanisms of other rotors, which have been studied in depth for many years. Basic sources for the wind turbine noise radiation process are defined, and their significance assessed. From the analysis, areas of potential improvement in wind turbine noise prediction are defined. Suggestions are made for approaches to wind turbine noise control which separate the noise problems at cut-in from those at rated power. Some of these offer the possibility of noise reduction without unfavourable effects on performance. (author)

  10. Applications of aero-acoustic analysis to wind turbine noise control

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lowson, M.

    1993-01-01

    Wind turbine noise generation mechanisms are essentially equivalent to the aero-acoustic mechanisms of other rotors, which have been studied in depth for many years. Basic sources for the wind turbine noise radiation process are defined, and their significance assessed. From the analysis, areas of potential improvement in wind turbine noise prediction are defined. Suggestions are made for approaches to wind turbine noise control which separate the noise problems at cut-in from those at rated power. Some of these offer the possibility of noise reduction without unfavourable effects on performance. (author)

  11. Measurement of the Low Frequency Noise of MOSFETs under Large Signal RF Excitation

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    van der Wel, A.P.; Klumperink, Eric A.M.; Nauta, Bram

    2002-01-01

    A measurement technique [1] is presented that allows measurement of MOSFET low frequency (LF) noise under large signal RF (Radio Frequency) excitation. Measurements indicate that MOSFETS exhibit a reduction in LF noise when they are cycled from inversion to accummulation and that this reduction does

  12. Three key affordances for serendipity

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Björneborn, Lennart

    2017-01-01

    Purpose Serendipity is an interesting phenomenon to study in information science as it plays a fundamental – but perhaps underestimated – role in how we discover, explore, and learn in all fields of life. The purpose of this paper is to operationalize the concept of serendipity by providing termi...... terminological “building blocks” for understanding connections between environmental and personal factors in serendipitous encounters. Understanding these connections is essential when designing affordances in physical and digital environments that can facilitate serendipity. Design....../methodology/approach In this paper, serendipity is defined as what happens when we, in unplanned ways, encounter resources (information, things, people, etc.) that we find interesting. In the outlined framework, serendipity is understood as an affordance, i.e., a usage potential when environmental and personal factors correspond...... the three key affordances and three key personal serendipity factors: curiosity, mobility, and sensitivity. Ten sub-affordances for serendipity and ten coupled personal sub-factors are also briefly outlined. Related research is compared with and mapped into the framework aiming at a theoretical validation...

  13. Noise in nonlinear nanoelectromechanical resonators

    Science.gov (United States)

    Guerra Vidal, Diego N.

    adjusting the resonator's operating parameters. The device can access one of two stable steady states, according to a specific logic function; this operation is mediated by the noise floor, which can be directly adjusted, or dynamically "tuned" via an adjustment of the underlying nonlinearity of the resonator. The demonstration of this reprogrammable nanomechanical logic gate affords a path to the practical realization of a new generation of mechanical computer.

  14. Imagined Affordance: Reconstructing a Keyword for Communication Theory

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Peter Nagy

    2015-09-01

    Full Text Available In this essay, we reconstruct a keyword for communication—affordance. Affordance, adopted from ecological psychology, is now widely used in technology studies, yet the term lacks a clear definition. This is especially problematic for scholars grappling with how to theorize the relationship between technology and sociality for complex socio-technical systems such as machine-learning algorithms, pervasive computing, the Internet of Things, and other such “smart” innovations. Within technology studies, emerging theories of materiality, affect, and mediation all necessitate a richer and more nuanced definition for affordance than the field currently uses. To solve this, we develop the concept of imagined affordance. Imagined affordances emerge between users’ perceptions, attitudes, and expectations; between the materiality and functionality of technologies; and between the intentions and perceptions of designers. We use imagined affordance to evoke the importance of imagination in affordances—expectations for technology that are not fully realized in conscious, rational knowledge. We also use imagined affordance to distinguish our process-oriented, socio-technical definition of affordance from the “imagined” consensus of the field around a flimsier use of the term. We also use it in order to better capture the importance of mediation, materiality, and affect. We suggest that imagined affordance helps to theorize the duality of materiality and communication technology: namely, that people shape their media environments, perceive them, and have agency within them because of imagined affordances.

  15. The Acoustical Durability of Thin Noise Reducing Asphalt Layers

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Cedric Vuye

    2016-05-01

    Full Text Available Within the context of the European Noise Directive, traffic noise action plans have been established. One of those actions is to deepen the knowledge about low noise roads, as they are considered the most cost-efficient measure for traffic noise abatement. Therefore, ten test sections were installed in May 2012 in Belgium, with the objective of integrating Thin noise-reducing Asphalt Layers (TAL in the Flemish road surface policy in a later stage. Eight test sections are paved with TAL with a thickness of a maximum of 30 mm and a maximum content of accessible voids of 18%. The other two sections consist of a Double-layer Porous Asphalt Concrete (DPAC and a Stone Mastic Asphalt (SMA-10 as a reference section. The acoustical quality of the asphalt surfaces has been monitored in time using Statistical Pass-By (SPB and Close-ProXimity (CPX measurements up to 34 months after construction. Texture measurements performed with a laser profilometer are linked to the noise measurement results. Very promising initial noise reductions were found, up to 6 dB(A, but higher than expected acoustic deterioration rates and the presence of raveling led to noise reductions of a max. of 1 dB(A after almost three years. It is shown that the construction process itself has a large influence on the acoustical quality over time.

  16. Affording Sustainability: Adopting a Theory of Affordances as a Guiding Heuristic for Environmental Policy

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Roope O. Kaaronen

    2017-11-01

    Full Text Available Human behavior is an underlying cause for many of the ecological crises faced in the 21st century, and there is no escaping from the fact that widespread behavior change is necessary for socio-ecological systems to take a sustainable turn. Whilst making people and communities behave sustainably is a fundamental objective for environmental policy, behavior change interventions and policies are often implemented from a very limited non-systemic perspective. Environmental policy-makers and psychologists alike often reduce cognition ‘to the brain,’ focusing only to a minor extent on how everyday environments systemically afford pro-environmental behavior. Symptomatic of this are the widely prevalent attitude–action, value–action or knowledge–action gaps, understood in this paper as the gulfs lying between sustainable thinking and behavior due to lack of affordances. I suggest that by adopting a theory of affordances as a guiding heuristic, environmental policy-makers are better equipped to promote policies that translate sustainable thinking into sustainable behavior, often self-reinforcingly, and have better conceptual tools to nudge our socio–ecological system toward a sustainable turn. Affordance theory, which studies the relations between abilities to perceive and act and environmental features, is shown to provide a systemic framework for analyzing environmental policies and the ecology of human behavior. This facilitates the location and activation of leverage points for systemic policy interventions, which can help socio–ecological systems to learn to adapt to more sustainable habits. Affordance theory is presented to be applicable and pertinent to technically all nested levels of socio–ecological systems from the studies of sustainable objects and households to sustainable urban environments, making it an immensely versatile conceptual policy tool. Finally, affordance theory is also discussed from a participatory perspective

  17. Affording Sustainability: Adopting a Theory of Affordances as a Guiding Heuristic for Environmental Policy.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaaronen, Roope O

    2017-01-01

    Human behavior is an underlying cause for many of the ecological crises faced in the 21st century, and there is no escaping from the fact that widespread behavior change is necessary for socio-ecological systems to take a sustainable turn. Whilst making people and communities behave sustainably is a fundamental objective for environmental policy, behavior change interventions and policies are often implemented from a very limited non-systemic perspective. Environmental policy-makers and psychologists alike often reduce cognition 'to the brain,' focusing only to a minor extent on how everyday environments systemically afford pro-environmental behavior. Symptomatic of this are the widely prevalent attitude-action, value-action or knowledge-action gaps, understood in this paper as the gulfs lying between sustainable thinking and behavior due to lack of affordances. I suggest that by adopting a theory of affordances as a guiding heuristic, environmental policy-makers are better equipped to promote policies that translate sustainable thinking into sustainable behavior, often self-reinforcingly, and have better conceptual tools to nudge our socio-ecological system toward a sustainable turn. Affordance theory, which studies the relations between abilities to perceive and act and environmental features, is shown to provide a systemic framework for analyzing environmental policies and the ecology of human behavior. This facilitates the location and activation of leverage points for systemic policy interventions, which can help socio-ecological systems to learn to adapt to more sustainable habits. Affordance theory is presented to be applicable and pertinent to technically all nested levels of socio-ecological systems from the studies of sustainable objects and households to sustainable urban environments, making it an immensely versatile conceptual policy tool. Finally, affordance theory is also discussed from a participatory perspective. Increasing the fit between local

  18. Affording Sustainability: Adopting a Theory of Affordances as a Guiding Heuristic for Environmental Policy

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kaaronen, Roope O.

    2017-01-01

    Human behavior is an underlying cause for many of the ecological crises faced in the 21st century, and there is no escaping from the fact that widespread behavior change is necessary for socio-ecological systems to take a sustainable turn. Whilst making people and communities behave sustainably is a fundamental objective for environmental policy, behavior change interventions and policies are often implemented from a very limited non-systemic perspective. Environmental policy-makers and psychologists alike often reduce cognition ‘to the brain,’ focusing only to a minor extent on how everyday environments systemically afford pro-environmental behavior. Symptomatic of this are the widely prevalent attitude–action, value–action or knowledge–action gaps, understood in this paper as the gulfs lying between sustainable thinking and behavior due to lack of affordances. I suggest that by adopting a theory of affordances as a guiding heuristic, environmental policy-makers are better equipped to promote policies that translate sustainable thinking into sustainable behavior, often self-reinforcingly, and have better conceptual tools to nudge our socio–ecological system toward a sustainable turn. Affordance theory, which studies the relations between abilities to perceive and act and environmental features, is shown to provide a systemic framework for analyzing environmental policies and the ecology of human behavior. This facilitates the location and activation of leverage points for systemic policy interventions, which can help socio–ecological systems to learn to adapt to more sustainable habits. Affordance theory is presented to be applicable and pertinent to technically all nested levels of socio–ecological systems from the studies of sustainable objects and households to sustainable urban environments, making it an immensely versatile conceptual policy tool. Finally, affordance theory is also discussed from a participatory perspective. Increasing the fit

  19. Experiments on affordance in the journal "ecological psychology"

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Trettvik, Johan

    2009-01-01

    There are two general aims: 1) to review how the concept of affordance is construed, in theory as well as in practice/experiments, and 2) to review the experiments on affordances.......There are two general aims: 1) to review how the concept of affordance is construed, in theory as well as in practice/experiments, and 2) to review the experiments on affordances....

  20. Advanced Analytical Tools for the Characterization of Fundamental Jet Noise Sources and Structures, Phase I

    Data.gov (United States)

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration — There is a need for innovative technologies and methods for noise reduction, noise prediction, and noise diagnostics. A comprehensive approach to reducing noise from...

  1. Correlates of housing affordability stress among older Australians.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Temple, Jeromey B

    2008-03-01

    The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence and correlates of housing affordability stress among community-dwelling older Australians. The 2002 ABS General Social Survey was used to measure the prevalence of housing affordability stress. Rare event logistic regression was used to measure the potential correlates of housing affordability stress. Almost 5% of Australians aged 55 years and older, and 20% of those younger than 55 years, are estimated to experience housing affordability stress. Men and women living alone are more likely to experience affordability stress when compared to couples. Low-income earners, those with a consumer debt or who do not hold assets, are at a heightened risk of such stress. Home ownership, regardless of income, is the strongest buffer against housing affordability problems in old age. Although the prevalence of housing affordability stress is low among older Australians when compared to the younger population, a definite social gradient exists in those at risk.

  2. Diode laser pumped solid state laser. Part IV. ; Noise analysis. Handotai laser reiki kotai laser. 4. ; Noise kaiseki

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Sakurai, H.; Seno, T.; Tanabe, Y. (Asahi Glass Co. Ltd., Tokyo (Japan))

    1991-06-10

    Concerning the second harmonic generation(SHG) of diode laser pumped solid state laser using a nonlinear optical material, the researches are carried out to pracitically apply to the optical pickup. Therefore, the reduction of output optical noise has become the important researching subject. The theoretical and experimental analyses of noise generating mechanism were carried out for the system in which Nd;YAG as the laser diode and KTP (KTiOPO {sub 4}) as the nonlinear optical crystal were used. The following findings for the noise generating mechanism could be obtained: The competitive interaction between the polarization modes was dominant noise mechanism in the high frequency range from 1 to 20MHz and the noise could be removed sufficiently by using the QWP(quarter wave plate). On the other hand, the noise observed in the low frequency range from 100 to 200kHz depended on the resonance length, agreed qualitatively with the theoretical analysis of the noise to the competitive longitudinal modes and agreed quantitatively with the noise generating frequency range. 10 refs., 13 figs., 1 tab.

  3. Advance Noise Control Fan II: Test Rig Fan Risk Management Study

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lucero, John

    2013-01-01

    Since 1995 the Advanced Noise Control Fan (ANCF) has significantly contributed to the advancement of the understanding of the physics of fan tonal noise generation. The 9'x15' WT has successfully tested multiple high speed fan designs over the last several decades. This advanced several tone noise reduction concepts to higher TRL and the validation of fan tone noise prediction codes.

  4. Energy efficiency and economic value in affordable housing

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Chegut, Andrea; Eichholtz, Piet; Holtermans, Rogier

    2016-01-01

    Strong rental protection in the affordable housing market often prohibits landlords from charging rental premiums for energy-efficient dwellings. This may impede (re)development of energy efficient affordable housing. In the Netherlands, affordable housing institutions regularly sell dwellings from their housing stock to individual households. If they can sell energy efficient dwellings at a premium, this may stimulate investments in the environmental performance of homes. We analyze the value effects of energy efficiency in the affordable housing market, by using a sample of 17,835 homes sold by Dutch affordable housing institutions in the period between 2008 and 2013. We use Energy Performance Certificates to determine the value of energy efficiency in these transactions. We document that dwellings with high energy efficiency sell for 2.0–6.3% more compared to otherwise similar dwellings with low energy efficiency. This implies a premium of some EUR 3,000 to EUR 9,700 for highly energy efficient affordable housing. - Highlights: • Dutch affordable housing suppliers recoup sustainability investment by selling dwellings. • Energy-efficient affordable dwellings sell at a premium. • A-labeled dwellings are 6.3% – 9,300 euros – more valuable than C-labeled ones. • The combined value effect of refurbishing an affordable housing dwelling, including improving the energy efficiency, of 20% would more than pay for the retrofit.

  5. A Two-Microphone Noise Reduction System for Cochlear Implant Users with Nearby Microphones—Part II: Performance Evaluation

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Rudolf Häusler

    2008-06-01

    Full Text Available Users of cochlear implants (auditory aids, which stimulate the auditory nerve electrically at the inner ear often suffer from poor speech understanding in noise. We evaluate a small (intermicrophone distance 7 mm and computationally inexpensive adaptive noise reduction system suitable for behind-the-ear cochlear implant speech processors. The system is evaluated in simulated and real, anechoic and reverberant environments. Results from simulations show improvements of 3.4 to 9.3 dB in signal to noise ratio for rooms with realistic reverberation and more than 18 dB under anechoic conditions. Speech understanding in noise is measured in 6 adult cochlear implant users in a reverberant room, showing average improvements of 7.9–9.6 dB, when compared to a single omnidirectional microphone or 1.3–5.6 dB, when compared to a simple directional two-microphone device. Subjective evaluation in a cafeteria at lunchtime shows a preference of the cochlear implant users for the evaluated device in terms of speech understanding and sound quality.

  6. Reducing image noise in computed tomography (CT) colonography: effect of an integrated circuit CT detector.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Yu; Leng, Shuai; Michalak, Gregory J; Vrieze, Thomas J; Duan, Xinhui; Qu, Mingliang; Shiung, Maria M; McCollough, Cynthia H; Fletcher, Joel G

    2014-01-01

    To investigate whether the integrated circuit (IC) detector results in reduced noise in computed tomography (CT) colonography (CTC). Three hundred sixty-six consecutive patients underwent clinically indicated CTC using the same CT scanner system, except for a difference in CT detectors (IC or conventional). Image noise, patient size, and scanner radiation output (volume CT dose index) were quantitatively compared between patient cohorts using each detector system, with separate comparisons for the abdomen and pelvis. For the abdomen and pelvis, despite significantly larger patient sizes in the IC detector cohort (both P 0.18). Based on the observed image noise reduction, radiation dose could alternatively be reduced by approximately 20% to result in similar levels of image noise. Computed tomography colonography images acquired using the IC detector had significantly lower noise than images acquired using the conventional detector. This noise reduction can permit further radiation dose reduction in CTC.

  7. New adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction ASiR-V: Assessment of noise performance in comparison to ASiR.

    Science.gov (United States)

    De Marco, Paolo; Origgi, Daniela

    2018-03-01

    To assess the noise characteristics of the new adaptive statistical iterative reconstruction (ASiR-V) in comparison to ASiR. A water phantom was acquired with common clinical scanning parameters, at five different levels of CTDI vol . Images were reconstructed with different kernels (STD, SOFT, and BONE), different IR levels (40%, 60%, and 100%) and different slice thickness (ST) (0.625 and 2.5 mm), both for ASiR-V and ASiR. Noise properties were investigated and noise power spectrum (NPS) was evaluated. ASiR-V significantly reduced noise relative to FBP: noise reduction was in the range 23%-60% for a 0.625 mm ST and 12%-64% for the 2.5 mm ST. Above 2 mGy, noise reduction for ASiR-V had no dependence on dose. Noise reduction for ASIR-V has dependence on ST, being greater for STD and SOFT kernels at 2.5 mm. For the STD kernel ASiR-V has greater noise reduction for both ST, if compared to ASiR. For the SOFT kernel, results varies according to dose and ST, while for BONE kernel ASIR-V shows less noise reduction. NPS for CT Revolution has dose dependent behavior at lower doses. NPS for ASIR-V and ASiR is similar, showing a shift toward lower frequencies as the IR level increases for STD and SOFT kernels. The NPS is different between ASiR-V and ASIR with BONE kernel. NPS for ASiR-V appears to be ST dependent, having a shift toward lower frequencies for 2.5 mm ST. ASiR-V showed greater noise reduction than ASiR for STD and SOFT kernels, while keeping the same NPS. For the BONE kernel, ASiR-V presents a completely different behavior, with less noise reduction and modified NPS. Noise properties of the ASiR-V are dependent on reconstruction slice thickness. The noise properties of ASiR-V suggest the need for further measurements and efforts to establish new CT protocols to optimize clinical imaging. © 2018 The Authors. Journal of Applied Clinical Medical Physics published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Association of Physicists in Medicine.

  8. Control strategies for active noise barriers using near-field error sensing

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Berkhoff, Arthur P.

    In this paper active noise control strategies for noise barriers are presented which are based on the use of sensors near the noise barrier. Virtual error signals are derived from these near-field sensor signals such that reductions of the far-field sound pressure are obtained with the active

  9. Bootstrapping Relational Affordances of Object Pairs using Transfer

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Fichtl, Severin; Kraft, Dirk; Krüger, Norbert

    2018-01-01

    leverage past knowledge to accelerate current learning (which we call bootstrapping). We learn Random Forest based affordance predictors from visual inputs and demonstrate two approaches to knowledge transfer for bootstrapping. In the first approach (direct bootstrapping), the state-space for a new...... affordance predictor is augmented with the output of previously learnt affordances. In the second approach (category based bootstrapping), we form categories that capture underlying commonalities of a pair of existing affordances and augment the state-space with this category classifier’s output. In addition......, we introduce a novel heuristic, which suggests how a large set of potential affordance categories can be pruned to leave only those categories which are most promising for bootstrapping future affordances. Our results show that both bootstrapping approaches outperform learning without bootstrapping...

  10. HARLIE 3-D Aerosol Backscatter and Wind Profile Measurements During Recent Field Experiments: Background Noise Reduction with a Fabry-Perot Etalon Filter in the HARLIE System

    Science.gov (United States)

    Lee, Sangwoo; Miller, David O.; Schwemmer, Geary; Wilkerson, Thomas D.; Andrus, Ionio; Egbert, Cameron; Anderson, Mark; Starr, David OC. (Technical Monitor)

    2002-01-01

    Background noise reduction of War signals is one of the most important factors in achieving better signal to noise ratio and precise atmospheric data from Mar measurements. Fahey Perot etalons have been used in several lidar systems as narrow band pass filters in the reduction of scattered sunlight. An slalom with spectral bandwidth, (Delta)v=0.23/cm, free spectral range, FSR=6.7/cm, and diameter, d=24mm was installed in a fiber coupled box which included a 500 pm bandwidth interference Filter. The slalom box couples the telescope and detector with 200 pm core fibers and 21 mm focal length collimators. The angular magnification is M=48. The etalon box was inserted into the Holographic Airborne Rotating Lidar Instrument Experiment (HARLIE) system and tested during the HARGLO-2 intercomparison campaign conducted in November 2001 at Wallops Island, Virginia. This paper presents the preliminary test results of the slalom and a complete analysis will be presented at the conference.

  11. Variation and stability in Dutch noise policy: an analysis of dominant advocacy coalitions

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Weber, M.; Driessen, P.P.J.; Schueler, B.J.; Runhaar, H.A.C.

    2013-01-01

    Noise exposure has harmful effects on human health. Despite policy on the prevention and reduction of noise, the environmental burden is increasing, specifically due to road traffic noise. Noise policy in the Netherlands is organised in a rather complex way, with different legal frameworks for the

  12. Noise in distributed erbium-doped fibers

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rottwitt, Karsten; Povlsen, Jørn Hedegaard; Bjarklev, Anders Overgaard

    1993-01-01

    Theoretical limits in noise figure for a long-haul transmission line based on lumped amplification are contrasted with distributed amplification. The latter results in a reduction of approximately 60% of the required number of pump power stations. The distributed optical amplification is provided...... by an erbium-doped fiber and comparisons of aluminum and germanium as codopant materials are shown. The pump power consumption and noise figure are analyzed with respect to the background loss...

  13. Estimation of Structure-Borne Noise Reduction Effect of Steel Railway Bridge Equipped with Floating Ladder Track and Floating Reinforced-Concrete Deck

    Science.gov (United States)

    Watanabe, Tsutomu; Sogabe, Masamichi; Asanuma, Kiyoshi; Wakui, Hajime

    A number of steel railway bridges have been constructed in Japan. Thin steel members used for the bridges easily tend to vibrate and generate structure-borne noise. Accordingly, the number of constructions of steel railway bridges tends to decrease in the urban areas from a viewpoint of environmental preservation. Then, as a countermeasure against structure-borne noise generated from steel railway bridges, we have developed a new type of the steel railway bridge equipped with a floating-ladder track and a floating reinforced-concrete (RC) deck. As a result of train-running experiment, it became apparent that the new steel railway bridge installed by double floating system has reduced a vibration velocity level by 10.5 dB(A) at main girder web as compared with a steel railway bridge installed by directly fastened track. This reduction effect was achieved by the ladder track and RC deck supported by resilient materials.

  14. Research on the application of active sound barriers for the transformer noise abatement

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Hu Sheng

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Sound barriers are a type of measure most commonly used in the noise abatement of transformers. In the noise abatement project of substations, the design of sound barriers is restrained by the portal frames which are used to hold up outgoing lines from the main transformers, which impacts the noise reduction effect. If active sound barriers are utilized in these places, the noise diffraction of sound barriers can be effectively reduced. At a 110kV Substation, an experiment using a 15-channel active sound barrier has been carried out. The result of the experiment shows that the mean noise reduction value (MNRV of the noise measuring points at the substation boundary are 1.5 dB (A. The effect of the active noise control system is impacted by the layout of the active noise control system, the acoustic environment on site and the spectral characteristic of the target area.

  15. Airfoil optimization for unsteady flows with application to high-lift noise reduction

    Science.gov (United States)

    Rumpfkeil, Markus Peer

    The use of steady-state aerodynamic optimization methods in the computational fluid dynamic (CFD) community is fairly well established. In particular, the use of adjoint methods has proven to be very beneficial because their cost is independent of the number of design variables. The application of numerical optimization to airframe-generated noise, however, has not received as much attention, but with the significant quieting of modern engines, airframe noise now competes with engine noise. Optimal control techniques for unsteady flows are needed in order to be able to reduce airframe-generated noise. In this thesis, a general framework is formulated to calculate the gradient of a cost function in a nonlinear unsteady flow environment via the discrete adjoint method. The unsteady optimization algorithm developed in this work utilizes a Newton-Krylov approach since the gradient-based optimizer uses the quasi-Newton method BFGS, Newton's method is applied to the nonlinear flow problem, GMRES is used to solve the resulting linear problem inexactly, and last but not least the linear adjoint problem is solved using Bi-CGSTAB. The flow is governed by the unsteady two-dimensional compressible Navier-Stokes equations in conjunction with a one-equation turbulence model, which are discretized using structured grids and a finite difference approach. The effectiveness of the unsteady optimization algorithm is demonstrated by applying it to several problems of interest including shocktubes, pulses in converging-diverging nozzles, rotating cylinders, transonic buffeting, and an unsteady trailing-edge flow. In order to address radiated far-field noise, an acoustic wave propagation program based on the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings (FW-H) formulation is implemented and validated. The general framework is then used to derive the adjoint equations for a novel hybrid URANS/FW-H optimization algorithm in order to be able to optimize the shape of airfoils based on their calculated far

  16. Do hearing loss and cognitive function modulate benefit from different binaural noise-reduction settings?

    Science.gov (United States)

    Neher, Tobias; Grimm, Giso; Hohmann, Volker; Kollmeier, Birger

    2014-01-01

    Although previous research indicates that cognitive skills influence benefit from different types of hearing aid algorithms, comparatively little is known about the role of, and potential interaction with, hearing loss. This holds true especially for noise reduction (NR) processing. The purpose of the present study was thus to explore whether degree of hearing loss and cognitive function modulate benefit from different binaural NR settings based on measures of speech intelligibility, listening effort, and overall preference. Forty elderly listeners with symmetrical sensorineural hearing losses in the mild to severe range participated. They were stratified into four age-matched groups (with n = 10 per group) based on their pure-tone average hearing losses and their performance on a visual measure of working memory (WM) capacity. The algorithm under consideration was a binaural coherence-based NR scheme that suppressed reverberant signal components as well as diffuse background noise at mid to high frequencies. The strength of the applied processing was varied from inactive to strong, and testing was carried out across a range of fixed signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). Potential benefit was assessed using a dual-task paradigm combining speech recognition with a visual reaction time (VRT) task indexing listening effort. Pairwise preference judgments were also collected. All measurements were made using headphone simulations of a frontal speech target in a busy cafeteria. Test-retest data were gathered for all outcome measures. Analysis of the test-retest data showed all data sets to be reliable. Analysis of the speech scores showed that, for all groups, speech recognition was unaffected by moderate NR processing, whereas strong NR processing reduced intelligibility by about 5%. Analysis of the VRT scores revealed a similar data pattern. That is, while moderate NR did not affect VRT performance, strong NR impaired the performance of all groups slightly. Analysis of the

  17. Compressor noise control begins with design--Part 2

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Frank, L.

    1993-01-01

    Reduction of noise pollution at gas compressor stations associated with natural gas pipelines and distribution systems, has long been a complex problem. Specified noise levels of individual components tell nothing of the overall system when it is installed and placed in a site-specific setting. Further, testing for compliance performance guarantees is virtually impossible to conduct at a distant location because one cannot distinguish among various contributing noise sources. This paper develops a plan for calculating an estimate of sound generation from a compressor station and the methods for controlling and measuring sounds of individual components. It also classifies the types of noise and gives various methods of dealing with each noise type

  18. An Interactive Procedure to Preserve the Desired Edges during the Image Processing of Noise Reduction

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Lin-Tsang Lee

    2010-01-01

    Full Text Available The paper propose a new procedure including four stages in order to preserve the desired edges during the image processing of noise reduction. A denoised image can be obtained from a noisy image at the first stage of the procedure. At the second stage, an edge map can be obtained by the Canny edge detector to find the edges of the object contours. Manual modification of an edge map at the third stage is optional to capture all the desired edges of the object contours. At the final stage, a new method called Edge Preserved Inhomogeneous Diffusion Equation (EPIDE is used to smooth the noisy images or the previously denoised image at the first stage for achieving the edge preservation. The Optical Character Recognition (OCR results in the experiments show that the proposed procedure has the best recognition result because of the capability of edge preservation.

  19. The application of dose-reduction simulation in neonatal head CT scan

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Liu Yue; Peng Yun; Zeng Jinjin; Zhang Qifeng; Li Jianying

    2009-01-01

    Objective: To determine the effects of dose reduction on multi-slice spiral CT (MSCT) of neonatal head and assess the lowest possible radiation for acceptable clinical images. Methods: Fifty-seven newborns suspected intracranial hemorrhage were entered into the study and underwent MSCT scans. Original images at three anatomic levels (posterior fossa, basal ganglia, centrum semiovale) were collected and synthetic noise was added so as to simulate dose reductions of 25%, 40%, 50% and 70%, respectively by using the noise addition tool. A total of 855 image data sets were obtained for the 57 patients. Original and simulated dose-reduction scan images were analyzed. Image noise and image quality were assessed by two independent experienced pediatric radiologists using diagnostic acceptability score, subjective image noise score on a 5-point scale and objective noise index. Image noise was measured by respectively placing region of interest (ROI) at cerebellum, thalamus and corona radiata of 3 different slices. And the noise index and mean value was calculated. The degree of inter-observer concordance was determined by Kappa statistical analysis. The Spearman statistical correlations between the noise index and diagnostic acceptability score were performed. Results: On the images of original dose and simulated dose reductions of 25%, 40%, 50% and 70%, the diagnostic acceptability was 4.47±0.51, 3.96±0.33, 3.21±0.45, 2.92±0.32, and 1.85±0.57, respectively, the subjective image scores were 1.62±0.48, 1.99±0.48, 2.76±0.81, 3.19±0.67, and 4.27±0.54, respectively, the noise index were 1.90±0.19, 2.17±0.20. 2.44± 0.25, 2.68±0.28, and 3.37±0.39, respectively. The two radiologists had good interobserver agreement for diagnostic acceptability (K=0.860, P=0.017) and for image noise scoring(K=0.630, P=0.022). There was significant statistical correlation between image noise index and diagnostic acceptability (r= 0.826,P=0.001). At 40% dose reduction to the standard

  20. Suppression of excess noise in Transition-Edge Sensors using magnetic field and geometry

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ullom, J.N.; Doriese, W.B.; Hilton, G.C.; Beall, J.A.; Deiker, S.; Irwin, K.D.; Reintsema, C.D.; Vale, L.R.; Xu, Y.

    2004-01-01

    We report recent progress at NIST on Mo/Cu Transition-Edge Sensors (TESs). While the signal-band noise of our sensors agrees with theory, we observe excess high-frequency noise. We describe this noise and demonstrate that it can be strongly suppressed by a magnetic field perpendicular to the plane of the sensor. Both the excess noise and α=(T/R)(dR/dT) depend strongly on field so our results show that accurate comparisons between devices are only possible when the field is well known or constant. We also present results showing the noise performance of TES designs incorporating parallel and perpendicular normal metal bars, an array of normal metal islands, and in wedge-shaped devices. We demonstrate significant reduction of high-frequency noise with the perpendicular bar devices at the cost of reduced α. Both the bars and the magnetic field are useful noise reduction techniques for bolometers

  1. Self-Consistent Theory of Shot Noise Suppression in Ballistic Conductors

    Science.gov (United States)

    Bulashenko, O. M.; Rubí, J. M.; Kochelap, V. A.

    Shot-noise measurements become a fundamental tool to probe carrier interactions in mesoscopic systems [1]. A matter of particular interest is the significance of Coulomb interaction which may keep nearby electrons more regularly spaced rather than strictly at random and lead to the noise reduction. That effect occurs in different physical situations. Among them are charge-limited ballistic transport, resonant tunneling, single-electron tunneling, etc. In this communication we address the problem of Coulomb correlations in ballistic conductors under the space-charge-limited transport conditions, and present for the first time a semiclassical self-consistent theory of shot noise in these conductors by solving analytically the kinetic equation coupled self-consistently with a Poisson equation. Basing upon this theory, exact results for current noise in a two-terminal ballistic conductor under the action of long-range Coulomb correlations has been derived. The noise reduction factor (in respect to the uncorrelated value) is obtained in a closed analytical form for a full range of biases ranging from thermal to shot-noise limits which describe perfectly the results of the Monte Carlo simulations for a nondegenerate electron gas [2]. The magnitude of the noise reduction exceeds 0.01, which is of interest from the point of view of possible applications. Using these analytical results one may estimate a relative contribution to the noise from different groups of carriers (in energy space and/or real space) and to investigate in great detail the correlations between different groups of carriers. This leads us to suggest an electron energy spectroscopy experiment to probe the Coulomb correlations in ballistic conductors. Indeed, while the injected carriers are uncorrelated, those in the volume of the conductor are strongly correlated, as follows from the derived formulas for the fluctuation of the distribution function. Those correlations may be observed experimentally by

  2. Affordances of agricultural systems analysis tools

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Ditzler, Lenora; Klerkx, Laurens; Chan-Dentoni, Jacqueline; Posthumus, Helena; Krupnik, Timothy J.; Ridaura, Santiago López; Andersson, Jens A.; Baudron, Frédéric; Groot, Jeroen C.J.

    2018-01-01

    The increasingly complex challenges facing agricultural systems require problem-solving processes and systems analysis (SA) tools that engage multiple actors across disciplines. In this article, we employ the theory of affordances to unravel what tools may furnish users, and how those affordances

  3. Hardware design and implementation of a wavelet de-noising procedure for medical signal preprocessing.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Chen, Szi-Wen; Chen, Yuan-Ho

    2015-10-16

    In this paper, a discrete wavelet transform (DWT) based de-noising with its applications into the noise reduction for medical signal preprocessing is introduced. This work focuses on the hardware realization of a real-time wavelet de-noising procedure. The proposed de-noising circuit mainly consists of three modules: a DWT, a thresholding, and an inverse DWT (IDWT) modular circuits. We also proposed a novel adaptive thresholding scheme and incorporated it into our wavelet de-noising procedure. Performance was then evaluated on both the architectural designs of the software and. In addition, the de-noising circuit was also implemented by downloading the Verilog codes to a field programmable gate array (FPGA) based platform so that its ability in noise reduction may be further validated in actual practice. Simulation experiment results produced by applying a set of simulated noise-contaminated electrocardiogram (ECG) signals into the de-noising circuit showed that the circuit could not only desirably meet the requirement of real-time processing, but also achieve satisfactory performance for noise reduction, while the sharp features of the ECG signals can be well preserved. The proposed de-noising circuit was further synthesized using the Synopsys Design Compiler with an Artisan Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, Hsinchu, Taiwan) 40 nm standard cell library. The integrated circuit (IC) synthesis simulation results showed that the proposed design can achieve a clock frequency of 200 MHz and the power consumption was only 17.4 mW, when operated at 200 MHz.

  4. Effect of Microjet Injection on Supersonic Jet Noise

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zaman, K. B. M. Q.; Podboy, G. G.

    2010-01-01

    The effect of microjet (jet) injection on the noise from supersonic jets is investigated. Three convergent-divergent (C-D) nozzles and one convergent nozzle, all having the same exit diameters, are used in the study. The jets are injected perpendicular to the primary jet close to the nozzle lip from six equally-spaced ports having a jet-to-primary-jet diameter ratio of 0.0054. Effects in the over-expanded, fully expanded as well as underexpanded flow regimes are explored. Relative to the effect on subsonic jets, larger reductions in the overall sound pressure level (OASPL) are achieved in most supersonic conditions. The largest reductions are typically associated with suppression of screech and transonic tones. For a shock-free, fully expanded case, the OASPL reductions achieved are comparable to that in the subsonic case; the same correlation, found for subsonic jet noise reduction at shallow observation angle, applies.

  5. 24 CFR 572.120 - Affordability standards.

    Science.gov (United States)

    2010-04-01

    ... by homeowners in the eligible property. Financing that would impair the continued affordability of... 24 Housing and Urban Development 3 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Affordability standards. 572.120 Section 572.120 Housing and Urban Development Regulations Relating to Housing and Urban Development...

  6. Noise level in a pediatric intensive care unit.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Carvalho, Werther B; Pedreira, Mavilde L G; de Aguiar, Maria Augusta L

    2005-01-01

    The purpose of this study was to verify the noise level at a PICU. This prospective observational study was performed in a 10 bed PICU at a teaching hospital located in a densely populated district within the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Sound pressure levels (dBA) were measured 24 hours during a 6-day period. Noise recording equipment was placed in the PICU access corridor, nursing station, two open wards with three and five beds, and in isolation rooms. The resulting curves were analyzed. A basal noise level variation between 60 and 70 dBA was identified, with a maximum level of 120 dBA. The most significant noise levels were recorded during the day and were produced by the staff. The basal noise level identified exceeds International Noise Council recommendations. Education regarding the effects of noise on human hearing and its relation to stress is the essential basis for the development of a noise reduction program.

  7. Critical Care Implications of the Affordable Care Act.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Dogra, Anjali P; Dorman, Todd

    2016-03-01

    To provide an overview of key elements of the Affordable Care Act. To evaluate ways in which the Affordable Care Act will likely impact the practice of critical care medicine. To describe strategies that may help health systems and providers effectively adapt to changes brought about by the Affordable Care Act. Data sources for this concise review include search results from the PubMed and Embase databases, as well as sources relevant to public policy such as the text of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and reports of the Congressional Budget Office. As all of the Affordable Care Act's provisions will not be fully implemented until 2019, we also drew upon cost, population, and utilization projections, as well as the experience of existing state-based healthcare reforms. The Affordable Care Act represents the furthest reaching regulatory changes in the U.S. healthcare system since the 1965 Medicare and Medicaid provisions of the Social Security Act. The Affordable Care Act aims to expand health insurance coverage to millions of Americans and place an emphasis on quality and cost-effectiveness of care. From models which link pay and performance to those which center on episodic care, the Affordable Care Act outlines sweeping changes to health systems, reimbursement structures, and the delivery of critical care. Staffing models that include daily rounding by an intensivist, palliative care integration, and expansion of the role of telemedicine in areas where intensivists are inaccessible are potential strategies that may improve quality and profitability of ICU care in the post-Affordable Care Act era.

  8. Jet Noise Shielding Provided by a Hybrid Wing Body Aircraft

    Science.gov (United States)

    Doty, Michael J.; Brooks, Thomas F.; Burley, Casey L.; Bahr, Christopher J.; Pope, Dennis S.

    2014-01-01

    One approach toward achieving NASA's aggressive N+2 noise goal of 42 EPNdB cumulative margin below Stage 4 is through the use of novel vehicle configurations like the Hybrid Wing Body (HWB). Jet noise measurements from an HWB acoustic test in NASA Langley's 14- by 22-Foot Subsonic Tunnel are described. Two dual-stream, heated Compact Jet Engine Simulator (CJES) units are mounted underneath the inverted HWB model on a traversable support to permit measurement of varying levels of shielding provided by the fuselage. Both an axisymmetric and low noise chevron nozzle set are investigated in the context of shielding. The unshielded chevron nozzle set shows 1 to 2 dB of source noise reduction (relative to the unshielded axisymmetric nozzle set) with some penalties at higher frequencies. Shielding of the axisymmetric nozzles shows up to 6.5 dB of reduction at high frequency. The combination of shielding and low noise chevrons shows benefits beyond the expected additive benefits of the two, up to 10 dB, due to the effective migration of the jet source peak noise location upstream for increased shielding effectiveness. Jet noise source maps from phased array results processed with the Deconvolution Approach for the Mapping of Acoustic Sources (DAMAS) algorithm reinforce these observations.

  9. Techniques for the reduction of low frequency noise in buildings

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Zuada Coelho, B.A.; Koopman, A.

    2012-01-01

    Vibration isolation of buildings is often achieved by introducing spring systems at the foundation level. This can be an effective measure, especially against vibrations induced by noise, but it is also very costly. Due to the current usage of the cities space, where buildings and infrastructures

  10. Reduction of phase-induced intensity noise in a fiber-based coherent Doppler lidar using polarization control

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Rodrigo, Peter John; Pedersen, Christian

    2010-01-01

    Optimization of signal-to-noise ratio is an important aspect in the design of optical heterodyne detection systems such as a coherent Doppler lidar (CDL). In a CDL, optimal performance is achieved when the noise in the detector signal is dominated by local oscillator shot-noise. Most modern CDL...... systems are built using rugged and cost-efficient fiber optic components. Unfortunately, leakage signals such as residual reflections inherent within fiber components (e.g. circulator) can introduce phaseinduced intensity noise (PIIN) to the Doppler spectrum in a CDL. Such excess noise may be a few orders...

  11. Growing community : rooftop gardens for affordable housing

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Weeks, K.N. [California Univ., Berkeley, CA (United States)

    2007-07-01

    This paper reviewed the processes used in recently designed affordable housing roof garden projects in California, Montana and Georgia. Gardens create a sense of community through shared space and social interactions. As such, roof gardens can give residents of affordable housing the opportunity to experience the community-fostering benefits of gardening, with the added advantages of potentially lower energy bills and wastewater fees. The factors that should be considered in planning, design, construction and maintenance of roof gardens for affordable housing were also outlined. As places of refuge, gardens help people relax and promote healing, which is particularly important for physical, emotional, social and economic well-being. For the many residents of affordable housing who earn less than 50 per cent of the area median income, gardens offer a venue for establishing relationships with neighbours, many of whom they might otherwise never meet. They also offer a means to improved nutrition and food security, education and positive recreation for youth, and better aesthetic surroundings. While motivations for choosing green roofs varied widely across the projects, affordability was linked to 3 main areas, namely saving costs in design, construction and operations; getting the roof to generate funding; and, improving the quality of life in affordable housing. 17 refs., 12 figs.

  12. No Role for Motor Affordances in Visual Working Memory

    Science.gov (United States)

    Pecher, Diane

    2013-01-01

    Motor affordances have been shown to play a role in visual object identification and categorization. The present study explored whether working memory is likewise supported by motor affordances. Use of motor affordances should be disrupted by motor interference, and this effect should be larger for objects that have motor affordances than for…

  13. The Dornier 328 Acoustic Test Cell (ATC) for interior noise tests and selected test results

    Science.gov (United States)

    Hackstein, H. Josef; Borchers, Ingo U.; Renger, Klaus; Vogt, Konrad

    1992-01-01

    To perform acoustic studies for achieving low noise levels for the Dornier 328, an acoustic test cell (ATC) of the Dornier 328 has been built. The ATC consists of a fuselage section, a realistic fuselage suspension system, and three exterior noise simulation rings. A complex digital 60 channel computer/amplifier noise generation system as well as multichannel digital data acquisition and evaluation system have been used. The noise control tests started with vibration measurements for supporting acoustic data interpretation. In addition, experiments have been carried out on dynamic vibration absorbers, the most important passive noise reduction measure for low frequency propeller noise. The design and arrangement of the current ATC are presented. Furthermore, exterior noise simulation as well as data acquisition are explained. The most promising results show noise reduction due to synchrophasing and dynamic vibration absorbers.

  14. Adaptive Autoregressive Model for Reduction of Noise in SPECT

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Reijo Takalo

    2015-01-01

    Full Text Available This paper presents improved autoregressive modelling (AR to reduce noise in SPECT images. An AR filter was applied to prefilter projection images and postfilter ordered subset expectation maximisation (OSEM reconstruction images (AR-OSEM-AR method. The performance of this method was compared with filtered back projection (FBP preceded by Butterworth filtering (BW-FBP method and the OSEM reconstruction method followed by Butterworth filtering (OSEM-BW method. A mathematical cylinder phantom was used for the study. It consisted of hot and cold objects. The tests were performed using three simulated SPECT datasets. Image quality was assessed by means of the percentage contrast resolution (CR% and the full width at half maximum (FWHM of the line spread functions of the cylinders. The BW-FBP method showed the highest CR% values and the AR-OSEM-AR method gave the lowest CR% values for cold stacks. In the analysis of hot stacks, the BW-FBP method had higher CR% values than the OSEM-BW method. The BW-FBP method exhibited the lowest FWHM values for cold stacks and the AR-OSEM-AR method for hot stacks. In conclusion, the AR-OSEM-AR method is a feasible way to remove noise from SPECT images. It has good spatial resolution for hot objects.

  15. Rethinking Affordable Housing Delivery: An Analytical Insight

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Olanrewaju Abdullateef

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Malaysia currently has a housing shortage of 12 million units. Towards the year 2020, this would require an annual supply of a minimum of 2 million homes. With the current production rate, the deficits will remain over the next 100 years. The crisis will lead to poor standards of living, un-affordable rental price, high mortgage payment, abandonment, and dilapidation of the existing housing stock. Lack of affordable housing is already a source of concern among many Malaysians. The middle and lower income earners spend more than 30% of their income on rent or for mortgage payment. Housing rent or mortgage is a basic need like foods, education, clothing and health. The government has introduced various measures to address the housing deficit. Despite these measures, the housing supply and distribution gaps continue to grow. To better understand the issues, there is a need to examine how the procurement planning in the affordable housing delivery supply chain and market is formulated, explore how cost of affordable housing would be reduced, identify the user value systems in affordable housing, and identify the criteria in the current regulatory framework? For these purposes, this paper reviews the relevant literature to reach preliminary findings on the stated issues. Among the factors found accounting for housing shortages, the overwhelming factors were that of poor policies, strategies, practice, management, and finance. The findings are meaningful in framing an affordable housing delivery model. It could also be useful to stakeholders involved in affordable housing delivery in Malaysia and elsewhere.

  16. Reduction of Impact Noise of Trams on a Major Bridge

    NARCIS (Netherlands)

    Dittrich, M.G.; Bosshaart, C.; Wessels, P.W.

    2015-01-01

    As part of a recent renovation of the Erasmus bridge in Rotterdam, improvements were made to reduce impact noise caused by trams passing a series of rai! joints. The bridge inciudes several different sections inciuding a bascule bridge and is in an inner city tocation with new adjacent apartment

  17. Study on electromagnetic noise reduction in building spaces. Propagation of electromagnetic noise generated by an elevator and its countermeasurement; Kenchiku kukan no denjiha noise hogyo no kenkyu. Elevator kara hasseisuru denjiha noise no denpa jokyo to taisaku ni tsuite

    Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

    Yamamoto, Y.; Yoshida, K.; Zama, A. [Obayashi Corp., Tokyo (Japan)

    1995-08-10

    With the progress of power-electronics, a inverter has been generally applied to building facility equipment. This equipment go by chapping a current in high frequency, so secondarily generates electromagnetic noise. The characteristics and propagation of electromagnetic noise generated by an elevator machine were measured. From this, it was recognized that high-level spectrum was included in the frequencies under 100kHz, and electromagnetic noise was scattered a wide area on the roof and the highest floor of the building. By intercepting the conductive noise on the motor main distribution line, the area influenced by the noise was restricted to only a small area around the elevator machine room. 4 refs., 8 figs., 2 tabs.

  18. Highway traffic noise prediction based on GIS

    Science.gov (United States)

    Zhao, Jianghua; Qin, Qiming

    2014-05-01

    Before building a new road, we need to predict the traffic noise generated by vehicles. Traditional traffic noise prediction methods are based on certain locations and they are not only time-consuming, high cost, but also cannot be visualized. Geographical Information System (GIS) can not only solve the problem of manual data processing, but also can get noise values at any point. The paper selected a road segment from Wenxi to Heyang. According to the geographical overview of the study area and the comparison between several models, we combine the JTG B03-2006 model and the HJ2.4-2009 model to predict the traffic noise depending on the circumstances. Finally, we interpolate the noise values at each prediction point and then generate contours of noise. By overlaying the village data on the noise contour layer, we can get the thematic maps. The use of GIS for road traffic noise prediction greatly facilitates the decision-makers because of GIS spatial analysis function and visualization capabilities. We can clearly see the districts where noise are excessive, and thus it becomes convenient to optimize the road line and take noise reduction measures such as installing sound barriers and relocating villages and so on.

  19. Noise reduction in a Mach 5 wind tunnel with a rectangular rod-wall sound shield

    Science.gov (United States)

    Creel, T. R., Jr.; Keyes, J. W.; Beckwith, I. E.

    1980-01-01

    A rod wall sound shield was tested over a range of Reynolds numbers of 0.5 x 10 to the 7th power to 8.0 x 10 to the 7th power per meter. The model consisted of a rectangular array of longitudinal rods with boundary-layer suction through gaps between the rods. Suitable measurement techniques were used to determine properties of the flow and acoustic disturbance in the shield and transition in the rod boundary layers. Measurements indicated that for a Reynolds number of 1.5 x 10 to the 9th power the noise in the shielded region was significantly reduced, but only when the flow is mostly laminar on the rods. Actual nozzle input noise measured on the nozzle centerline before reflection at the shield walls was attenuated only slightly even when the rod boundary layer were laminar. At a lower Reynolds number, nozzle input noise at noise levels in the shield were still too high for application to a quiet tunnel. At Reynolds numbers above 2.0 x 10 the the 7th power per meter, measured noise levels were generally higher than nozzle input levels, probably due to transition in the rod boundary layers. The small attenuation of nozzle input noise at intermediate Reynolds numbers for laminar rod layers at the acoustic origins is apparently due to high frequencies of noise.

  20. BVI induced vibration and noise alleviation by active and passive approaches

    Science.gov (United States)

    Liu, Li

    This dissertation describes the development of a comprehensive aeroelastic/aeroacoustic simulation capability for the modeling of vibration and noise in rotorcraft induced by blade-vortex interaction (BVI). Subsequently this capability is applied to study vibration and noise reduction, using active and passive control approaches. The active approach employed is the actively controlled partial span trailing edge flaps (ACF), implemented in single and dual, servo and plain flap configurations. The passive approach is based on varying the sweep and anhedral on the tip of the rotor. Two different modern helicopters are chosen as the baseline for the implementation of ACF approach, one resembling a four-bladed MBB BO-105 hingeless rotor and the other similar to a five-bladed MD-900 bearingless rotor. The structural model is based on a finite element approach capable of simulating composite helicopter blades with swept tips, and representing multiple load paths at the blade root which is a characteristic of bearingless rotors. An unsteady compressible aerodynamic model based on a rational function approximation (RFA) approach is combined with a free wake analysis which has been enhanced by improving the wake analysis resolution and modeling a dual vortex structure. These enhancements are important for capturing BVI effects. A method for predicting compressible unsteady blade surface pressure distribution on rotor blades has been developed, which is required by the acoustic analysis. A modified version of helicopter noise code WOPWOP with provisions for blade flexibility has been combined with the aeroelastic analysis to predict the BVI noise. Several variants of the higher harmonic control (HHC) algorithm have been applied for the active noise control, as well as the simultaneous vibration and noise control. Active control of BVI noise is accomplished using feedback from an onboard microphone. The simulation has been extensively validated against experimental data and

  1. Hardware Design and Implementation of a Wavelet De-Noising Procedure for Medical Signal Preprocessing

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Szi-Wen Chen

    2015-10-01

    Full Text Available In this paper, a discrete wavelet transform (DWT based de-noising with its applications into the noise reduction for medical signal preprocessing is introduced. This work focuses on the hardware realization of a real-time wavelet de-noising procedure. The proposed de-noising circuit mainly consists of three modules: a DWT, a thresholding, and an inverse DWT (IDWT modular circuits. We also proposed a novel adaptive thresholding scheme and incorporated it into our wavelet de-noising procedure. Performance was then evaluated on both the architectural designs of the software and. In addition, the de-noising circuit was also implemented by downloading the Verilog codes to a field programmable gate array (FPGA based platform so that its ability in noise reduction may be further validated in actual practice. Simulation experiment results produced by applying a set of simulated noise-contaminated electrocardiogram (ECG signals into the de-noising circuit showed that the circuit could not only desirably meet the requirement of real-time processing, but also achieve satisfactory performance for noise reduction, while the sharp features of the ECG signals can be well preserved. The proposed de-noising circuit was further synthesized using the Synopsys Design Compiler with an Artisan Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC, Hsinchu, Taiwan 40 nm standard cell library. The integrated circuit (IC synthesis simulation results showed that the proposed design can achieve a clock frequency of 200 MHz and the power consumption was only 17.4 mW, when operated at 200 MHz.

  2. Acoustic plane waves normally incident on a clamped panel in a rectangular duct. [to explain noise reduction curves for reducing interior noise in aircraft

    Science.gov (United States)

    Unz, H.; Roskam, J.

    1979-01-01

    The theory of acoustic plane wave normally incident on a clamped panel in a rectangular duct is developed. The coupling theory between the elastic vibrations of the panel (plate) and the acoustic wave propagation in infinite space and in the rectangular duct is considered. The partial differential equation which governs the vibration of the panel (plate) is modified by adding to its stiffness (spring) forces and damping forces, and the fundamental resonance frequency and the attenuation factor are discussed. The noise reduction expression based on the theory is found to agree well with the corresponding experimental data of a sample aluminum panel in the mass controlled region, the damping controlled region, and the stiffness controlled region. All the frequency positions of the upward and downward resonance spikes in the sample experimental data are identified theoretically as resulting from four cross interacting major resonance phenomena: the cavity resonance, the acoustic resonance, the plate resonance, and the wooden back panel resonance.

  3. What is an affordance? 40 years later.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Osiurak, François; Rossetti, Yves; Badets, Arnaud

    2017-06-01

    About 40 years ago, James J. Gibson coined the term "affordance" to describe the action possibilities offered to an animal by the environment with reference to the animal's action capabilities. Since then, this notion has acquired a multitude of meanings, generating confusion in the literature. Here, we offer a clear operationalization of the concept of affordances and related concepts in the field of tool use. Our operationalization is organized around the distinction between the physical (what is objectively observable) and neurocognitive (what is subjectively experienced) levels. This leads us to propose that motor control (dorso-dorsal system), mechanical knowledge (ventro-dorsal system) and function knowledge (ventral system) could be neurocognitive systems respectively involved in the perception of affordances, the understanding of mechanical actions and the storage of contextual relationships (three action-system model; 3AS). We end by turning to two key issues that can be addressed within 3AS. These issues concern the link between affordances and tool incorporation, and the constraints posed by affordances for tool use. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

  4. Air flow measurement techniques applied to noise reduction of a centrifugal blower

    Science.gov (United States)

    Laage, John W.; Armstrong, Ashli J.; Eilers, Daniel J.; Olsen, Michael G.; Mann, J. Adin

    2005-09-01

    The air flow in a centrifugal blower was studied using a variety of flow and sound measurement techniques. The flow measurement techniques employed included Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), pitot tubes, and a five hole spherical probe. PIV was used to measure instantaneous and ensemble-averaged velocity fields over large area of the outlet duct as a function of fan position, allowing for the visualization of the flow as it leave the fan blades and progressed downstream. The results from the flow measurements were reviewed along side the results of the sound measurements with the goal of identifying sources of noise and inefficiencies in flow performance. The radiated sound power was divided into broadband and tone noise and measures of the flow. The changes in the tone and broadband sound were compared to changes in flow quantities such as the turbulent kinetic energy and Reynolds stress. Results for each method will be presented to demonstrate the strengths of each flow measurement technique as well as their limitations. Finally, the role that each played in identifying noise sources is described.

  5. Noise pollution in Lahore and the solution

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Ahmad, K.

    1999-01-01

    The main objective of the study is to know the current status of noise levels in Lahore as compared to NEQS . Sound Level Meter model 211 FS Quest Electronics with a 50-120 dBA selectable range was used in the current investigation. Study relates to road traffic noise, aircraft noise at city airports, rail traffic noise, noise levels in urban centers and occupational noise. Investigation revealed that nine main commercial centers, six public hospital and ten educational institution of Lahore had values higher than NEQS (85 dBA). Maximum noise producing vehicles on Lahore roads are scooter producing a noise of 90, 86 and 87 dBA. There are forty airports in operation in the country and the aircraft being used has higher noise level varying from 16 to 120 dBA. Based on age and length of service permanent hearing damage has been observed in skilled industrial workers. Risk from hearing damage of industrial workers can be reduced by the use of some form of ear protection. Ear plugs can reduce noise levels by 15 to 35 dBA according to their design and fit. Industrial noise from heavy machinery can be reduced by anti-vibration mountings. Noisy work area in industry should be either isolated or surrounded by baffles. The most appealing approach to reduce noise problems in communities due to aircraft operation is reduction of the noise generated by the aircraft and land use planning. (author)

  6. A trade-off analysis design tool. Aircraft interior noise-motion/passenger satisfaction model

    Science.gov (United States)

    Jacobson, I. D.

    1977-01-01

    A design tool was developed to enhance aircraft passenger satisfaction. The effect of aircraft interior motion and noise on passenger comfort and satisfaction was modelled. Effects of individual aircraft noise sources were accounted for, and the impact of noise on passenger activities and noise levels to safeguard passenger hearing were investigated. The motion noise effect models provide a means for tradeoff analyses between noise and motion variables, and also provide a framework for optimizing noise reduction among noise sources. Data for the models were collected onboard commercial aircraft flights and specially scheduled tests.

  7. Training in Using Earplugs or Using Earplugs with a Higher than Necessary Noise Reduction Rating? A Randomized Clinical Trial

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    M Salmani Nodoushan

    2014-09-01

    Full Text Available Background: Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL is one of the most common occupational diseases and the second most common cause of workers' claims for occupational injuries. Objective: Due to high prevalence of NIHL and several reports of improper use of hearing protective devices (HPDs, we conducted this study to compare the effect of face-to-face training in effective use of earplugs with appropriate NRR to overprotection of workers by using earplugs with higher than necessary noise reduction rating (NRR. Methods: In a randomized clinical trial, 150 workers referred to occupational medicine clinic were randomly allocated to three arms—a group wearing earplugs with an NRR of 25 with no training in appropriate use of the device; a group wearing earplugs with an NRR of 25 with training; another group wearing earplugs with an NRR of 30, with no training. Hearing threshold was measured in the study groups by real ear attenuation at threshold (REAT method. This trial is registered with Australian New Zealand clinical trials Registry, number ACTRN00363175. Results: The mean±SD age of the participants was 28±5 (range: 19–39 years. 42% of participants were female. The mean noise attenuation in the group with training was 13.88 dB, significantly higher than those observed in other groups. The highest attenuation was observed in high frequencies (4, 6, and 8 kHz in the group with training. Conclusion: Training in appropriate use of earplugs significantly affects the efficacy of earplugs—even more than using an earplug with higher NRR.

  8. Constrained multi-degree reduction with respect to Jacobi norms

    KAUST Repository

    Ait-Haddou, Rachid; Barton, Michael

    2015-01-01

    We show that a weighted least squares approximation of Bézier coefficients with factored Hahn weights provides the best constrained polynomial degree reduction with respect to the Jacobi L2L2-norm. This result affords generalizations to many previous findings in the field of polynomial degree reduction. A solution method to the constrained multi-degree reduction with respect to the Jacobi L2L2-norm is presented.

  9. Constrained multi-degree reduction with respect to Jacobi norms

    KAUST Repository

    Ait-Haddou, Rachid

    2015-12-31

    We show that a weighted least squares approximation of Bézier coefficients with factored Hahn weights provides the best constrained polynomial degree reduction with respect to the Jacobi L2L2-norm. This result affords generalizations to many previous findings in the field of polynomial degree reduction. A solution method to the constrained multi-degree reduction with respect to the Jacobi L2L2-norm is presented.

  10. Advanced Noise Control Fan: A 20-Year Retrospective

    Science.gov (United States)

    Sutliff, Dan

    2016-01-01

    The ANCF test bed is used for evaluating fan noise reduction concepts, developing noise measurement technologies, and providing a database for Aero-acoustic code development. Rig Capabilities: 4 foot 16 bladed rotor @ 2500 rpm, Auxiliary air delivery system (3 lbm/sec @ 6/12 psi), Variable configuration (rotor pitch angle, stator count/position, duct length), synthetic acoustic noise generation (tone/broadband). Measurement Capabilities: 112 channels dynamic data system, Unique rotating rake mode measuremen, Farfield (variable radius), Duct wall microphones, Stator vane microphones, Two component CTA w/ traversing, ESP for static pressures.

  11. Impact of Noise Reduction Algorithm in Cochlear Implant Processing on Music Enjoyment.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Kohlberg, Gavriel D; Mancuso, Dean M; Griffin, Brianna M; Spitzer, Jaclyn B; Lalwani, Anil K

    2016-06-01

    Noise reduction algorithm (NRA) in speech processing strategy has positive impact on speech perception among cochlear implant (CI) listeners. We sought to evaluate the effect of NRA on music enjoyment. Prospective analysis of music enjoyment. Academic medical center. Normal-hearing (NH) adults (N = 16) and CI listeners (N = 9). Subjective rating of music excerpts. NH and CI listeners evaluated country music piece on three enjoyment modalities: pleasantness, musicality, and naturalness. Participants listened to the original version and 20 modified, less complex versions created by including subsets of musical instruments from the original song. NH participants listened to the segments through CI simulation and CI listeners listened to the segments with their usual speech processing strategy, with and without NRA. Decreasing the number of instruments was significantly associated with increase in the pleasantness and naturalness in both NH and CI subjects (p  0.05): this was true for the original and the modified music segments with one to three instruments (p > 0.05). NRA does not affect music enjoyment in CI listener or NH individual with CI simulation. This suggests that strategies to enhance speech processing will not necessarily have a positive impact on music enjoyment. However, reducing the complexity of music shows promise in enhancing music enjoyment and should be further explored.

  12. To be an affordable healthy house, case study Medan

    Science.gov (United States)

    Silitonga, Shanty

    2018-03-01

    House has a paramount meaning in human life. Provision of adequate housing will be able to improve the quality of life. Provision of an affordable house is a major step to fulfilling the needs of houses in the big city. Medan has built a lot of affordable houses, and mostly it takes place in the suburbs. Although the affordable house is for low-income people, it must be worthy of its physical condition, affordable in the budget and healthy for its users. House often saw only as physical alone, the provision of a house only to achieve solely in quantity regardless its quality. This study aims to examine the condition of affordable houses in the suburbs of Medan. The research method used qualitative descriptive, using indicator according to affordable healthy house standard according to the regulation in Indonesia and other related theories. This study took place in Medan by taking three areas in the suburbs of Medan. The results show that most affordable houses in the suburbs of Medan are unhealthy. There are several design recommendations for the houses to meet the affordable healthy house category; the most important is the addition of ventilation and window holes.

  13. Creating Affordable Housing through self-management:

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Jensen, Jesper Ole; Stensgaard, Anne Gro

    The paper presents a case on self-management in the Danish social housing sector as a way of providing affordable housing. It is based on an evaluation of a Danish concept for affordable housing, Social Housing Plus (“AlmenBolig+”). The concept was introduced in 2007, and so far app 1.400 housing...

  14. Measuring the background acoustic noise in the BN-600 steam generator

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Yugaj, V.S.; Zhukovets, V.N.; Ivannikov, V.I.; Vylomov, V.V.; Ryabinin, F.; Chernykh, P.G.; Flejsher, Yu.V.

    1987-01-01

    Acoustic noises in the lower chambers of evaporation and intermediate overheating moduli of the BN-600 reactor steam generator are measured. Bachground noises are registered in the whole range of frequencies studied, from 0.63 to 160 kHz. The comparison of noise spectra in evaporator and overheater has revealed a certain difference. However the general tendency is the reduction of the noise level at high frequencies > 8 kHz. The increase of the noise level at low steam content is observed only in a narrow of frequency range of 3-6 kHz

  15. Organizational Media Affordances : Operationalization and Associations with Media Use

    OpenAIRE

    Rice, Ronald E.; Evans, Sandra K.; Pearce, Katy E.; Sivunen, Anu; Vitak, Jessica; Treem, Jeffrey W.

    2017-01-01

    The concept of affordances has been increasingly applied to the study of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in organizational contexts. However, almost no research operationalizes affordances, limiting comparisons and programmatic research. This article briefly reviews conceptualizations and possibilities of affordances in general and for media, then introduces the concept of organizational media affordances as organizational resources. Analysis of survey data from a large Nord...

  16. Assessment and prediction of wind turbine noise

    International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

    Lowson, M.V.

    1993-01-01

    The significance of basic aerodynamic noise sources for wind turbine noise are assessed, using information on the aero-acoustic mechanisms of other rotors, which have been studied in depth for many years. From the analysis, areas of potential improvement in wind turbine noise prediction are defined. Suggestions are made for approaches to wind turbine noise control which separate the noise problems at cut-in from those at rated power. Some of these offer the possibility of noise reduction without unfavourable effects on performance. Based on this analysis, a new model for prediction of wind turbine noise is presented and comparisons made between prediction and experiment. The model is based on well established aeroacoustic theory and published laboratory data for the two principal sources, inflow turbulence and boundary layer trailing edge interaction. The new method gives good agreement with experiment with the case studied so far. Parametric trends and sensitivities for the model are presented. Comparisons with previous prediction methods are also given. A consequence of the new model is to put more emphasis on boundary layer trailing edge interaction as a noise source. There are prospects for reducing noise from this source detail changes to the wind turbine design. (author)

  17. Long-term exposure to road traffic noise and incident diabetes

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Sørensen, Mette; Andersen, Zorana Jovanovic; Nordsborg, Rikke B

    2013-01-01

    Road traffic noise at normal urban levels can lead to stress and sleep disturbances. Both excess of stress hormones and reduction in sleep quality and duration may lead to higher risk for type 2 diabetes.Objective: We investigated whether long-term exposure to residential road traffic noise...

  18. Affordances and the musically extended mind.

    Science.gov (United States)

    Krueger, Joel

    2014-01-06

    I defend a model of the musically extended mind. I consider how acts of "musicking" grant access to novel emotional experiences otherwise inaccessible. First, I discuss the idea of "musical affordances" and specify both what musical affordances are and how they invite different forms of entrainment. Next, I argue that musical affordances - via soliciting different forms of entrainment - enhance the functionality of various endogenous, emotion-granting regulative processes, drawing novel experiences out of us with an expanded complexity and phenomenal character. I argue that music therefore ought to be thought of as part of the vehicle needed to realize these emotional experiences. I appeal to different sources of empirical work to develop this idea.

  19. Malaysian Affordability Housing Policies Revisited

    Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

    Samad Diwa

    2016-01-01

    Full Text Available Housing has always been a significant aspiration of family expression and distinctly priciest investment by household. It plays a momentous role in the country’s economy and so central to the societal well-being that is emplaced in the United Nation Universal declaration of Human rights. Yet in developed and developing world alike, cities struggle to provide decent housing for lower and middle income population. The provision of affordable housing is a major policy concern around the world with Malaysia being no exception; rising income hardly keep pace with price hike of housing unit and housing interventions has majorly concentrated on demand side leading to a non-responsive supply sector. Therefore, this paper highlights affordable housing issues pertaining Malaysia. It formulates Malaysian Map of affordability and conducts an evaluation of global housing schemes to better identify policy priorities for Malaysia. It’s significant to harmonize supply and demand side factors in the housing market to ensure that housing supply fits the needs of citizens based on the location, price and target group. In case of Malaysia supply oriented initiative are of urgency in short and medium run. This must be supported by long term demand side schemes in parallel. Convergence of these two factors is essential for a balanced equilibrium and obtaining affordability.

  20. Amplitude Noise Suppression and Orthogonal Multiplexing Using Injection-Locked Single-Mode VCSEL

    DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

    Lyubopytov, Vladimir; von Lerber, Tuomo; Lassas, Matti

    2017-01-01

    We experimentally demonstrate BER reduction and orthogonal modulation using an injection locked single-mode VCSEL. It allows us suppressing an amplitude noise of optical signal and/or double the capacity of an information channel.......We experimentally demonstrate BER reduction and orthogonal modulation using an injection locked single-mode VCSEL. It allows us suppressing an amplitude noise of optical signal and/or double the capacity of an information channel....