Sample records for sound production efficiency
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The natural horn as an efficient sound radiating system ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Results obtained showed that the locally made horn are efficient sound radiating systems and are therefore excellent for sound production in local musical renditions. These findings, in addition to the portability and low cost of the horns qualify them to be highly recommended for use in music making and for other purposes ...
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Product sounds : Fundamentals and application
Ozcan-Vieira, E.
2008-01-01
Products are ubiquitous, so are the sounds emitted by products. Product sounds influence our reasoning, emotional state, purchase decisions, preference, and expectations regarding the product and the product's performance. Thus, auditory experience elicited by product sounds may not be just about
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Basic semantics of product sounds
Özcan Vieira, E.; Van Egmond, R.
2012-01-01
Product experience is a result of sensory and semantic experiences with product properties. In this paper, we focus on the semantic attributes of product sounds and explore the basic components for product sound related semantics using a semantic differential paradigmand factor analysis. With two
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Audio-visual interactions in product sound design
Özcan, E.; Van Egmond, R.
2010-01-01
Consistent product experience requires congruity between product properties such as visual appearance and sound. Therefore, for designing appropriate product sounds by manipulating their spectral-temporal structure, product sounds should preferably not be considered in isolation but as an integral
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Memory for product sounds: the effect of sound and label type.
Ozcan, Elif; van Egmond, René
2007-11-01
The (mnemonic) interactions between auditory, visual, and the semantic systems have been investigated using structurally complex auditory stimuli (i.e., product sounds). Six types of product sounds (air, alarm, cyclic, impact, liquid, mechanical) that vary in spectral-temporal structure were presented in four label type conditions: self-generated text, text, image, and pictogram. A memory paradigm that incorporated free recall, recognition, and matching tasks was employed. The results for the sound type suggest that the amount of spectral-temporal structure in a sound can be indicative for memory performance. Findings related to label type suggest that 'self' creates a strong bias for the retrieval and the recognition of sounds that were self-labeled; the density and the complexity of the visual information (i.e., pictograms) hinders the memory performance ('visual' overshadowing effect); and image labeling has an additive effect on the recall and matching tasks (dual coding). Thus, the findings suggest that the memory performances for product sounds are task-dependent.
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Larsen, Ole Næsbye; Wahlberg, Magnus
2017-01-01
There is no difference in principle between the infrasonic and ultrasonic sounds, which are inaudible to humans (or other animals) and the sounds that we can hear. In all cases, sound is a wave of pressure and particle oscillations propagating through an elastic medium, such as air. This chapter...... is about the physical laws that govern how animals produce sound signals and how physical principles determine the signals’ frequency content and sound level, the nature of the sound field (sound pressure versus particle vibrations) as well as directional properties of the emitted signal. Many...... of these properties are dictated by simple physical relationships between the size of the sound emitter and the wavelength of emitted sound. The wavelengths of the signals need to be sufficiently short in relation to the size of the emitter to allow for the efficient production of propagating sound pressure waves...
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Efficient sound barrier calculations with the BEM
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Juhl, Peter Møller; Cutanda Henriquez, Vicente
2018-01-01
The Boundary Element Method has been used for calculating the effect of introducing sound barriers for some decades. The method has also been used for optimizing the shape of the barrier and in some cases the effects of introducing sound absorption. However, numerical calculations are still quite...... time consuming and inconvenient to use, which is limiting their use for many practical problems. Moreover, measurements are mostly taken in one-third or full octave bands opposed to the numerical computations at specific frequencies, which then has to be conducted using a fine density in frequencies....... This paper addresses some of the challenges and possible solutions for developing BEM into a more efficient tool for sound barrier calculations....
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Efficient Geometric Sound Propagation Using Visibility Culling
Chandak, Anish
2011-07-01
Simulating propagation of sound can improve the sense of realism in interactive applications such as video games and can lead to better designs in engineering applications such as architectural acoustics. In this thesis, we present geometric sound propagation techniques which are faster than prior methods and map well to upcoming parallel multi-core CPUs. We model specular reflections by using the image-source method and model finite-edge diffraction by using the well-known Biot-Tolstoy-Medwin (BTM) model. We accelerate the computation of specular reflections by applying novel visibility algorithms, FastV and AD-Frustum, which compute visibility from a point. We accelerate finite-edge diffraction modeling by applying a novel visibility algorithm which computes visibility from a region. Our visibility algorithms are based on frustum tracing and exploit recent advances in fast ray-hierarchy intersections, data-parallel computations, and scalable, multi-core algorithms. The AD-Frustum algorithm adapts its computation to the scene complexity and allows small errors in computing specular reflection paths for higher computational efficiency. FastV and our visibility algorithm from a region are general, object-space, conservative visibility algorithms that together significantly reduce the number of image sources compared to other techniques while preserving the same accuracy. Our geometric propagation algorithms are an order of magnitude faster than prior approaches for modeling specular reflections and two to ten times faster for modeling finite-edge diffraction. Our algorithms are interactive, scale almost linearly on multi-core CPUs, and can handle large, complex, and dynamic scenes. We also compare the accuracy of our sound propagation algorithms with other methods. Once sound propagation is performed, it is desirable to listen to the propagated sound in interactive and engineering applications. We can generate smooth, artifact-free output audio signals by applying
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Intelligent Systems Approaches to Product Sound Quality Analysis
Pietila, Glenn M.
As a product market becomes more competitive, consumers become more discriminating in the way in which they differentiate between engineered products. The consumer often makes a purchasing decision based on the sound emitted from the product during operation by using the sound to judge quality or annoyance. Therefore, in recent years, many sound quality analysis tools have been developed to evaluate the consumer preference as it relates to a product sound and to quantify this preference based on objective measurements. This understanding can be used to direct a product design process in order to help differentiate the product from competitive products or to establish an impression on consumers regarding a product's quality or robustness. The sound quality process is typically a statistical tool that is used to model subjective preference, or merit score, based on objective measurements, or metrics. In this way, new product developments can be evaluated in an objective manner without the laborious process of gathering a sample population of consumers for subjective studies each time. The most common model used today is the Multiple Linear Regression (MLR), although recently non-linear Artificial Neural Network (ANN) approaches are gaining popularity. This dissertation will review publicly available published literature and present additional intelligent systems approaches that can be used to improve on the current sound quality process. The focus of this work is to address shortcomings in the current paired comparison approach to sound quality analysis. This research will propose a framework for an adaptive jury analysis approach as an alternative to the current Bradley-Terry model. The adaptive jury framework uses statistical hypothesis testing to focus on sound pairings that are most interesting and is expected to address some of the restrictions required by the Bradley-Terry model. It will also provide a more amicable framework for an intelligent systems approach
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The Process of Optimizing Mechanical Sound Quality in Product Design
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Eriksen, Kaare; Holst, Thomas
2011-01-01
The research field concerning optimizing product sound quality is a relatively unexplored area, and may become difficult for designers to operate in. To some degree, sound is a highly subjective parameter, which is normally targeted sound specialists. This paper describes the theoretical...... and practical background for managing a process of optimizing the mechanical sound quality in a product design by using simple tools and workshops systematically. The procedure is illustrated by a case study of a computer navigation tool (computer mouse or mouse). The process is divided into 4 phases, which...... clarify the importance of product sound, defining perceptive demands identified by users, and, finally, how to suggest mechanical principles for modification of an existing sound design. The optimized mechanical sound design is followed by tests on users of the product in its use context. The result...
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The effect of vocal fold vertical stiffness gradient on sound production
Geng, Biao; Xue, Qian; Zheng, Xudong
2015-11-01
It is observed in some experimental studies on canine vocal folds (VFs) that the inferior aspect of the vocal fold (VF) is much stiffer than the superior aspect under relatively large strain. Such vertical difference is supposed to promote the convergent-divergent shape during VF vibration and consequently facilitate the production of sound. In this study, we investigate the effect of vertical variation of VF stiffness on sound production using a numerical model. The vertical variation of stiffness is produced by linearly increasing the Young's modulus and shear modulus from the superior to inferior aspects in the cover layer, and its effect on phonation is examined in terms of aerodynamic and acoustic quantities such as flow rate, open quotient, skewness of flow wave form, sound intensity and vocal efficiency. The flow-induced vibration of the VF is solved with a finite element solver coupled with 1D Bernoulli equation, which is further coupled with a digital waveguide model. This study is designed to find out whether it's beneficial to artificially induce the vertical stiffness gradient by certain implanting material in VF restoring surgery, and if it is beneficial, what gradient is the most favorable.
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Młynarski, Wiktor
2015-01-01
In mammalian auditory cortex, sound source position is represented by a population of broadly tuned neurons whose firing is modulated by sounds located at all positions surrounding the animal. Peaks of their tuning curves are concentrated at lateral position, while their slopes are steepest at the interaural midline, allowing for the maximum localization accuracy in that area. These experimental observations contradict initial assumptions that the auditory space is represented as a topographic cortical map. It has been suggested that a “panoramic” code has evolved to match specific demands of the sound localization task. This work provides evidence suggesting that properties of spatial auditory neurons identified experimentally follow from a general design principle- learning a sparse, efficient representation of natural stimuli. Natural binaural sounds were recorded and served as input to a hierarchical sparse-coding model. In the first layer, left and right ear sounds were separately encoded by a population of complex-valued basis functions which separated phase and amplitude. Both parameters are known to carry information relevant for spatial hearing. Monaural input converged in the second layer, which learned a joint representation of amplitude and interaural phase difference. Spatial selectivity of each second-layer unit was measured by exposing the model to natural sound sources recorded at different positions. Obtained tuning curves match well tuning characteristics of neurons in the mammalian auditory cortex. This study connects neuronal coding of the auditory space with natural stimulus statistics and generates new experimental predictions. Moreover, results presented here suggest that cortical regions with seemingly different functions may implement the same computational strategy-efficient coding. PMID:25996373
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Efficient techniques for wave-based sound propagation in interactive applications
Mehra, Ravish
Sound propagation techniques model the effect of the environment on sound waves and predict their behavior from point of emission at the source to the final point of arrival at the listener. Sound is a pressure wave produced by mechanical vibration of a surface that propagates through a medium such as air or water, and the problem of sound propagation can be formulated mathematically as a second-order partial differential equation called the wave equation. Accurate techniques based on solving the wave equation, also called the wave-based techniques, are too expensive computationally and memory-wise. Therefore, these techniques face many challenges in terms of their applicability in interactive applications including sound propagation in large environments, time-varying source and listener directivity, and high simulation cost for mid-frequencies. In this dissertation, we propose a set of efficient wave-based sound propagation techniques that solve these three challenges and enable the use of wave-based sound propagation in interactive applications. Firstly, we propose a novel equivalent source technique for interactive wave-based sound propagation in large scenes spanning hundreds of meters. It is based on the equivalent source theory used for solving radiation and scattering problems in acoustics and electromagnetics. Instead of using a volumetric or surface-based approach, this technique takes an object-centric approach to sound propagation. The proposed equivalent source technique generates realistic acoustic effects and takes orders of magnitude less runtime memory compared to prior wave-based techniques. Secondly, we present an efficient framework for handling time-varying source and listener directivity for interactive wave-based sound propagation. The source directivity is represented as a linear combination of elementary spherical harmonic sources. This spherical harmonic-based representation of source directivity can support analytical, data
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Slow-wave metamaterial open panels for efficient reduction of low-frequency sound transmission
Yang, Jieun; Lee, Joong Seok; Lee, Hyeong Rae; Kang, Yeon June; Kim, Yoon Young
2018-02-01
Sound transmission reduction is typically governed by the mass law, requiring thicker panels to handle lower frequencies. When open holes must be inserted in panels for heat transfer, ventilation, or other purposes, the efficient reduction of sound transmission through holey panels becomes difficult, especially in the low-frequency ranges. Here, we propose slow-wave metamaterial open panels that can dramatically lower the working frequencies of sound transmission loss. Global resonances originating from slow waves realized by multiply inserted, elaborately designed subwavelength rigid partitions between two thin holey plates contribute to sound transmission reductions at lower frequencies. Owing to the dispersive characteristics of the present metamaterial panels, local resonances that trap sound in the partitions also occur at higher frequencies, exhibiting negative effective bulk moduli and zero effective velocities. As a result, low-frequency broadened sound transmission reduction is realized efficiently in the present metamaterial panels. The theoretical model of the proposed metamaterial open panels is derived using an effective medium approach and verified by numerical and experimental investigations.
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Młynarski, Wiktor
2014-01-01
To date a number of studies have shown that receptive field shapes of early sensory neurons can be reproduced by optimizing coding efficiency of natural stimulus ensembles. A still unresolved question is whether the efficient coding hypothesis explains formation of neurons which explicitly represent environmental features of different functional importance. This paper proposes that the spatial selectivity of higher auditory neurons emerges as a direct consequence of learning efficient codes for natural binaural sounds. Firstly, it is demonstrated that a linear efficient coding transform—Independent Component Analysis (ICA) trained on spectrograms of naturalistic simulated binaural sounds extracts spatial information present in the signal. A simple hierarchical ICA extension allowing for decoding of sound position is proposed. Furthermore, it is shown that units revealing spatial selectivity can be learned from a binaural recording of a natural auditory scene. In both cases a relatively small subpopulation of learned spectrogram features suffices to perform accurate sound localization. Representation of the auditory space is therefore learned in a purely unsupervised way by maximizing the coding efficiency and without any task-specific constraints. This results imply that efficient coding is a useful strategy for learning structures which allow for making behaviorally vital inferences about the environment. PMID:24639644
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Wiktor eMlynarski
2014-03-01
Full Text Available To date a number of studies have shown that receptive field shapes of early sensory neurons can be reproduced by optimizing coding efficiency of natural stimulus ensembles. A still unresolved question is whether the efficientcoding hypothesis explains formation of neurons which explicitly represent environmental features of different functional importance. This paper proposes that the spatial selectivity of higher auditory neurons emerges as a direct consequence of learning efficient codes for natural binaural sounds. Firstly, it is demonstrated that a linear efficient coding transform - Independent Component Analysis (ICA trained on spectrograms of naturalistic simulated binaural sounds extracts spatial information present in the signal. A simple hierarchical ICA extension allowing for decoding of sound position is proposed. Furthermore, it is shown that units revealing spatial selectivity can be learned from a binaural recording of a natural auditory scene. In both cases a relatively small subpopulation of learned spectrogram features suffices to perform accurate sound localization. Representation of the auditory space is therefore learned in a purely unsupervised way by maximizing the coding efficiency and without any task-specific constraints. This results imply that efficient coding is a useful strategy for learning structures which allow for making behaviorally vital inferences about the environment.
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Sound production in Onuxodon fowleri (Carapidae) and its amplification by the host shell.
Kéver, Loïc; Colleye, Orphal; Lugli, Marco; Lecchini, David; Lerouvreur, Franck; Herrel, Anthony; Parmentier, Eric
2014-12-15
Onuxodon species are well known for living inside pearl oysters. As in other carapids, their anatomy highlights their ability to make sounds but sound production has never been documented in Onuxodon. This paper describes sound production in Onuxodon fowleri as well as the anatomy of the sound production apparatus. Single-pulsed sounds and multiple-pulsed sounds that sometimes last more than 3 s were recorded in the field and in captivity (Makemo Island, French Polynesia). These pulses are characterized by a broadband frequency spectrum from 100 to 1000 Hz. Onuxodon fowleri is mainly characterized by its ability to modulate the pulse period, meaning that this species can produce pulsed sounds and tonal-like sounds using the same mechanism. In addition, the sound can be remarkably amplified by the shell cavity (peak gain can exceed 10 dB for some frequencies). The sonic apparatus of O. fowleri is characterized by a rocker bone in front of the swimbladder, modified vertebrae and epineurals, and two pairs of sonic muscles, one of which (primary sonic muscle) inserts on the rocker bone. The latter structure, which is absent in other carapid genera, appears to be sexually dimorphic suggesting differences in sound production in males and females. Sound production in O. fowleri could be an example of adaptation where an animal exploits features of its environment to enhance communication. © 2014. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.
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Cai, Weiming; Dunford, Nurhan Turgut; Wang, Ning; Zhu, Songming; He, Huinong
2016-02-01
It has been reported in the literature that exposure of microalgae cells to audible sound could promote growth. This study examined the effect of sound waves with the frequency of 1100 Hz, 2200 Hz, and 3300 Hz to stimulate the biomass productivity of an Oklahoma native strain, Picochlorum oklahomensis (PO). The effect of the frequency of sound on biomass mass was measured. This study demonstrated that audible sound treatment of the algae cultures at 2200 Hz was the most effective in terms of biomass production and volumetric oil yield. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Do top predators cue on sound production by mesopelagic prey?
Baumann-Pickering, S.; Checkley, D. M., Jr.; Demer, D. A.
2016-02-01
Deep-scattering layer (DSL) organisms, comprising a variety of mesopelagic fishes, and squids, siphonophores, crustaceans, and other invertebrates, are preferred prey for numerous large marine predators, e.g. cetaceans, seabirds, and fishes. Some of the DSL species migrate from depth during daylight to feed near the surface at night, transitioning during dusk and dawn. We investigated if any DSL organisms create sound, particularly during the crepuscular periods. Over several nights in summer 2015, underwater sound was recorded in the San Diego Trough using a high-frequency acoustic recording package (HARP, 10 Hz to 100 kHz), suspended from a drifting surface float. Acoustic backscatter from the DSL was monitored nearby using a calibrated multiple-frequency (38, 70, 120, and 200 kHz) split-beam echosounder (Simrad EK60) on a small boat. DSL organisms produced sound, between 300 and 1000 Hz, and the received levels were highest when the animals migrated past the recorder during ascent and descent. The DSL are globally present, so the observed acoustic phenomenon, if also ubiquitous, has wide-reaching implications. Sound travels farther than light or chemicals and thus can be sensed at greater distances by predators, prey, and mates. If sound is a characteristic feature of pelagic ecosystems, it likely plays a role in predator-prey relationships and overall ecosystem dynamics. Our new finding inspires numerous questions such as: Which, how, and why have DSL organisms evolved to create sound, for what do they use it and under what circumstances? Is sound production by DSL organisms truly ubiquitous, or does it depend on the local environment and species composition? How may sound production and perception be adapted to a changing environment? Do predators react to changes in sound? Can sound be used to quantify the composition of mixed-species assemblages, component densities and abundances, and hence be used in stock assessment or predictive modeling?
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Stilp, Christian E.; Kluender, Keith R.
2012-01-01
To the extent that sensorineural systems are efficient, redundancy should be extracted to optimize transmission of information, but perceptual evidence for this has been limited. Stilp and colleagues recently reported efficient coding of robust correlation (r = .97) among complex acoustic attributes (attack/decay, spectral shape) in novel sounds. Discrimination of sounds orthogonal to the correlation was initially inferior but later comparable to that of sounds obeying the correlation. These effects were attenuated for less-correlated stimuli (r = .54) for reasons that are unclear. Here, statistical properties of correlation among acoustic attributes essential for perceptual organization are investigated. Overall, simple strength of the principal correlation is inadequate to predict listener performance. Initial superiority of discrimination for statistically consistent sound pairs was relatively insensitive to decreased physical acoustic/psychoacoustic range of evidence supporting the correlation, and to more frequent presentations of the same orthogonal test pairs. However, increased range supporting an orthogonal dimension has substantial effects upon perceptual organization. Connectionist simulations and Eigenvalues from closed-form calculations of principal components analysis (PCA) reveal that perceptual organization is near-optimally weighted to shared versus unshared covariance in experienced sound distributions. Implications of reduced perceptual dimensionality for speech perception and plausible neural substrates are discussed. PMID:22292057
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Design of Efficient Sound Systems for Low Voltage Battery Driven Applications
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Iversen, Niels Elkjær; Oortgiesen, Rien; Knott, Arnold
2016-01-01
The efficiency of portable battery driven sound systems is crucial as it relates to both the playback time and cost of the system. This paper presents design considerations when designing such systems. This include loudspeaker and amplifier design. Using a low resistance voice coil realized...
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Sound production in recorder-like instruments : II. a simulation model
Verge, M.P.; Hirschberg, A.; Causse, R.
1997-01-01
A simple one-dimensional representation of recorderlike instruments, that can be used for sound synthesis by physical modeling of flutelike instruments, is presented. This model combines the effects on the sound production by the instrument of the jet oscillations, vortex shedding at the edge of the
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Javier S. Tellechea
Full Text Available Catfishes may have two sonic organs: pectoral spines for stridulation and swimbladder drumming muscles. The aim of this study was to characterize the sound production of the catfish Iheringichthys labrosus. The I. labrosus male and female emits two different types of sounds: stridulatory sounds (655.8 + 230 Hz consisting of a train of pulses, and drumming sounds (220 + 46 Hz, which are composed of single-pulse harmonic signals. Stridulatory sounds are emitted during abduction of the pectoral spine. At the base of the spine there is a dorsal process that bears a series of ridges on its latero-ventral surface, and by pressing the ridges against the groove (with an unspecialized rough surface during a fin sweep, the animal produce a series of short pulses. Drumming sound is produced by an extrinsic sonic muscle, originated on a flat tendon of the transverse process of the fourth vertebra and inserted on the rostral and ventral surface of the swimbladder. The sounds emitted by both mechanisms are emitted in distress situation. Distress was induced by manipulating fish in a laboratory tank while sounds were recorded. Our results indicate that the catfish initially emits a stridulatory sound, which is followed by a drumming sound. Simultaneous production of stridulatory and drumming sounds was also observed. The catfish drumming sounds were lower in dominant frequency than stridulatory sounds, and also exhibited a small degree of dominant frequency modulation. Another behaviour observed in this catfish was the pectoral spine locking. This reaction was always observed before the distress sound production. Like other authors outline, our results suggest that in the catfish I. labrosus stridulatory and drumming sounds may function primarily as a distress call.
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Suppression of grasshopper sound production by nitric oxide-releasing neurons of the central complex
Weinrich, Anja; Kunst, Michael; Wirmer, Andrea; Holstein, Gay R.
2008-01-01
The central complex of acridid grasshoppers integrates sensory information pertinent to reproduction-related acoustic communication. Activation of nitric oxide (NO)/cyclic GMP-signaling by injection of NO donors into the central complex of restrained Chorthippus biguttulus females suppresses muscarine-stimulated sound production. In contrast, sound production is released by aminoguanidine (AG)-mediated inhibition of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) in the central body, suggesting a basal release of NO that suppresses singing in this situation. Using anti-citrulline immunocytochemistry to detect recent NO production, subtypes of columnar neurons with somata located in the pars intercerebralis and tangential neurons with somata in the ventro-median protocerebrum were distinctly labeled. Their arborizations in the central body upper division overlap with expression patterns for NOS and with the site of injection where NO donors suppress sound production. Systemic application of AG increases the responsiveness of unrestrained females to male calling songs. Identical treatment with the NOS inhibitor that increased male song-stimulated sound production in females induced a marked reduction of citrulline accumulation in central complex columnar and tangential neurons. We conclude that behavioral situations that are unfavorable for sound production (like being restrained) activate NOS-expressing central body neurons to release NO and elevate the behavioral threshold for sound production in female grasshoppers. PMID:18574586
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Stridulatory sound-production and its function in females of the cicada Subpsaltria yangi.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Changqing Luo
Full Text Available Acoustic behavior plays a crucial role in many aspects of cicada biology, such as reproduction and intrasexual competition. Although female sound production has been reported in some cicada species, acoustic behavior of female cicadas has received little attention. In cicada Subpsaltria yangi, the females possess a pair of unusually well-developed stridulatory organs. Here, sound production and its function in females of this remarkable cicada species were investigated. We revealed that the females could produce sounds by stridulatory mechanism during pair formation, and the sounds were able to elicit both acoustic and phonotactic responses from males. In addition, the forewings would strike the body during performing stridulatory sound-producing movements, which generated impact sounds. Acoustic playback experiments indicated that the impact sounds played no role in the behavioral context of pair formation. This study provides the first experimental evidence that females of a cicada species can generate sounds by stridulatory mechanism. We anticipate that our results will promote acoustic studies on females of other cicada species which also possess stridulatory system.
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Sound post production in advertising and in the film, case study of Studio Beep s.r.o.
Struhařová, Michaela
2012-01-01
Main topic of this thesis is description of sound post production in advertising and in the film film industry and making case study of company Studio Beep s.r.o. First aim of this thesis is describe as clearly as possible the theory of sound and sound post production in advertising and in film industry and also show specifics accompanying production of sound in each discipline. The theoretical part contains basic overview about history of sound, sound dramaturgy and about general principles ...
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Hashizume, Hiroshi; Taki, Yasuyuki; Sassa, Yuko; Thyreau, Benjamin; Asano, Michiko; Asano, Kohei; Takeuchi, Hikaru; Nouchi, Rui; Kotozaki, Yuka; Jeong, Hyeonjeong; Sugiura, Motoaki; Kawashima, Ryuta
2014-08-01
Older children are more successful at producing unfamiliar, non-native speech sounds than younger children during the initial stages of learning. To reveal the neuronal underpinning of the age-related increase in the accuracy of non-native speech production, we examined the developmental changes in activation involved in the production of novel speech sounds using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Healthy right-handed children (aged 6-18 years) were scanned while performing an overt repetition task and a perceptual task involving aurally presented non-native and native syllables. Productions of non-native speech sounds were recorded and evaluated by native speakers. The mouth regions in the bilateral primary sensorimotor areas were activated more significantly during the repetition task relative to the perceptual task. The hemodynamic response in the left inferior frontal gyrus pars opercularis (IFG pOp) specific to non-native speech sound production (defined by prior hypothesis) increased with age. Additionally, the accuracy of non-native speech sound production increased with age. These results provide the first evidence of developmental changes in the neural processes underlying the production of novel speech sounds. Our data further suggest that the recruitment of the left IFG pOp during the production of novel speech sounds was possibly enhanced due to the maturation of the neuronal circuits needed for speech motor planning. This, in turn, would lead to improvement in the ability to immediately imitate non-native speech. Copyright © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Sakamoto, Maki; Watanabe, Junji
2016-03-01
Many languages have a word class whose speech sounds are linked to sensory experiences. Several recent studies have demonstrated cross-modal associations (or correspondences) between sounds and gustatory sensations by asking participants to match predefined sound-symbolic words (e.g., "maluma/takete") with the taste/texture of foods. Here, we further explore cross-modal associations using the spontaneous production of words and semantic ratings of sensations. In the experiment, after drinking liquids, participants were asked to express their taste/texture using Japanese sound-symbolic words, and at the same time, to evaluate it in terms of criteria expressed by adjectives. Because the Japanese language has a large vocabulary of sound-symbolic words, and Japanese people frequently use them to describe taste/texture, analyzing a variety of Japanese sound-symbolic words spontaneously produced to express taste/textures might enable us to explore the mechanism of taste/texture categorization. A hierarchical cluster analysis based on the relationship between linguistic sounds and taste/texture evaluations revealed the structure of sensation categories. The results indicate that an emotional evaluation like pleasant/unpleasant is the primary cluster in gustation. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.
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Ozcan Vieira, E.
2014-01-01
Everyday activities are laden with emotional experiences involving sound. Our interactions with products (shavers, hairdryers, electric drills) often cause sounds that are typically unpleasant to the ear. Yet, we may get excited with the sound of an accelerating Harley Davidson because the rumbling
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Analysis of failure of voice production by a sound-producing voice prosthesis
van der Torn, M.; van Gogh, C.D.L.; Verdonck-de Leeuw, I M; Festen, J.M.; Mahieu, H.F.
OBJECTIVE: To analyse the cause of failing voice production by a sound-producing voice prosthesis (SPVP). METHODS: The functioning of a prototype SPVP is described in a female laryngectomee before and after its sound-producing mechanism was impeded by tracheal phlegm. This assessment included:
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Making media foundations of sound and image production
Roberts-Breslin, Jan
2011-01-01
Making Media takes the media production process and deconstructs it into its most basic components. Students will learn the basic concepts of media production: frame, sound, light, time, motion, sequencing, etc., and be able to apply them to any medium they choose. They will also become well grounded in the digital work environment and the tools required to produce media in the digital age. The companion Web site provides interactive exercises for each chapter, allowing students to explore the process of media production. The text is heavily illustrated and complete with sidebar discussions of
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Johnson, Nicholas S.; Higgs, Dennis; Binder, Thomas R.; Marsden, J. Ellen; Buchinger, Tyler John; Brege, Linnea; Bruning, Tyler; Farha, Steve A.; Krueger, Charles C.
2018-01-01
Two sounds associated with spawning lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) in lakes Huron and Champlain were characterized by comparing sound recordings to behavioral data collected using acoustic telemetry and video. These sounds were named growls and snaps, and were heard on lake trout spawning reefs, but not on a non-spawning reef, and were more common at night than during the day. Growls also occurred more often during the spawning period than the pre-spawning period, while the trend for snaps was reversed. In a laboratory flume, sounds occurred when male lake trout were displaying spawning behaviors; growls when males were quivering and parallel swimming, and snaps when males moved their jaw. Combining our results with the observation of possible sound production by spawning splake (Salvelinus fontinalis × Salvelinus namaycush hybrid), provides rare evidence for spawning-related sound production by a salmonid, or any other fish in the superorder Protacanthopterygii. Further characterization of these sounds could be useful for lake trout assessment, restoration, and control.
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A sound and efficient measure of joint congruence.
Conconi, Michele; Castelli, Vincenzo Parenti
2014-09-01
In the medical world, the term "congruence" is used to describe by visual inspection how the articular surfaces mate each other, evaluating the joint capability to distribute an applied load from a purely geometrical perspective. Congruence is commonly employed for assessing articular physiology and for the comparison between normal and pathological states. A measure of it would thus represent a valuable clinical tool. Several approaches for the quantification of joint congruence have been proposed in the biomechanical literature, differing on how the articular contact is modeled. This makes it difficult to compare different measures. In particular, in previous articles a congruence measure has been presented which proved to be efficient and suitable for the clinical practice, but it was still empirically defined. This article aims at providing a sound theoretical support to this congruence measure by means of the Winkler elastic foundation contact model which, with respect to others, has the advantage to hold also for highly conforming surfaces as most of the human articulations are. First, the geometrical relation between the applied load and the resulting peak of pressure is analytically derived from the elastic foundation contact model, providing a theoretically sound approach to the definition of a congruence measure. Then, the capability of congruence measure to capture the same geometrical relation is shown. Finally, the reliability of congruence measure is discussed. © IMechE 2014.
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The Technique of the Sound Studio: Radio, Record Production, Television, and Film. Revised Edition.
Nisbett, Alec
Detailed explanations of the studio techniques used in radio, record, television, and film sound production are presented in as non-technical language as possible. An introductory chapter discusses the physics and physiology of sound. Subsequent chapters detail standards for sound control in the studio; explain the planning and routine of a sound…
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La Brecque, Richard
This paper clarifies core concepts in a Kentucky judge's decision that the State General Assembly has failed to provide an efficient system of common schools. Connecting "efficiency" of educational systems to "equality of educational opportunity," the paper argues that the realization of a constitutionally sound, efficient…
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Video and Sound Production: Flip out! Game on!
Hunt, Marc W.
2013-01-01
The author started teaching TV and sound production in a career and technical education (CTE) setting six years ago. The first couple months of teaching provided a steep learning curve for him. He is highly experienced in his industry, but teaching the content presented a new set of obstacles. His students had a broad range of abilities,…
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
de Toro, Miguel Angel Aranda; Ordoñez, Rodrigo Pizarro; Hammershøi, Dorte
2006-01-01
Exposure to sound of moderate level temporarily attenuates the amplitude of distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs). These changes are similar to the changes observed in absolute hearing thresholds after similar sound exposures. To be able to assess changes over time across a broad...
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Efficiency of vibrational sounding in parasitoid host location depends on substrate density.
Fischer, S; Samietz, J; Dorn, S
2003-10-01
Parasitoids of concealed hosts have to drill through a substrate with their ovipositor for successful parasitization. Hymenopteran species in this drill-and-sting guild locate immobile pupal hosts by vibrational sounding, i.e., echolocation on solid substrate. Although this host location strategy is assumed to be common among the Orussidae and Ichneumonidae there is no information yet whether it is adapted to characteristics of the host microhabitat. This study examined the effect of substrate density on responsiveness and host location efficiency in two pupal parasitoids, Pimpla turionellae and Xanthopimpla stemmator (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae), with different host-niche specialization and corresponding ovipositor morphology. Location and frequency of ovipositor insertions were scored on cylindrical plant stem models of various densities. Substrate density had a significant negative effect on responsiveness, number of ovipositor insertions, and host location precision in both species. The more niche-specific species X. stemmator showed a higher host location precision and insertion activity. We could show that vibrational sounding is obviously adapted to the host microhabitat of the parasitoid species using this host location strategy. We suggest the attenuation of pulses during vibrational sounding as the energetically costly limiting factor for this adaptation.
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Research of Control System and Fault Diagnosis of the Sound-absorbing Board Production Line
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Yanjun Xiao
2014-08-01
Full Text Available Programmable Logic Controller is the core of the control system of the sound- absorbing board production line and the design of fault diagnosis is an essential modules in the sound- absorbing board production line. The article discourses the application of PLC in the control system of the production line, and designs the methods of grading treatment and prevention of troubles, which makes use of PLC’S logic functions. The method has good expansibility, and has good guidance to the fault diagnosis in other automation equipments.
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Productivity and energy efficiency
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Lovins, H. [Rocky Mountain Inst., Snowmass, CO (United States)
1995-12-31
Energy efficient building and office design offers the possibility of significantly increased worker productivity. By improving lighting, heating and cooling, workers can be made more comfortable and productive. An increase of 1 percent in productivity can provide savings to a company that exceed its entire energy bill. Efficient design practices are cost effective just from their energy savings. The resulting productivity gains make them indispensable. This paper documents eight cases in which efficient lighting, heating, and cooling have measurably increased worker productivity, decreased absenteeism, and/or improved the quality of work performed. They also show that efficient lighting can measurably increase work quality by removing errors and manufacturing defects. The case studies presented include retrofit of existing buildings and the design of new facilities, and cover a variety of commercial and industrial settings. Each case study identifies the design changes that were most responsible for increased productivity. As the eight case studies illustrate, energy efficient design may be one of the least expensive ways for a business to improve the productivity of its workers and the quality of its product. (author). 15 refs.
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Wei, Qi; Tian, Ye; Zuo, Shu-Yu; Cheng, Ying; Liu, Xiao-Jun
2017-03-01
Acoustic topological states support sound propagation along the boundary in a one-way direction with inherent robustness against defects and disorders, leading to the revolution of the manipulation on acoustic waves. A variety of acoustic topological states relying on circulating fluid, chiral coupling, or temporal modulation have been proposed theoretically. However, experimental demonstration has so far remained a significant challenge, due to the critical limitations such as structural complexity and high losses. Here, we experimentally demonstrate an acoustic anomalous Floquet topological insulator in a waveguide network. The acoustic gapless edge states can be found in the band gap when the waveguides are strongly coupled. The scheme features simple structure and high-energy throughput, leading to the experimental demonstration of efficient and robust topologically protected sound propagation along the boundary. The proposal may offer a unique, promising application for design of acoustic devices in acoustic guiding, switching, isolating, filtering, etc.
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Artifact rejection of distortion product otoacoustic emissions measured after sound exposure
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Reuter, Karen; Ordoñez, Rodrigo Pizarro; de Toro, Miguel Angel Aranda
2007-01-01
In a previous study [3] distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEs) were measured both before and after a moderate sound exposure, which caused a reduction of DPOAE levels. After the exposure DPOAEs had often levels below the noise floor. In the present paper it is discussed, whether...
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Knakkergaard, Martin
2016-01-01
This article discusses the change in premise that digitally produced sound brings about and how digital technologies more generally have changed our relationship to the musical artifact, not simply in degree but in kind. It demonstrates how our acoustical conceptions are thoroughly challenged...... by the digital production of sound and, by questioning the ontological basis for digital sound, turns our understanding of the core term substance upside down....
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Psychometric characteristics of single-word tests of children's speech sound production.
Flipsen, Peter; Ogiela, Diane A
2015-04-01
Our understanding of test construction has improved since the now-classic review by McCauley and Swisher (1984). The current review article examines the psychometric characteristics of current single-word tests of speech sound production in an attempt to determine whether our tests have improved since then. It also provides a resource that clinicians may use to help them make test selection decisions for their particular client populations. Ten tests published since 1990 were reviewed to determine whether they met the 10 criteria set out by McCauley and Swisher (1984), as well as 7 additional criteria. All of the tests reviewed met at least 3 of McCauley and Swisher's (1984) original criteria, and 9 of 10 tests met at least 5 of them. Most of the tests met some of the additional criteria as well. The state of the art for single-word tests of speech sound production in children appears to have improved in the last 30 years. There remains, however, room for improvement.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Sandra Papes
Full Text Available Sound production and hearing sensitivity of ectothermic animals are affected by the ambient temperature. This is the first study investigating the influence of temperature on both sound production and on hearing abilities in a fish species, namely the neotropical Striped Raphael catfish Platydoras armatulus.Doradid catfishes produce stridulation sounds by rubbing the pectoral spines in the shoulder girdle and drumming sounds by an elastic spring mechanism which vibrates the swimbladder. Eight fish were acclimated for at least three weeks to 22°, then to 30° and again to 22°C. Sounds were recorded in distress situations when fish were hand-held. The stridulation sounds became shorter at the higher temperature, whereas pulse number, maximum pulse period and sound pressure level did not change with temperature. The dominant frequency increased when the temperature was raised to 30°C and the minimum pulse period became longer when the temperature decreased again. The fundamental frequency of drumming sounds increased at the higher temperature. Using the auditory evoked potential (AEP recording technique, the hearing thresholds were tested at six different frequencies from 0.1 to 4 kHz. The temporal resolution was determined by analyzing the minimum resolvable click period (0.3-5 ms. The hearing sensitivity was higher at the higher temperature and differences were more pronounced at higher frequencies. In general, latencies of AEPs in response to single clicks became shorter at the higher temperature, whereas temporal resolution in response to double-clicks did not change.These data indicate that sound characteristics as well as hearing abilities are affected by temperatures in fishes. Constraints imposed on hearing sensitivity at different temperatures cannot be compensated even by longer acclimation periods. These changes in sound production and detection suggest that acoustic orientation and communication are affected by temperature changes in
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Glaw Frank
2011-04-01
Full Text Available Abstract Background Evolutionary novelties often appear by conferring completely new functions to pre-existing structures or by innovating the mechanism through which a particular function is performed. Sound production plays a central role in the behavior of frogs, which use their calls to delimit territories and attract mates. Therefore, frogs have evolved complex vocal structures capable of producing a wide variety of advertising sounds. It is generally acknowledged that most frogs call by moving an air column from the lungs through the glottis with the remarkable exception of the family Pipidae, whose members share a highly specialized sound production mechanism independent of air movement. Results Here, we performed behavioral observations in the poorly known African pipid genus Pseudhymenochirus and document that the sound production in this aquatic frog is almost certainly air-driven. However, morphological comparisons revealed an indisputable pipid nature of Pseudhymenochirus larynx. To place this paradoxical pattern into an evolutionary framework, we reconstructed robust molecular phylogenies of pipids based on complete mitochondrial genomes and nine nuclear protein-coding genes that coincided in placing Pseudhymenochirus nested among other pipids. Conclusions We conclude that although Pseudhymenochirus probably has evolved a reversal to the ancestral non-pipid condition of air-driven sound production, the mechanism through which it occurs is an evolutionary innovation based on the derived larynx of pipids. This strengthens the idea that evolutionary solutions to functional problems often emerge based on previous structures, and for this reason, innovations largely depend on possibilities and constraints predefined by the particular history of each lineage.
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Wambaugh, Julie; Nessler, Christina; Wright, Sandra; Mauszycki, Shannon; DeLong, Catharine
2016-10-01
This study was designed to examine the effects of practice schedule, blocked vs random, on outcomes of a behavioural treatment for acquired apraxia of speech (AOS), Sound Production Treatment (SPT). SPT was administered to four speakers with chronic AOS and aphasia in the context of multiple baseline designs across behaviours and participants. Treatment was applied to multiple sound errors within three-to-five syllable words. All participants received both practice schedules: SPT-Random (SPT-R) and SPT-Blocked (SPT-B). Improvements in accuracy of word production for trained items were found for both treatment conditions for all participants. One participant demonstrated better maintenance effects associated with SPT-R. Response generalisation to untreated words varied across participants, but was generally modest and unstable. Stimulus generalisation to production of words in sentence completion was positive for three of the participants. Stimulus generalisation to production of phrases was positive for two of the participants. Findings provide additional efficacy data regarding SPT's effects on articulation of treated items and extend knowledge of the treatment's effects when applied to multiple targets within multisyllabic words.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Javier S. Tellechea
2011-01-01
Full Text Available Catfishes may have two sonic organs: pectoral spines for stridulation and swimbladder drumming muscles. The aim of this study was to characterize the sound production of the catfish Iheringichthys labrosus. The I. labrosus male and female emits two different types of sounds: stridulatory sounds (655.8 + 230 Hz consisting of a train of pulses, and drumming sounds (220 + 46 Hz, which are composed of single-pulse harmonic signals. Stridulatory sounds are emitted during abduction of the pectoral spine. At the base of the spine there is a dorsal process that bears a series of ridges on its latero-ventral surface, and by pressing the ridges against the groove (with an unspecialized rough surface during a fin sweep, the animal produce a series of short pulses. Drumming sound is produced by an extrinsic sonic muscle, originated on a flat tendon of the transverse process of the fourth vertebra and inserted on the rostral and ventral surface of the swimbladder. The sounds emitted by both mechanisms are emitted in distress situation. Distress was induced by manipulating fish in a laboratory tank while sounds were recorded. Our results indicate that the catfish initially emits a stridulatory sound, which is followed by a drumming sound. Simultaneous production of stridulatory and drumming sounds was also observed. The catfish drumming sounds were lower in dominant frequency than stridulatory sounds, and also exhibited a small degree of dominant frequency modulation. Another behaviour observed in this catfish was the pectoral spine locking. This reaction was always observed before the distress sound production. Like other authors outline, our results suggest that in the catfish I. labrosus stridulatory and drumming sounds may function primarily as a distress call.Bagres podem apresentar dois órgãos sonoros: o espinho peitoral para o som peitoral ou estridulatório e o músculo sonoro da bexiga natatória. O objetivo deste trabalho foi caracterizar a produ
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Salomons, E.; Polinder, H.; Lohman, W.; Zhou, H.; Borst, H.
2009-01-01
A new engineering model for sound propagation in cities is presented. The model is based on numerical and experimental studies of sound propagation between street canyons. Multiple reflections in the source canyon and the receiver canyon are taken into account in an efficient way, while weak
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Universal mechanisms of sound production and control in birds and mammals
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Elemans, Coen; Rasmussen, Jeppe Have; Herbst, Christian T.
2015-01-01
As animals vocalize, their vocal organ transforms motor commands into vocalizations for social communication. In birds, the physical mechanisms by which vocalizations are produced and controlled remain unresolved because of the extreme difficulty in obtaining in vivo measurements. Here, we...... learning and is common to MEAD sound production across birds and mammals, including humans....
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Sound reduction by metamaterial-based acoustic enclosure
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Shanshan Yao
2014-12-01
Full Text Available In many practical systems, acoustic radiation control on noise sources contained within a finite volume by an acoustic enclosure is of great importance, but difficult to be accomplished at low frequencies due to the enhanced acoustic-structure interaction. In this work, we propose to use acoustic metamaterials as the enclosure to efficiently reduce sound radiation at their negative-mass frequencies. Based on a circularly-shaped metamaterial model, sound radiation properties by either central or eccentric sources are analyzed by numerical simulations for structured metamaterials. The parametric analyses demonstrate that the barrier thickness, the cavity size, the source type, and the eccentricity of the source have a profound effect on the sound reduction. It is found that increasing the thickness of the metamaterial barrier is an efficient approach to achieve large sound reduction over the negative-mass frequencies. These results are helpful in designing highly efficient acoustic enclosures for blockage of sound in low frequencies.
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Sound reduction by metamaterial-based acoustic enclosure
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Yao, Shanshan; Li, Pei; Zhou, Xiaoming; Hu, Gengkai, E-mail: hugeng@bit.edu.cn [Key Laboratory of Dynamics and Control of Flight Vehicle, Ministry of Education and School of Aerospace Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081 (China)
2014-12-15
In many practical systems, acoustic radiation control on noise sources contained within a finite volume by an acoustic enclosure is of great importance, but difficult to be accomplished at low frequencies due to the enhanced acoustic-structure interaction. In this work, we propose to use acoustic metamaterials as the enclosure to efficiently reduce sound radiation at their negative-mass frequencies. Based on a circularly-shaped metamaterial model, sound radiation properties by either central or eccentric sources are analyzed by numerical simulations for structured metamaterials. The parametric analyses demonstrate that the barrier thickness, the cavity size, the source type, and the eccentricity of the source have a profound effect on the sound reduction. It is found that increasing the thickness of the metamaterial barrier is an efficient approach to achieve large sound reduction over the negative-mass frequencies. These results are helpful in designing highly efficient acoustic enclosures for blockage of sound in low frequencies.
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Eco-efficiency in industrial production
von Raesfeld Meijer, Ariane M.; de Bakker, F.G.A.; Groen, Arend J.
2001-01-01
English AbstractThis report of the MATRIC project investigated 'Eco-efficiency in industrial production'. After a general introduction into the domain of eco-efficiency, the first part of this report further focusses on the organisation of Product-Oriented Environmental Management (POEM), which is
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Greenhouse production systems for people
Giacomelli, G.A.; Sase, S.; Cramer, R.; Hoogeboom, J.; McKenzie, A.; Parbst, K.; Sacrascia-Mugnozza, G.; Selina, P.; Sharp, D.A.; Voogt, J.O.; Weel, van P.A.; Mears, D.
2012-01-01
Environmentally sound greenhouse production requires that: demand for market products is understood; greenhouse design addresses the climate circum-stances; input resources are available and consumed efficiently, and; there must be a reasonable balance of production products to the environmental
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International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Venosa, A.D.; Haines, J.R.; Allen, D.M.
1991-01-01
In the spring of 1990, previously reported laboratory experiments were conducted on 10 commercial microbial products to test for enhanced biodegradation of weathered crude oil from the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The laboratory tests measured the rate and extent of oil degradation in closed flasks. Weathered oil from the beaches in Alaska and seawater from Prince William Sound were used in the tests. Two of the 10 products were found to provide significantly greater alkane degradation than flasks supplemented with mineral nutrients alone. These two products were selected for further testing on a beach in Prince William Sound. A randomized complete block experiment was designed to compare the effectiveness of these two products in enhancing oil degradation compared to simple fertilizer alone. Four small plots consisting of a no nutrient control, a mineral nutrient plot, and two plots receiving mineral nutrients plus the two products, were laid out on a contaminated beach. These four plots comprised a 'block' of treatments, and this block was replicated four times on the same beach. Triplicate samples of beach sediment were collected at four equally spaced time intervals and analyzed for oil residue weight and alkane hydrocarbon profile changes with time. The objective was to determine if either of the two commercial microbiological products was able to enhance bioremediation of an oil-contaminated beach in Prince William Sound to an extent greater than that achievable by simple fertilizer application. Results indicated no significant differences among the four treatments in the 27-day period of the experiment
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2013-11-07
... for such products. These inconsistent interpretations of the definitions may inadvertently result in... amplification products (PSAPs), as well as the regulatory controls that apply to each. This draft guidance is... of clarity regarding how the Agency defines a hearing aid versus a personal sound amplification...
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Kang, Ik Joon; Qiu, Xuchun; Moroishi, Junya; Oshima, Yuji
2017-08-01
This study is the first to report sound production in Japanese medaka (Oryzias latipes). Sound production was affected by exposure to the carbamate insecticide (aldicarb) and heavy-metal compound (copper sulfate). Medaka were exposed at four concentrations (aldicarb: 0, 0.25, 0.5, and 1 mg L -1 ; copper sulfate: 0, 0.5, 1, and 2 mg L -1 ), and sound characteristics were monitored for 5 h after exposure. We observed constant average interpulse intervals (approx 0.2 s) in all test groups before exposure, and in the control groups throughout the experiment. The average interpulse interval became significantly longer during the recording periods after 50 min of exposure to aldicarb, and reached a length of more than 0.3 s during the recording periods after 120 min exposure. Most medaka fish stopped to produce sound after 50 min of exposure to copper sulfate at 1 and 2 mg L -1 , resulting in significantly declined number of sound pulses and pulse groups. Relative shortened interpulse intervals of sound were occasionally observed in medaka fish exposed to 0.5 mg L -1 copper sulfate. These alternations in sound characteristics due to toxicants exposure suggested that they might impair acoustic communication of medaka fish, which may be important for their reproduction and survival. Our results suggested that using acoustic changes of medaka has potential to monitor precipitate water pollutions, such as intentional poisoning or accidental leakage of industrial waste. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Contracting for Efficiency. A Best Practices Guide for Energy-Efficient Product Procurement
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Bunch, Saralyn [Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Washington, DC (United States); Payne, Christopher [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
2016-04-01
The requirement to buy energy- and water-efficient products applies to federal purchases made through any procurement pathway (e.g., purchase cards, e-retailers, and solicitations) and to a wide variety of federal projects. The Federal Energy Management Program’s (FEMP's) Buy Energy-Efficient Products buyer overview fact sheet and Contracting for Efficiency best practices guide for product procurement are designed to support federal buyers in the purchase of energy- and water-efficient products.
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Contracting for Efficiency: A Best Practices Guide for Energy Efficient Product Procurement
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Bunch, Saralyn [Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Washington, DC (United States); Payne, Christopher [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
2017-11-01
The requirement to buy energy- and water-efficient products applies to federal purchases made through any procurement pathway (e.g., purchase cards, e-retailers, and solicitations) and to a wide variety of federal projects. The Federal Energy Management Program’s (FEMP's) Buy Energy-Efficient Products buyer overview fact sheet and Contracting for Efficiency best practices guide for product procurement are designed to support federal buyers in the purchase of energy- and water-efficient products.
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Gateway of Sound: Reassessing the Role of Audio Mastering in the Art of Record Production
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Carlo Nardi
2014-06-01
Full Text Available Audio mastering, notwithstanding an apparent lack of scholarly attention, is a crucial gateway between production and consumption and, as such, is worth further scrutiny, especially in music genres like house or techno, which place great emphasis on sound production qualities. In this article, drawing on personal interviews with mastering engineers and field research in mastering studios in Italy and Germany, I investigate the practice of mastering engineering, paying close attention to the negotiation of techniques and sound aesthetics in relation to changes in the industry formats and, in particular, to the growing shift among DJs from vinyl to compressed digital formats. I then discuss the specificity of audio mastering in relation to EDM, insofar as DJs and controllerists conceive of the master, rather than as a finished product destined to listening, as raw material that can be reworked in performance.
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Remembering that big things sound big: Sound symbolism and associative memory.
Preziosi, Melissa A; Coane, Jennifer H
2017-01-01
According to sound symbolism theory, individual sounds or clusters of sounds can convey meaning. To examine the role of sound symbolic effects on processing and memory for nonwords, we developed a novel set of 100 nonwords to convey largeness (nonwords containing plosive consonants and back vowels) and smallness (nonwords containing fricative consonants and front vowels). In Experiments 1A and 1B, participants rated the size of the 100 nonwords and provided definitions to them as if they were products. Nonwords composed of fricative/front vowels were rated as smaller than those composed of plosive/back vowels. In Experiment 2, participants studied sound symbolic congruent and incongruent nonword and participant-generated definition pairings. Definitions paired with nonwords that matched the size and participant-generated meanings were recalled better than those that did not match. When the participant-generated definitions were re-paired with other nonwords, this mnemonic advantage was reduced, although still reliable. In a final free association study, the possibility that plosive/back vowel and fricative/front vowel nonwords elicit sound symbolic size effects due to mediation from word neighbors was ruled out. Together, these results suggest that definitions that are sound symbolically congruent with a nonword are more memorable than incongruent definition-nonword pairings. This work has implications for the creation of brand names and how to create brand names that not only convey desired product characteristics, but also are memorable for consumers.
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Technical efficiency in milk production in underdeveloped production environment of India*.
Bardhan, Dwaipayan; Sharma, Murari Lal
2013-12-01
The study was undertaken in Kumaon division of Uttarakhand state of India with the objective of estimating technical efficiency in milk production across different herd-size category households and factors influencing it. Total of 60 farm households having representation from different herd-size categories drawn from six randomly selected villages of plain and hilly regions of the division constituted the ultimate sampling units of the study. Stochastic frontier production function analysis was used to estimate the technical efficiency in milk production. Multivariate regression equations were fitted taking technical efficiency index as the regressand to identify the factors significantly influencing technical efficiency in milk production. The study revealed that variation in output across farms in the study area was due to difference in their technical efficiency levels. However, it was interesting to note that smallholder producers were more technically efficient in milk production than their larger counterparts, especially in the plains. Apart from herd size, intensity of market participation had significant and positive impact on technical efficiency in the plains. This provides definite indication that increasing the level of commercialization of dairy farms would have beneficial impact on their production efficiency.
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Of Sound Mind: Mental Distress and Sound in Twentieth-Century Media Culture
Birdsall, C.; Siewert, S.
2013-01-01
This article seeks to specify the representation of mental disturbance in sound media during the twentieth century. It engages perspectives on societal and technological change across the twentieth century as crucial for aesthetic strategies developed in radio and sound film production. The analysis
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Productivity benefits of industrial energy efficiency measures
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Worrell, Ernst; Laitner, John A.; Michael, Ruth; Finman, Hodayah
2004-08-30
We review the relationship between energy efficiency improvement measures and productivity in industry. We review over 70 industrial case studies from widely available published databases, followed by an analysis of the representation of productivity benefits in energy modeling. We propose a method to include productivity benefits in the economic assessment of the potential for energy efficiency improvement. The case-study review suggests that energy efficiency investments can provide a significant boost to overall productivity within industry. If this relationship holds, the description of energy-efficient technologies as opportunities for larger productivity improvements has significant implications for conventional economic assessments. The paper explores the implications this change in perspective on the evaluation of energy-efficient technologies for a study of the iron and steel industry in the US. This examination shows that including productivity benefits explicitly in the modeling parameters would double the cost-effective potential for energy efficiency improvement, compared to an analysis excluding those benefits. We provide suggestions for future research in this important area.
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77 FR 51912 - Safety Zone; Tom Lyons Productions Fireworks, Long Island Sound, Sands Point, NY
2012-08-28
... DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY Coast Guard 33 CFR Part 165 [Docket Number USCG-2012-0618] RIN 1625-AA00 Safety Zone; Tom Lyons Productions Fireworks, Long Island Sound, Sands Point, NY AGENCY.... 165.T01-0618 to read as follows: Sec. 165.T01-0618 Safety Zone; Tom Lyons Productions Fireworks, Long...
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Beneath sci-fi sound: primer, science fiction sound design, and American independent cinema
Johnston, Nessa
2012-01-01
Primer is a very low budget science-fiction film that deals with the subject of time travel; however, it looks and sounds quite distinctively different from other films associated with the genre. While Hollywood blockbuster sci-fi relies on “sound spectacle” as a key attraction, in contrast Primer sounds “lo-fi” and screen-centred, mixed to two channel stereo rather than the now industry-standard 5.1 surround sound. Although this is partly a consequence of the economics of its production, the...
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Physics of thermo-acoustic sound generation
Daschewski, M.; Boehm, R.; Prager, J.; Kreutzbruck, M.; Harrer, A.
2013-09-01
We present a generalized analytical model of thermo-acoustic sound generation based on the analysis of thermally induced energy density fluctuations and their propagation into the adjacent matter. The model provides exact analytical prediction of the sound pressure generated in fluids and solids; consequently, it can be applied to arbitrary thermal power sources such as thermophones, plasma firings, laser beams, and chemical reactions. Unlike existing approaches, our description also includes acoustic near-field effects and sound-field attenuation. Analytical results are compared with measurements of sound pressures generated by thermo-acoustic transducers in air for frequencies up to 1 MHz. The tested transducers consist of titanium and indium tin oxide coatings on quartz glass and polycarbonate substrates. The model reveals that thermo-acoustic efficiency increases linearly with the supplied thermal power and quadratically with thermal excitation frequency. Comparison of the efficiency of our thermo-acoustic transducers with those of piezoelectric-based airborne ultrasound transducers using impulse excitation showed comparable sound pressure values. The present results show that thermo-acoustic transducers can be applied as broadband, non-resonant, high-performance ultrasound sources.
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2010-04-01
... 27 Alcohol, Tobacco Products and Firearms 1 2010-04-01 2010-04-01 false Puget Sound. 9.151 Section... Sound. (a) Name. The name of the viticultural area described in this section is “Puget Sound.” (b) Approved maps. The appropriate maps for determining the boundary of the Puget Sound viticultural area are...
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Efficiency and Import Penetrationon the Productivity of Textile Industry and Textile Products
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Catur Basuki Rakhmawan
2012-12-01
Full Text Available Although textile industry and textile products belong to the strategic sub-sector of manufacturing industry in Indonesia, they are facing problems on the availability of energy, old production machines, and the flooding of imported products into the domestic market. This study is aimed to analyze the efficiency and productivity as performance indicators and how the efficiency and import penetration affect the productivity of textile industry and textile products. The methods of data analysis used in this research are divided in two phases. The first phase, the non-metric approach of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA is applied to measure the efficiency and productivity. Secondly, the fixed effect model of econometric regression approach is used to find out the effects of efficiency and import penetration on the productivity of textile industry and textile products. The result shows that the ave-rage level of efficiency of textile industry and textile products during the period of 2004 – 2008 is about 40 percent with a growth rate of average productivity increases 2.4 percent. Whereas, the econometric estimation results indicate that the increase of efficiency will positively and significantly affect the productivity of textile industry and textile products. On the other hand, the increase of import penetration will negatively affect the productivity of this industry.
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Ownership and efficiency in nuclear power production
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Pollitt, M.G.
1995-01-01
This paper aims to contribute to the relatively small amount of academic literature on the efficiency of nuclear power production. The author draws on world-wide comparisons to illustrate the situation in the United Kingdom, where the nuclear generating capacity, conceived of and constructed as a public concern, has recently been privatised. The theory and evidence for links between ownership and productive efficiency is received. Efficiency measures used are explained as are the linear programs required to generate them. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is used to analyse productive efficiency of nuclear power plants before and after privatisation. Results of the DEA are used to test the hypothesis that ownership has no effect on productive efficiency. (UK)
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Nicolai Jørgensgaard Graakjær
2013-01-01
This article focuses on how sound in combination with visuals (i.e. ‘branding by’) may possibly affect the signifying potentials (i.e. ‘branding effect’) of products and corporate brands (i.e. ‘branding of’) during logo shots in television commercials (i.e. ‘branding through’). This particular focus adds both to the understanding of sound in television commercials and to the understanding of sound brands. The article firstly presents a typology of sounds. Secondly, this typology is applied...
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Pacific and Atlantic herring produce burst pulse sounds.
Wilson, Ben; Batty, Robert S; Dill, Lawrence M
2004-02-07
The commercial importance of Pacific and Atlantic herring (Clupea pallasii and Clupea harengus) has ensured that much of their biology has received attention. However, their sound production remains poorly studied. We describe the sounds made by captive wild-caught herring. Pacific herring produce distinctive bursts of pulses, termed Fast Repetitive Tick (FRT) sounds. These trains of broadband pulses (1.7-22 kHz) lasted between 0.6 s and 7.6 s. Most were produced at night; feeding regime did not affect their frequency, and fish produced FRT sounds without direct access to the air. Digestive gas or gulped air transfer to the swim bladder, therefore, do not appear to be responsible for FRT sound generation. Atlantic herring also produce FRT sounds, and video analysis showed an association with bubble expulsion from the anal duct region (i.e. from the gut or swim bladder). To the best of the authors' knowledge, sound production by such means has not previously been described. The function(s) of these sounds are unknown, but as the per capita rates of sound production by fish at higher densities were greater, social mediation appears likely. These sounds may have consequences for our understanding of herring behaviour and the effects of noise pollution.
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Proximal mechanisms for sound production in male Pacific walruses
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Larsen, Ole Næsbye; Reichmuth, Colleen
2012-01-01
features more similar to those found in industrial work places than in nature. The patterned knocks and bells that comprise male songs are not thought to be true vocalizations, but rather, sounds produced with structures other than the vocal tract and larynx. To determine how male walruses produce and emit......The songs of male walruses during the breeding season have been noted to have some of the most unusual characteristics that have been observed among mammalian sounds. In contrast to the more guttural vocalizations of most other carnivores, their acoustic displays have impulsive and metallic...... anatomical origins of knocking and bell sounds and gained a mechanistic understanding of how these sounds are generated within the body and transmitted to the environment. These pathways are illustrated with acoustic and video data and considered with respect to the unique biology of this species....
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Efficiency and Import Penetration on the Productivity of Textile Industry and Textile Products
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Catur Basuki Rakhmawan
2012-12-01
Full Text Available Although textile industry and textile products belong to the strategic sub-sector of manufacturing industry in Indonesia, they are facing problems on the availability of energy, old production machines, and the flooding of imported products into the domestic market. This study is aimed to analyze the efficiency and productivity as performance indicators and how the efficiency and import penetration affect the productivity of textile industry and textile products. The methods of data analysis used in this research are divided in two phases. The first phase, the non-metric approach of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA is applied to measure the efficiency and productivity. Secondly, the fixed effect model of econometric regression approach is used to find out the effects of efficiency and import penetration on the productivity of textile industry and textile products. The result shows that the average level of efficiency of textile industry and textile products during the period of 2004 – 2008 is about 40 percent with a growth rate of average productivity increases 2.4 percent. Whereas, the econometric estimation results indicate that the increase of efficiency will positively and significantly affect the productivity of textile industry and textile products. On the other hand, the increase of import penetration will negatively affect the productivity of this industry.
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Saito, Satoru; Baddeley, Alan
2004-10-01
To explore the relationship between short-term memory and speech production, we developed a speech error induction technique. The technique, which was adapted from a Japanese word game, exposed participants to an auditory distractor word immediately before the utterance of a target word. In Experiment 1, the distractor words that were phonologically similar to the target word led to a greater number of errors in speaking the target than did the dissimilar distractor words. Furthermore, the speech error scores were significantly correlated with memory span scores. In Experiment 2, memory span scores were again correlated with the rate of the speech errors that were induced from the task-irrelevant speech sounds. Experiment 3 showed a strong irrelevant-sound effect in the serial recall of nonwords. The magnitude of the irrelevant-sound effects was not affected by phonological similarity between the to-be-remembered nonwords and the irrelevant-sound materials. Analysis of recall errors in Experiment 3 also suggested that there were no essential differences in recall error patterns between the dissimilar and similar irrelevant-sound conditions. We proposed two different underlying mechanisms in immediate memory, one operating via the phonological short-term memory store and the other via the processes underpinning speech production.
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Rossi, Tullio; Connell, Sean D; Nagelkerken, Ivan
2016-03-16
Soundscapes are multidimensional spaces that carry meaningful information for many species about the location and quality of nearby and distant resources. Because soundscapes are the sum of the acoustic signals produced by individual organisms and their interactions, they can be used as a proxy for the condition of whole ecosystems and their occupants. Ocean acidification resulting from anthropogenic CO2 emissions is known to have profound effects on marine life. However, despite the increasingly recognized ecological importance of soundscapes, there is no empirical test of whether ocean acidification can affect biological sound production. Using field recordings obtained from three geographically separated natural CO2 vents, we show that forecasted end-of-century ocean acidification conditions can profoundly reduce the biological sound level and frequency of snapping shrimp snaps. Snapping shrimp were among the noisiest marine organisms and the suppression of their sound production at vents was responsible for the vast majority of the soundscape alteration observed. To assess mechanisms that could account for these observations, we tested whether long-term exposure (two to three months) to elevated CO2 induced a similar reduction in the snapping behaviour (loudness and frequency) of snapping shrimp. The results indicated that the soniferous behaviour of these animals was substantially reduced in both frequency (snaps per minute) and sound level of snaps produced. As coastal marine soundscapes are dominated by biological sounds produced by snapping shrimp, the observed suppression of this component of soundscapes could have important and possibly pervasive ecological consequences for organisms that use soundscapes as a source of information. This trend towards silence could be of particular importance for those species whose larval stages use sound for orientation towards settlement habitats. © 2016 The Author(s).
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Malmquist Productivity Index on Efficiency Layers
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
F. Rezai balf ∗
2012-09-01
Full Text Available Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA, a popular linear programming technique is useful to rate comparatively operational effiency of decision Making Unit (DMU based on the their deterministic inputoutput data. The Malmquist productivity index in DEA, calculable with the distance function, for measurement the productivity change among two variant time period or two variant group in the same time. This index is based on two factor of efficiency change index and a technological change index. In this paper, we operate on the collective Malmquist productivity index, which performs clustering operation DMUs with classification into different levels of efficient frontier, and then we discuss on the relation between Malmquist index on the efficiency layers and their attractiveness and progress
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Elemans, Coen; Muller, Mees; Larsen, Ole Næsbye
2009-01-01
membrane and generate a wide variety of ‘syllables' with simple sweeps of the control parameters. We show that the membrane exhibits high frequency, self-sustained oscillations in the audio range (>600 Hz fundamental frequency) using laser Doppler vibrometry, and systematically explore the conditions...... for sound production of the model in its control space. The fundamental frequency of the sound increases with tension in three membranes with different stiffness and mass. The lowerbound fundamental frequency increases with membrane mass. The membrane vibrations are strongly coupled to the resonance...
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Krogh Groth, Sanne; Samson, Kristine
2017-01-01
and combine theories from several fields. Aspects of sound art studies, performance studies and contemporary art studies are presented in order to theoretically explore the very diverse dimensions of the two sound art pieces: Visual, auditory, performative, social, spatial and durational dimensions become......This article is an analysis of two sound art performances that took place June 2015 in outdoor public spaces in the social housing area Urbanplanen in Copenhagen, Denmark. The two performances were On the production of a poor acoustics by Brandon LaBelle and Green Interactive Biofeedback...... Environments (GIBE) by Jeremy Woodruff. In order to investigate the complex situation that arises when sound art is staged in such contexts, the authors of this article suggest exploring the events through approaching them as ‘situations’ (Doherty 2009). With this approach it becomes possible to engage...
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Efficiency and productivity of hospitals in Vietnam.
Pham, Thuy Linh
2011-01-01
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relative efficiency and productivity of hospitals during the health reform process. Data envelopment analyses method (DEA) with the input-oriented variable-returns-to-scale model was used to calculate efficiency scores. Malmquist total factor productivity index approach was then employed to calculate productivity of hospitals. Data of 101 hospitals was extracted from databases of the Ministry of Health, Vietnam from the years 1998 to 2006. There was evidence of improvement in overall technical efficiency from 65 per cent in 1998 to 76 per cent in 2006. Hospitals' productivity progressed around 1.4 per cent per year, which was mainly due to the technical efficiency improvement. Furthermore, provincial hospitals were more technically efficient than their central counterparts and hospitals located in different regions performed differently. The paper provides an insight in the performance of Vietnamese public hospitals that has been rarely examined before and contributes to the existing literature of hospital performance in developing countries
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Productivity and production efficiency among small scale irrigated ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
The study examined productivity and production efficiency among small scale irrigated sugarcane farmers in Niger State, Nigeria using a stochastic translog frontier function. Data for the study were obtained using structured questionnaires administered to 100 randomly selected sugarcane farmers from Paiko and Gurara ...
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Changes in production efficiency in China identification and measuring
Xu, Bing; Watada, Junzo
2014-01-01
Evaluating Production Efficiency in China examines production from engineering and statistics perspectives rather than from economics and mathematics perspectives. The authors present an observable benchmark as the criterion of the production efficiency to replace the unobservable production frontier surface. This book discusses several different computing technologies, controllable variable as a path of identification, changes in production efficiency by decision making on specific operating conditions, and optimal resource allocation. The book provides a channel to tap inside the success stories of China, exploiting the way of changes in production efficiency during China’s development in the past 30 years. This book examines the concepts and realization of production efficiencies across all areas of the economy. Also the book provides the perspective of foreign direct investment (FDI) absorption to identify how Chinese economy changes in production efficiency.
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Seismic and Biological Sources of Ambient Ocean Sound
Freeman, Simon Eric
Sound is the most efficient radiation in the ocean. Sounds of seismic and biological origin contain information regarding the underlying processes that created them. A single hydrophone records summary time-frequency information from the volume within acoustic range. Beamforming using a hydrophone array additionally produces azimuthal estimates of sound sources. A two-dimensional array and acoustic focusing produce an unambiguous two-dimensional `image' of sources. This dissertation describes the application of these techniques in three cases. The first utilizes hydrophone arrays to investigate T-phases (water-borne seismic waves) in the Philippine Sea. Ninety T-phases were recorded over a 12-day period, implying a greater number of seismic events occur than are detected by terrestrial seismic monitoring in the region. Observation of an azimuthally migrating T-phase suggests that reverberation of such sounds from bathymetric features can occur over megameter scales. In the second case, single hydrophone recordings from coral reefs in the Line Islands archipelago reveal that local ambient reef sound is spectrally similar to sounds produced by small, hard-shelled benthic invertebrates in captivity. Time-lapse photography of the reef reveals an increase in benthic invertebrate activity at sundown, consistent with an increase in sound level. The dominant acoustic phenomenon on these reefs may thus originate from the interaction between a large number of small invertebrates and the substrate. Such sounds could be used to take census of hard-shelled benthic invertebrates that are otherwise extremely difficult to survey. A two-dimensional `map' of sound production over a coral reef in the Hawaiian Islands was obtained using two-dimensional hydrophone array in the third case. Heterogeneously distributed bio-acoustic sources were generally co-located with rocky reef areas. Acoustically dominant snapping shrimp were largely restricted to one location within the area surveyed
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Hindmarsh, Mark
2018-02-16
A model for the acoustic production of gravitational waves at a first-order phase transition is presented. The source of gravitational radiation is the sound waves generated by the explosive growth of bubbles of the stable phase. The model assumes that the sound waves are linear and that their power spectrum is determined by the characteristic form of the sound shell around the expanding bubble. The predicted power spectrum has two length scales, the average bubble separation and the sound shell width when the bubbles collide. The peak of the power spectrum is at wave numbers set by the sound shell width. For a higher wave number k, the power spectrum decreases to k^{-3}. At wave numbers below the inverse bubble separation, the power spectrum goes to k^{5}. For bubble wall speeds near the speed of sound where these two length scales are distinguished, there is an intermediate k^{1} power law. The detailed dependence of the power spectrum on the wall speed and the other parameters of the phase transition raises the possibility of their constraint or measurement at a future space-based gravitational wave observatory such as LISA.
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Hindmarsh, Mark
2018-02-01
A model for the acoustic production of gravitational waves at a first-order phase transition is presented. The source of gravitational radiation is the sound waves generated by the explosive growth of bubbles of the stable phase. The model assumes that the sound waves are linear and that their power spectrum is determined by the characteristic form of the sound shell around the expanding bubble. The predicted power spectrum has two length scales, the average bubble separation and the sound shell width when the bubbles collide. The peak of the power spectrum is at wave numbers set by the sound shell width. For a higher wave number k , the power spectrum decreases to k-3. At wave numbers below the inverse bubble separation, the power spectrum goes to k5. For bubble wall speeds near the speed of sound where these two length scales are distinguished, there is an intermediate k1 power law. The detailed dependence of the power spectrum on the wall speed and the other parameters of the phase transition raises the possibility of their constraint or measurement at a future space-based gravitational wave observatory such as LISA.
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Sound Equipment Fabrication and Values in Nigerian Theatre ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
The main points of this paper is to discover ways of fabricating sound and sound effects equipment for theatrical productions in Nigeria have become of essence since most educational theatres cannot afford western sound and sound effects equipment. Even when available, they are old fashioned, compared to the ...
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Say what? Coral reef sounds as indicators of community assemblages and reef conditions
Mooney, T. A.; Kaplan, M. B.
2016-02-01
Coral reefs host some of the highest diversity of life on the planet. Unfortunately, reef health and biodiversity is declining or is threatened as a result of climate change and human influences. Tracking these changes is necessary for effective resource management, yet estimating marine biodiversity and tracking trends in ecosystem health is a challenging and expensive task, especially in many pristine reefs which are remote and difficult to access. Many fishes, mammals and invertebrates make sound. These sounds are reflective of a number of vital biological processes and are a cue for settling reef larvae. Biological sounds may be a means to quantify ecosystem health and biodiversity, however the relationship between coral reef soundscapes and the actual taxa present remains largely unknown. This study presents a comparative evaluation of the soundscape of multiple reefs, naturally differing in benthic cover and fish diversity, in the U.S. Virgin Islands National Park. Using multiple recorders per reef we characterized spacio-temporal variation in biological sound production within and among reefs. Analyses of sounds recorded over 4 summer months indicated diel trends in both fish and snapping shrimp acoustic frequency bands with crepuscular peaks at all reefs. There were small but statistically significant acoustic differences among sites on a given reef raising the possibility of potentially localized acoustic habitats. The strength of diel trends in lower, fish-frequency bands were correlated with coral cover and fish density, yet no such relationship was found with shrimp sounds suggesting that fish sounds may be of higher relevance to tracking certain coral reef conditions. These findings indicate that, in spite of considerable variability within reef soundscapes, diel trends in low-frequency sound production reflect reef community assemblages. Further, monitoring soundscapes may be an efficient means of establishing and monitoring reef conditions.
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From Policy to Compliance: Federal Energy Efficient Product Procurement
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
DeMates, Laurèn [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Scodel, Anna [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
2017-09-06
Federal buyers are required to purchase energy-efficient products in an effort to minimize energy use in the federal sector, save the federal government money, and spur market development of efficient products. The Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP)’s Energy Efficient Product Procurement (EEPP) Program helps federal agencies comply with the requirement to purchase energy-efficient products by providing technical assistance and guidance and setting efficiency requirements for certain product categories. Past studies have estimated the savings potential of purchasing energy-efficient products at over $500 million per year in energy costs across federal agencies.1 Despite the strong policy support for EEPP and resources available, energy-efficient product purchasing operates within complex decision-making processes and operational structures; implementation challenges exist that may hinder agencies’ ability to comply with purchasing requirements. The shift to purchasing green products, including energy-efficient products, relies on “buy in” from a variety of potential actors throughout different purchasing pathways. Challenges may be especially high for EEPP relative to other sustainable acquisition programs given that efficient products frequently have a higher first cost than non-efficient ones, which may be perceived as a conflict with fiscal responsibility, or more simply problematic for agency personnel trying to stretch limited budgets. Federal buyers may also face challenges in determining whether a given product is subject to EEPP requirements. Previous analysis on agency compliance with EEPP, conducted by the Alliance to Save Energy (ASE), shows that federal agencies are getting better at purchasing energy-efficient products. ASE conducted two reviews of relevant solicitations for product and service contracts listed on Federal Business Opportunities (FBO), the centralized website where federal agencies are required to post procurements greater
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Alina Catalina Duduciuc
2015-07-01
Full Text Available The aim of this study is to test the influence of sound symbolism on perceived characteristics of a brand as well as to highlight the importance of applied social psychology to current practice of advertising. Previous research showed that the phonetic structure of brand name communicates its characteristics, i.e. it drives consumers to assess certain features and performance of the product. I assumed that when consumers encounter an unknown brand name, they automatically infer characteristics from the meaning conveyed by the sounds (e.g. phonemes. Therefore, I supposed that a brand name for a shampoo (artificially created on experimental purpose containing back vowel is evaluated better by consumers when they compare it to another brand name with front vowels. Furthermore, for the accuracy of responses, I used the semantic differential scale to measure the differences between two brands in terms of certain attributes of product. To this end, fifty students (N=50 participated in a research based on questionnaire. As the results of the current research showed, the brand name with back vowel outnumbered the brand name with front vowel on two dimension, i.e. on brand activity and brand efficiency. The brand name containing front vowel was rated better when subjects evaluated the product in generally. Last, but not least, when it comes to convey meanings, the sound of back vowels [a] could be used more when marketers promote products that communicate its characteristics such as efficiency, velocity and health. The back vowel could be also assessed to products with larger packing or special sailing such as extra quantity. Meanwhile, the brand names with front vowels [ie] could be created for more expensive products with good quality, mainly addressed to men.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Bruno L Giordano
Full Text Available Several studies have investigated the encoding and perception of emotional expressivity in music performance. A relevant question concerns how the ability to communicate emotions in music performance is acquired. In accordance with recent theories on the embodiment of emotion, we suggest here that both the expression and recognition of emotion in music might at least in part rely on knowledge about the sounds of expressive body movements. We test this hypothesis by drawing parallels between musical expression of emotions and expression of emotions in sounds associated with a non-musical motor activity: walking. In a combined production-perception design, two experiments were conducted, and expressive acoustical features were compared across modalities. An initial performance experiment tested for similar feature use in walking sounds and music performance, and revealed that strong similarities exist. Features related to sound intensity, tempo and tempo regularity were identified as been used similarly in both domains. Participants in a subsequent perception experiment were able to recognize both non-emotional and emotional properties of the sound-generating walkers. An analysis of the acoustical correlates of behavioral data revealed that variations in sound intensity, tempo, and tempo regularity were likely used to recognize expressed emotions. Taken together, these results lend support the motor origin hypothesis for the musical expression of emotions.
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Sound For Animation And Virtual Reality
Hahn, James K.; Docter, Pete; Foster, Scott H.; Mangini, Mark; Myers, Tom; Wenzel, Elizabeth M.; Null, Cynthia (Technical Monitor)
1995-01-01
Sound is an integral part of the experience in computer animation and virtual reality. In this course, we will present some of the important technical issues in sound modeling, rendering, and synchronization as well as the "art" and business of sound that are being applied in animations, feature films, and virtual reality. The central theme is to bring leading researchers and practitioners from various disciplines to share their experiences in this interdisciplinary field. The course will give the participants an understanding of the problems and techniques involved in producing and synchronizing sounds, sound effects, dialogue, and music. The problem spans a number of domains including computer animation and virtual reality. Since sound has been an integral part of animations and films much longer than for computer-related domains, we have much to learn from traditional animation and film production. By bringing leading researchers and practitioners from a wide variety of disciplines, the course seeks to give the audience a rich mixture of experiences. It is expected that the audience will be able to apply what they have learned from this course in their research or production.
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Heinrich, Ralf; Kunst, Michael; Wirmer, Andrea
2012-01-01
The interplay of neural and hormonal mechanisms activated by entero- and extero-receptors biases the selection of actions by decision making neuronal circuits. The reproductive behavior of acoustically communicating grasshoppers, which is regulated by short-term neural and longer-term hormonal mechanisms, has frequently been used to study the cellular and physiological processes that select particular actions from the species-specific repertoire of behaviors. Various grasshoppers communicate with species- and situation-specific songs in order to attract and court mating partners, to signal reproductive readiness, or to fend off competitors. Selection and coordination of type, intensity, and timing of sound signals is mediated by the central complex, a highly structured brain neuropil known to integrate multimodal pre-processed sensory information by a large number of chemical messengers. In addition, reproductive activity including sound production critically depends on maturation, previous mating experience, and oviposition cycles. In this regard, juvenile hormone released from the corpora allata has been identified as a decisive hormonal signal necessary to establish reproductive motivation in grasshopper females. Both regulatory systems, the central complex mediating short-term regulation and the corpora allata mediating longer-term regulation of reproduction-related sound production mutually influence each other’s activity in order to generate a coherent state of excitation that promotes or suppresses reproductive behavior in respective appropriate or inappropriate situations. This review summarizes our current knowledge about extrinsic and intrinsic factors that influence grasshopper reproductive motivation, their representation in the nervous system and their integrative processing that mediates the initiation or suppression of reproductive behaviors. PMID:22737107
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ralf eHeinrich
2012-06-01
Full Text Available The interplay of neural and hormonal mechanisms activated by entero- and exteroreceptors biases the selection of actions by decision making neuronal circuits. The reproductive behaviour of acoustically communicating grasshoppers, which is regulated by short-term neural and longer-term hormonal mechanisms, has frequently been used to study the cellular and physiological processes that select particular actions from the species-specific repertoire of behaviours. Various grasshoppers communicate with species- and situation-specific songs in order to attract and court mating partners, to signal reproductive readiness or to fend off competitors. Selection and coordination of type, intensity and timing of sound signals is mediated by the central complex, a highly structured brain neuropil known to integrate multimodal pre-processed sensory information by a large number of chemical messengers. In addition, reproductive activity including sound production critically depends on maturation, previous mating experience and oviposition cycles. In this regard, juvenile hormone released from the corpora allata has been identified as a decisive hormonal signal necessary to establish reproductive motivation in grasshopper females. Both regulatory systems, the central complex mediating short-term regulation and the corpora allata mediating longer-term regulation of reproduction related sound production mutually influence each other’s activity in order to generate a coherent state of excitation that promotes or suppresses reproductive behaviour in respective appropriate or inappropriate situations.This review summarizes our current knowledge about extrinsic and intrinsic factors that influence grasshopper reproductive motivation, their representation in the nervous system and their integrative processing that mediates the initiation or suppression of reproductive behaviors.
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International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Carlson, T.J.; Popper, A.N.
1997-06-01
A workshop on ''''Use of Sound for Fish Protection at Power-Production and Water-Control Facilities'''' was held in Portland, Oregon on December 12--13, 1995. This workshop convened a 22-member panel of international experts from universities, industry, and government to share knowledge, questions, and ideas about using sound for fish guidance. Discussions involved in a broad range of indigenous migratory and resident fish species and fish-protection issues in river systems, with particular focus on the Columbia River Basin. Because the use of sound behavioral barriers for fish is very much in its infancy, the workshop was designed to address the many questions being asked by fishery managers and researchers about the feasibility and potential benefits of using sound to augment physical barriers for fish protection in the Columbia River system
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The efficiency of aerodynamic force production in Drosophila.
Lehmann, F O
2001-12-01
Total efficiency of aerodynamic force production in insect flight depends on both the efficiency with which flight muscles turn metabolic energy into muscle mechanical power and the efficiency with which this power is converted into aerodynamic flight force by the flapping wings. Total efficiency has been estimated in tethered flying fruit flies Drosophila by modulating their power expenditures in a virtual reality flight simulator while simultaneously measuring stroke kinematics, locomotor performance and metabolic costs. During flight, muscle efficiency increases with increasing flight force production, whereas aerodynamic efficiency of lift production decreases with increasing forces. As a consequence of these opposite trends, total flight efficiency in Drosophila remains approximately constant within the kinematic working range of the flight motor. Total efficiency is broadly independent of different profile power estimates and typically amounts to 2-3%. The animal achieves maximum total efficiency near hovering flight conditions, when the beating wings produce flight forces that are equal to the body weight of the insect. It remains uncertain whether this small advantage in total efficiency during hovering flight was shaped by evolutionary factors or results from functional constraints on both the production of mechanical power by the indirect flight muscles and the unsteady aerodynamic mechanisms in flapping flight.
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Production and efficiency analysis with R
Behr, Andreas
2015-01-01
This textbook introduces essential topics and techniques in production and efficiency analysis and shows how to apply these methods using the statistical software R. Numerous small simulations lead to a deeper understanding of random processes assumed in the models and of the behavior of estimation techniques. Step-by-step programming provides an understanding of advanced approaches such as stochastic frontier analysis and stochastic data envelopment analysis. The text is intended for master students interested in empirical production and efficiency analysis. Readers are assumed to have a general background in production economics and econometrics, typically taught in introductory microeconomics and econometrics courses.
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O'Donnell, Michael J.; Bisnovatyi, Ilia
2000-11-01
Computing practice today depends on visual output to drive almost all user interaction. Other senses, such as audition, may be totally neglected, or used tangentially, or used in highly restricted specialized ways. We have excellent audio rendering through D-A conversion, but we lack rich general facilities for modeling and manipulating sound comparable in quality and flexibility to graphics. We need coordinated research in several disciplines to improve the use of sound as an interactive information channel. Incremental and separate improvements in synthesis, analysis, speech processing, audiology, acoustics, music, etc. will not alone produce the radical progress that we seek in sonic practice. We also need to create a new central topic of study in digital audio research. The new topic will assimilate the contributions of different disciplines on a common foundation. The key central concept that we lack is sound as a general-purpose information channel. We must investigate the structure of this information channel, which is driven by the cooperative development of auditory perception and physical sound production. Particular audible encodings, such as speech and music, illuminate sonic information by example, but they are no more sufficient for a characterization than typography is sufficient for characterization of visual information. To develop this new conceptual topic of sonic information structure, we need to integrate insights from a number of different disciplines that deal with sound. In particular, we need to coordinate central and foundational studies of the representational models of sound with specific applications that illuminate the good and bad qualities of these models. Each natural or artificial process that generates informative sound, and each perceptual mechanism that derives information from sound, will teach us something about the right structure to attribute to the sound itself. The new Sound topic will combine the work of computer
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Neuroanatomic organization of sound memory in humans.
Kraut, Michael A; Pitcock, Jeffery A; Calhoun, Vince; Li, Juan; Freeman, Thomas; Hart, John
2006-11-01
The neural interface between sensory perception and memory is a central issue in neuroscience, particularly initial memory organization following perceptual analyses. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify anatomic regions extracting initial auditory semantic memory information related to environmental sounds. Two distinct anatomic foci were detected in the right superior temporal gyrus when subjects identified sounds representing either animals or threatening items. Threatening animal stimuli elicited signal changes in both foci, suggesting a distributed neural representation. Our results demonstrate both category- and feature-specific responses to nonverbal sounds in early stages of extracting semantic memory information from these sounds. This organization allows for these category-feature detection nodes to extract early, semantic memory information for efficient processing of transient sound stimuli. Neural regions selective for threatening sounds are similar to those of nonhuman primates, demonstrating semantic memory organization for basic biological/survival primitives are present across species.
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Energy productivity and efficiency of wheat farming in Bangladesh
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Rahman, Sanzidur; Hasan, M. Kamrul
2014-01-01
Wheat is the second most important cereal crop in Bangladesh and production is highly sensitive to variations in the environment. We estimate productivity and energy efficiency of wheat farming in Bangladesh by applying a stochastic production frontier approach while accounting for the environmental constraints affecting production. Wheat farming is energy efficient with a net energy balance of 20,596 MJ per ha and energy ratio of 2.34. Environmental constraints such as a combination of unsuitable land, weed and pest attack, bad weather, planting delay and infertile soils significantly reduce wheat production and its energy efficiency. Environmental constraints account for a mean energy efficiency of 3 percentage points. Mean technical efficiency is 88% thereby indicating that elimination of inefficiencies can increase wheat energy output by 12%. Farmers' education, access to agricultural information and training in wheat production significantly improves efficiency, whereas events such as a delay in planting and first fertilization significantly reduce it. Policy recommendations include development of varieties that are resistant to environmental constraints and suitable for marginal areas; improvement of wheat farming practices; and investments in education and training of farmers as well as dissemination of information. - Highlights: • Bangladesh wheat farming is energy efficient at 20,596 MJha −1 ; energy ratio 2.34. • Environmental factors significantly influence productivity and energy efficiency. • Environmental factors must be taken into account when estimating wheat productivity. • Government policies must focus on ways of alleviating environmental factors. • Farmers' education, training and information sources increase technical efficiency
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Multidirectional analysis of technical efficiency for pig production systems
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Labajavo, Katarina; Hansson, Helena; Asmild, Mette
2016-01-01
Declining profitability and ongoing structural changes in the pig sector require thorough efficiency analysis of individual production factors. In this study we calculated technical efficiency indices for each input and output using multidirectional efficiency analysis and examined the relationship...... between ‘farm-specific characteristics’ and input and output technical efficiencies by production type (piglet, growing-finishing, finish-to-farrow). The results indicated that advisory services and farm location were not significantly correlated with technical efficiency. Similar results were obtained...... for ‘housing practices’, with the exception of the latest technology such as heated floors in relation to input labour technical efficiency for growing-finishing and finish-to-farrow productions. Use of written instructions for feeding for growing-finishing and finish-to-farrow production and written...
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Julián Monge-Nájera; Francisco Hernández; María Isabel González; Javier Soley; José Araya; Stefano Zolla
1998-01-01
Neotropical butterflies of the genus Hamadryas, noted by the emission of sound, spend much time perching on trees and are believed to be cryptically patterned and colored with respect to tree trunks and branches they use as perching sites, but the subject had not been studied previously. This paper describes spatial distribution, territoriality and sound production in five species, under natural conditions: Hamadryas amphinome (Lucas, 1853), H. februa (Godart, 1824), H. feronia (Fruhstorfer, ...
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Sound characteristics of Terapon jorbua as a response to temperature changes
Amron; Jaya, I.; Hestirianoto, T.; Juterzenka, K. v.
2017-10-01
The change of water temperature has potential impact on the behavior of aquatic animal including fish which generated by their sound productivity and characteristics. This research aimed to study the response of sound productivity and characteristics of Terapon jorbua to temperature change. As a response to temperature increase, T. jorbua to have decreased the number of sound productivity. Two characteristic parameters of fish sound, i.e. intensity and frequency as were quadratic increased during the water temperature rises. In contrast, pulse duration was quadratic decreased.
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Game Sound from Behind the Sofa
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Garner, Tom Alexander
2013-01-01
The central concern of this thesis is upon the processes by which human beings perceive sound and experience emotions within a computer video gameplay context. The potential of quantitative sound parameters to evoke and modulate emotional experience is explored, working towards the development...... that provide additional support of the hypothetical frameworks: an ecological process of fear, a fear-related model of virtual and real acoustic ecologies, and an embodied virtual acoustic ecology framework. It is intended that this thesis will clearly support more effective and efficient sound design...... practices and also improve awareness of the capacity of sound to generate significant emotional experiences during computer video gameplay. It is further hoped that this thesis will elucidate the potential of biometrics/psychophysiology to allow game designers to better understand the player and to move...
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PRODUCT EFFICIENCY IN THE SPANISH AUTOMOBILE MARKET
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
González, Eduardo
2013-01-01
Full Text Available This paper evaluates product efficiency in the Spanish automobile market. We use non parametric frontier techniques in order to estimate product efficiency scores for each model. These scores reflect the minimum price for which each car could be sold, given the bundle of tangible features it offers in comparison to the best-buy models. Unlike previous research, we use discounted prices which have been adjusted by car dealerships to meet sale targets. Therefore, we interpret the efficiency scores as indicators of the value of the intangible features of the brand. The results show that Audi, Volvo, Volkswagen and Mercedes offer the greatest intangible value, since they are heavily overpriced in terms of price/product ratios. Conversely, Seat, Kia, Renault and Dacia are the brands that can be taken as referent in terms of price/product ratios.
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Interactive Sound Propagation using Precomputation and Statistical Approximations
Antani, Lakulish
Acoustic phenomena such as early reflections, diffraction, and reverberation have been shown to improve the user experience in interactive virtual environments and video games. These effects arise due to repeated interactions between sound waves and objects in the environment. In interactive applications, these effects must be simulated within a prescribed time budget. We present two complementary approaches for computing such acoustic effects in real time, with plausible variation in the sound field throughout the scene. The first approach, Precomputed Acoustic Radiance Transfer, precomputes a matrix that accounts for multiple acoustic interactions between all scene objects. The matrix is used at run time to provide sound propagation effects that vary smoothly as sources and listeners move. The second approach couples two techniques---Ambient Reverberance, and Aural Proxies---to provide approximate sound propagation effects in real time, based on only the portion of the environment immediately visible to the listener. These approaches lie at different ends of a space of interactive sound propagation techniques for modeling sound propagation effects in interactive applications. The first approach emphasizes accuracy by modeling acoustic interactions between all parts of the scene; the second approach emphasizes efficiency by only taking the local environment of the listener into account. These methods have been used to efficiently generate acoustic walkthroughs of architectural models. They have also been integrated into a modern game engine, and can enable realistic, interactive sound propagation on commodity desktop PCs.
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Chemistry - Toward efficient hydrogen production at surfaces
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Nørskov, Jens Kehlet; Christensen, Claus H.
2006-01-01
Calculations are providing a molecular picture of hydrogen production on catalytic surfaces and within enzymes, knowledge that may guide the design of new, more efficient catalysts for the hydrogen economy.......Calculations are providing a molecular picture of hydrogen production on catalytic surfaces and within enzymes, knowledge that may guide the design of new, more efficient catalysts for the hydrogen economy....
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Trento, Stefano; Götzen, Amalia De
2011-01-01
This paper is an initial attempt to study the world of sound effects for motion pictures, also known as Foley sounds. Throughout several audio and audio-video tests we have compared both Foley and real sounds originated by an identical action. The main purpose was to evaluate if sound effects...
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Phonaesthemes and sound symbolism in Swedish brand names
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Åsa Abelin
2015-01-01
Full Text Available This study examines the prevalence of sound symbolism in Swedish brand names. A general principle of brand name design is that effective names should be distinctive, recognizable, easy to pronounce and meaningful. Much money is invested in designing powerful brand names, where the emotional impact of the names on consumers is also relevant and it is important to avoid negative connotations. Customers prefer brand names, which say something about the product, as this reduces product uncertainty (Klink, 2001. Therefore, consumers might prefer sound symbolic names. It has been shown that people associate the sounds of the nonsense words maluma and takete with round and angular shapes, respectively. By extension, more complex shapes and textures might activate words containing certain sounds. This study focuses on semantic dimensions expected to be relevant to product names, such as mobility, consistency, texture and shape. These dimensions are related to the senses of sight, hearing and touch and are also interesting from a cognitive linguistic perspective. Cross-modal assessment and priming experiments with pictures and written words were performed and the results analysed in relation to brand name databases and to sound symbolic sound combinations in Swedish (Abelin, 1999. The results show that brand names virtually never contain pejorative, i.e. depreciatory, consonant clusters, and that certain sounds and sound combinations are overrepresented in certain content categories. Assessment tests show correlations between pictured objects and phoneme combinations in newly created words (non-words. The priming experiment shows that object images prime newly created words as expected, based on the presence of compatible consonant clusters.
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Sun, Yao; Yang, Tiejun; Chen, Yuehua
2018-06-01
In this paper, sound radiation modes of baffled cylinders have been derived by constructing the radiation resistance matrix analytically. By examining the characteristics of sound radiation modes, it is found that radiation coefficient of each radiation mode increases gradually with the increase of frequency while modal shapes of sound radiation modes of cylindrical shells show a weak dependence upon frequency. Based on understandings on sound radiation modes, vibro-acoustics behaviors of cylindrical shells have been analyzed. The vibration responses of cylindrical shells are described by modified Fourier series expansions and solved by Rayleigh-Ritz method involving Flügge shell theory. Then radiation efficiency of a resonance has been determined by examining whether the vibration pattern is in correspondence with a sound radiation mode possessing great radiation efficiency. Furthermore, effects of thickness and boundary conditions on sound radiation of cylindrical shells have been investigated. It is found that radiation efficiency of thicker shells is greater than thinner shells while shells with a clamped boundary constraint radiate sound more efficiently than simply supported shells under thin shell assumption.
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2013-03-01
...-123-LNG; 12-128-NG; 12-148-NG; 12- 158-NG] Puget Sound Energy, Inc.; Puget Sound Energy, Inc.; Puget Sound Energy, Inc.; Puget Sound Energy, Inc.; Puget Sound Energy, Inc.; CE FLNG, LLC; Consolidated...-NG Puget Sound Energy, Inc Order granting long- term authority to import/export natural gas from/to...
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Productivity, Efficiency, and Competitiveness of Small-Scale Organic Cotton Production in Tanzania
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Mgeni, Dotto; Henningsen, Arne
cannot be adjusted in the short run. However, land, labor, and organic fertilizer can neither be traded on a perfect market nor are their quantities completely fixed for cotton production, but these input quantities can be adjusted by adjusting their use for other activities of the household. Hence......Cotton is known as the “white gold” of Africa since it is the only export crop in which the continent’s share in the world market has increased over the past decades. Total cotton production as well as productivity grew particularly in Western and Central Africa. In contrast, cotton production grew...... and output, as well as socio-economic and agronomic factors, but also on the shadow prices of all sparsely traded inputs, i.e. land, labor, and organic fertilizer. Hence, we can not only analyze productivity, technical efficiency, and scale efficiency, but also allocative efficiency, profitability...
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Watts, David P
2016-01-01
Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) use some communicative signals flexibly and voluntarily, with use influenced by learning. These signals include some vocalizations and also sounds made using the lips, oral cavity, and/or teeth, but not the vocal tract, such as "attention-getting" sounds directed at humans by captive chimpanzees and lip smacking during social grooming. Chimpanzees at Ngogo, in Kibale National Park, Uganda, make four distinct sounds while grooming others. Here, I present data on two of these ("splutters" and "teeth chomps") and consider whether social learning contributes to variation in their production and whether they serve social functions. Higher congruence in the use of these two sounds between dyads of maternal relatives than dyads of non-relatives implies that social learning occurs and mostly involves vertical transmission, but the results are not conclusive and it is unclear which learning mechanisms may be involved. In grooming between adult males, tooth chomps and splutters were more likely in long than in short bouts; in bouts that were bidirectional rather than unidirectional; in grooming directed toward high-ranking males than toward low-ranking males; and in bouts between allies than in those between non-allies. Males were also more likely to make these sounds while they were grooming other males than while they were grooming females. These results are expected if the sounds promote social bonds and induce tolerance of proximity and of grooming by high-ranking males. However, the alternative hypothesis that the sounds are merely associated with motivation to groom, with no additional social function, cannot be ruled out. Limited data showing that bouts accompanied by teeth chomping or spluttering at their initiation were longer than bouts for which this was not the case point toward a social function, but more data are needed for a definitive test. Comparison to other research sites shows that the possible existence of grooming
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Efficiency of dairy production on a family farm
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Zoran Grgić
2002-01-01
Full Text Available This paper presents the evaluation of economic efficiency of dairyproduction on a family farm with 14 dairy cows in the breeding stock, and with average production from 3.206 to 3.407 lit. of milk annually. On the basis of survey data for three-year period from 1998 to 2000, economic indicators were calculated, as well as the cost price of milk, income and the revenue of total production and per production head. In the family farm with an average annual sale from 2.827 to 2.972 lit. of milk per head, total revenue has been realized from 44.884 to 47.695 kuna and the profit from 606 to 8.515 kuna. Revenues per production head were from 5.655 to 6.495 kuna and the profitfrom 177 to 726 kuna. The milk cost price in the analyzed period was 1.71, 1.66 and 1.69 kn. per lit, and the profit per liter of milk was 0.06, and 0.21 kn. Basic economic indicators point out on efficiency of dairy production for the investigated farm on the stated production level. The biggest influence on the dairy production efficiency on the farm, regarding the cost price structure, has been registered from the costs of fodder production, while the favorable parity of the cost price and producer-sale price of milk determines the increase in dairy production efficiency and income from dairy production in the analyzed period.
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Acoustic metamaterials capable of both sound insulation and energy harvesting
Li, Junfei; Zhou, Xiaoming; Huang, Guoliang; Hu, Gengkai
2016-04-01
Membrane-type acoustic metamaterials are well known for low-frequency sound insulation. In this work, by introducing a flexible piezoelectric patch, we propose sound-insulation metamaterials with the ability of energy harvesting from sound waves. The dual functionality of the metamaterial device has been verified by experimental results, which show an over 20 dB sound transmission loss and a maximum energy conversion efficiency up to 15.3% simultaneously. This novel property makes the metamaterial device more suitable for noise control applications.
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Acoustic metamaterials capable of both sound insulation and energy harvesting
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Li, Junfei; Zhou, Xiaoming; Hu, Gengkai; Huang, Guoliang
2016-01-01
Membrane-type acoustic metamaterials are well known for low-frequency sound insulation. In this work, by introducing a flexible piezoelectric patch, we propose sound-insulation metamaterials with the ability of energy harvesting from sound waves. The dual functionality of the metamaterial device has been verified by experimental results, which show an over 20 dB sound transmission loss and a maximum energy conversion efficiency up to 15.3% simultaneously. This novel property makes the metamaterial device more suitable for noise control applications. (paper)
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Biodiversity influences plant productivity through niche–efficiency
Liang, Jingjing; Zhou, Mo; Tobin, Patrick C.; McGuire, A. David; Reich, Peter B.
2015-01-01
The loss of biodiversity is threatening ecosystem productivity and services worldwide, spurring efforts to quantify its effects on the functioning of natural ecosystems. Previous research has focused on the positive role of biodiversity on resource acquisition (i.e., niche complementarity), but a lack of study on resource utilization efficiency, a link between resource and productivity, has rendered it difficult to quantify the biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationship. Here we demonstrate that biodiversity loss reduces plant productivity, other things held constant, through theory, empirical evidence, and simulations under gradually relaxed assumptions. We developed a theoretical model named niche–efficiency to integrate niche complementarity and a heretofore-ignored mechanism of diminishing marginal productivity in quantifying the effects of biodiversity loss on plant productivity. Based on niche–efficiency, we created a relative productivity metric and a productivity impact index (PII) to assist in biological conservation and resource management. Relative productivity provides a standardized measure of the influence of biodiversity on individual productivity, and PII is a functionally based taxonomic index to assess individual species’ inherent value in maintaining current ecosystem productivity. Empirical evidence from the Alaska boreal forest suggests that every 1% reduction in overall plant diversity could render an average of 0.23% decline in individual tree productivity. Out of the 283 plant species of the region, we found that large woody plants generally have greater PII values than other species. This theoretical model would facilitate the integration of biological conservation in the international campaign against several pressing global issues involving energy use, climate change, and poverty. PMID:25901325
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Biodiversity influences plant productivity through niche–efficiency
Liang, Jingjing; Zhou, Mo; Tobin, Patrick C.; McGuire, A. David; Reich, Peter B.
2015-01-01
The loss of biodiversity is threatening ecosystem productivity and services worldwide, spurring efforts to quantify its effects on the functioning of natural ecosystems. Previous research has focused on the positive role of biodiversity on resource acquisition (i.e., niche complementarity), but a lack of study on resource utilization efficiency, a link between resource and productivity, has rendered it difficult to quantify the biodiversity–ecosystem functioning relationship. Here we demonstrate that biodiversity loss reduces plant productivity, other things held constant, through theory, empirical evidence, and simulations under gradually relaxed assumptions. We developed a theoretical model named niche–efficiency to integrate niche complementarity and a heretofore-ignored mechanism of diminishing marginal productivity in quantifying the effects of biodiversity loss on plant productivity. Based on niche–efficiency, we created a relative productivity metric and a productivity impact index (PII) to assist in biological conservation and resource management. Relative productivity provides a standardized measure of the influence of biodiversity on individual productivity, and PII is a functionally based taxonomic index to assess individual species’ inherent value in maintaining current ecosystem productivity. Empirical evidence from the Alaska boreal forest suggests that every 1% reduction in overall plant diversity could render an average of 0.23% decline in individual tree productivity. Out of the 283 plant species of the region, we found that large woody plants generally have greater PII values than other species. This theoretical model would facilitate the integration of biological conservation in the international campaign against several pressing global issues involving energy use, climate change, and poverty.
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Biodiversity influences plant productivity through niche-efficiency.
Liang, Jingjing; Zhou, Mo; Tobin, Patrick C; McGuire, A David; Reich, Peter B
2015-05-05
The loss of biodiversity is threatening ecosystem productivity and services worldwide, spurring efforts to quantify its effects on the functioning of natural ecosystems. Previous research has focused on the positive role of biodiversity on resource acquisition (i.e., niche complementarity), but a lack of study on resource utilization efficiency, a link between resource and productivity, has rendered it difficult to quantify the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship. Here we demonstrate that biodiversity loss reduces plant productivity, other things held constant, through theory, empirical evidence, and simulations under gradually relaxed assumptions. We developed a theoretical model named niche-efficiency to integrate niche complementarity and a heretofore-ignored mechanism of diminishing marginal productivity in quantifying the effects of biodiversity loss on plant productivity. Based on niche-efficiency, we created a relative productivity metric and a productivity impact index (PII) to assist in biological conservation and resource management. Relative productivity provides a standardized measure of the influence of biodiversity on individual productivity, and PII is a functionally based taxonomic index to assess individual species' inherent value in maintaining current ecosystem productivity. Empirical evidence from the Alaska boreal forest suggests that every 1% reduction in overall plant diversity could render an average of 0.23% decline in individual tree productivity. Out of the 283 plant species of the region, we found that large woody plants generally have greater PII values than other species. This theoretical model would facilitate the integration of biological conservation in the international campaign against several pressing global issues involving energy use, climate change, and poverty.
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Eco-efficiency Analysis of Furniture Product Using Life Cycle Assessment
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ika Rinawati Dyah
2018-01-01
Full Text Available Furniture is one of Indonesia’s main commodities strategically role in economic growth and employment in Indonesia. In their production process there many wastes resulted, such as such as sawdust, cuttings - pieces of wood, components that do not conform to specifications and the edges of wood from a log. Contrast with requirement of timber for furniture industries, availability of raw material sources decrease because of limited forest areas. Beside that, using electricity and chemical material in furniture production process have impact to environment. This study aim to assess the eco-cost and eco-efficiency ratio of the product so strategic recommendations to improve the eco-efficiency of products can be designed. The results of data processing showed the environmental costs of the furniture production process amount Rp 30.887.84. Eco-efficiency index of furniture products studied was 4,79 with the eco-efficiency ratio of 79,12%. This result means that the measured furniture products already profitable and sustainable, as well as its production process is already fairly efficient. However, improved performance of the production process can still be done to improve the eco-efficiency by minimizing the use of raw materials.
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Eco-efficiency Analysis of Furniture Product Using Life Cycle Assessment
Rinawati, Dyah Ika; Sriyanto; Sari, Diana Puspita; Prayodha, Andana Cantya
2018-02-01
Furniture is one of Indonesia's main commodities strategically role in economic growth and employment in Indonesia. In their production process there many wastes resulted, such as such as sawdust, cuttings - pieces of wood, components that do not conform to specifications and the edges of wood from a log. Contrast with requirement of timber for furniture industries, availability of raw material sources decrease because of limited forest areas. Beside that, using electricity and chemical material in furniture production process have impact to environment. This study aim to assess the eco-cost and eco-efficiency ratio of the product so strategic recommendations to improve the eco-efficiency of products can be designed. The results of data processing showed the environmental costs of the furniture production process amount Rp 30.887.84. Eco-efficiency index of furniture products studied was 4,79 with the eco-efficiency ratio of 79,12%. This result means that the measured furniture products already profitable and sustainable, as well as its production process is already fairly efficient. However, improved performance of the production process can still be done to improve the eco-efficiency by minimizing the use of raw materials.
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de Korte, A.C.J.; Brouwers, Jos; Fischer, H.B; Matthes, C.; Beuthan, C.
2011-01-01
In this article the sound velocity through a mix is correlated to the hydration degree of the mix. Models are presented predicting the sound velocity through fresh slurries and hardened products. These two states correspond to the starting and finishing point of the hydration process. The present
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Korte, de A.C.J.; Brouwers, H.J.H.; Fischer, H.B.; Mattes, Chr.; Beutha, C.
2011-01-01
In this article the sound velocity through a mix is correlated to the hydration degree of the mix. Models are presented predicting the sound velocity through fresh slurries and hardened products. These two states correspond to the starting and finishing point of the hydration process. The present
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Sounding ruins: reflections on the production of an ‘audio drift’
Gallagher, Michael
2014-01-01
This article is about the use of audio media in researching places, which I term ‘audio geography’. The article narrates some episodes from the production of an ‘audio drift’, an experimental environmental sound work designed to be listened to on a portable MP3 player whilst walking in a ruinous landscape. Reflecting on how this work functions, I argue that, as well as representing places, audio geography can shape listeners’ attention and bodily movements, thereby reworking places, albeit temporarily. I suggest that audio geography is particularly apt for amplifying the haunted and uncanny qualities of places. I discuss some of the issues raised for research ethics, epistemology and spectral geographies. PMID:29708107
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Directional sound beam emission from a configurable compact multi-source system
Zhao, Jiajun; Jadhali, Rasha Al; Zhang, Likun; Wu, Ying
2018-01-01
We propose to achieve efficient emission of highly directional sound beams from multiple monopole sources embedded in a subwavelength enclosure. Without the enclosure, the emitted sound fields have an indistinguishable or omnidirectional radiation
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[A focused sound field measurement system by LabVIEW].
Jiang, Zhan; Bai, Jingfeng; Yu, Ying
2014-05-01
In this paper, according to the requirement of the focused sound field measurement, a focused sound field measurement system was established based on the LabVIEW virtual instrument platform. The system can automatically search the focus position of the sound field, and adjust the scanning path according to the size of the focal region. Three-dimensional sound field scanning time reduced from 888 hours in uniform step to 9.25 hours in variable step. The efficiency of the focused sound field measurement was improved. There is a certain deviation between measurement results and theoretical calculation results. Focal plane--6 dB width difference rate was 3.691%, the beam axis--6 dB length differences rate was 12.937%.
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Environmental assessment for the Consumer Products Efficiency Standards program
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
1980-05-23
The Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 as amended by the National Energy Conservation Policy Act of 1978, requires the DOE to prescribe energy efficiency standards for thirteen consumer products. The Consumer Products Efficiency Standards (CPES) program covers the following products: refrigerators and refrigerator-freezers; freezers;clothes dryers;water heaters; room air conditioners; home heating equipment (not including furnaces); kitchen ranges and ovens; central air conditioners (cooling and heat pumps); furnaces; dishwashers; television sets; clothes washers; and humidifiers and dehumidifiers. DOE is proposing two sets of standards for all thirteen consumer products: intermediate standards to become effective in 1981 for the first nine products and in 1982 for the second four products, and final standards to become effective in 1986 and 1987, respectively. The final standards are more restrictive than the intermediate standards and will provide manufacturers with the maximum time permitted under the Act to plan and develop extensive new lines of efficient consumer products. The final standards proposed by DOE require the maximum improvements in efficiency which are technologically feasible and economically justified, as required by Section 325(c) of EPCA. The thirteen consumer products account for approximately 90% of all the energy consumed in the nation's residences, or more than 20% of the nation's energy needs. Increases in the energy efficiency of these consumer products can help to narrow the gap between the nation's increasing demand for energy and decreasing supplies of domestic oil and natural gas. Improvements in the efficiency of consumer products can thus help to solve the nation's energy crisis.
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MECHANICAL HEART-VALVE PROSTHESES - SOUND LEVEL AND RELATED COMPLAINTS
LAURENS, RRP; WIT, HP; EBELS, T
In a randomised study, we investigated the sound production of mechanical heart valve prostheses and the complaints related to this sound. The CarboMedics, Bjork-Shiley monostrut and StJude Medical prostheses were compared. A-weighted levels of the pulse-like sound produced by the prosthesis were
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Total Factor Productivity and Efficiency Analysis on Islamic Banks in Indonesia
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Siti Aisyah
2018-02-01
Full Text Available The aims of this study are to measure productivity and efficiency, to analyze factors which affect the level of efficiency and to analyze correlation between productivity and efficiency of Islamic Banking in Indonesia. The objects of this study are 11 (eleven Islamic Banks (BUS in Indonesia which are analyzed from the second quarter of 2010 to the third quarter of 2015. The result shows only six of the eleven banks that have a good productivity levels, otherwise for efficiency there are only three banks that efficient enough. Furthermore, the relationship between productivity and efficiency levels that are categorized into 4 (four quadrants. In quadrant I, three banks have high productivity and efficiency namely Syariah Mandiri, Panin Syariah and Victoria Syariah; quadrant IV two banks in low level of productivity and efficiency namely Mega Syariah and Bukopin Syariah. While the quadrant II namely BCA Syariah, BRI syariah and Muamalat and quadrant III namely BJB Syariah, BNI Syariah and Maybank Syariah required further research to determine the factors that affect the productivity and efficiency relationships that occur.
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Estimating Production Technical Efficiency of Irvingia Seed (Ogbono ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
This study estimated the production technical efficiency of irvingia seed (Ogbono) farmers in Nsukka agricultural zone in Enugu State, Nigeria. This is against the backdrop of the importance of efficiency as a factor of productivity in a growing economy like Nigeria where resources are scarce and opportunities for new ...
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Biomass production efficiency controlled by management in temperate and boreal ecosystems
Campioli, M.; Vicca, S.; Luyssaert, S.; Bilcke, J.; Ceschia, E.; Chapin, F. S., III; Ciais, P.; Fernández-Martínez, M.; Malhi, Y.; Obersteiner, M.; Olefeldt, D.; Papale, D.; Piao, S. L.; Peñuelas, J.; Sullivan, P. F.; Wang, X.; Zenone, T.; Janssens, I. A.
2015-11-01
Plants acquire carbon through photosynthesis to sustain biomass production, autotrophic respiration and production of non-structural compounds for multiple purposes. The fraction of photosynthetic production used for biomass production, the biomass production efficiency, is a key determinant of the conversion of solar energy to biomass. In forest ecosystems, biomass production efficiency was suggested to be related to site fertility. Here we present a database of biomass production efficiency from 131 sites compiled from individual studies using harvest, biometric, eddy covariance, or process-based model estimates of production. The database is global, but dominated by data from Europe and North America. We show that instead of site fertility, ecosystem management is the key factor that controls biomass production efficiency in terrestrial ecosystems. In addition, in natural forests, grasslands, tundra, boreal peatlands and marshes, biomass production efficiency is independent of vegetation, environmental and climatic drivers. This similarity of biomass production efficiency across natural ecosystem types suggests that the ratio of biomass production to gross primary productivity is constant across natural ecosystems. We suggest that plant adaptation results in similar growth efficiency in high- and low-fertility natural systems, but that nutrient influxes under managed conditions favour a shift to carbon investment from the belowground flux of non-structural compounds to aboveground biomass.
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Review of sound card photogates
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Gingl, Zoltan; Mingesz, Robert; Mellar, Janos; Makra, Peter
2011-01-01
Photogates are probably the most commonly used electronic instruments to aid experiments in the field of mechanics. Although they are offered by many manufacturers, they can be too expensive to be widely used in all classrooms, in multiple experiments or even at home experimentation. Today all computers have a sound card - an interface for analogue signals. It is possible to make very simple yet highly accurate photogates for cents, while much more sophisticated solutions are also available at a still very low cost. In our paper we show several experimentally tested ways of implementing sound card photogates in detail, and we also provide full-featured, free, open-source photogate software as a much more efficient experimentation tool than the usually used sound recording programs. Further information is provided on a dedicated web page, www.noise.physx.u-szeged.hu/edudev.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Luiz Rogerio Jorgensen Carrer
2015-09-01
Full Text Available ADHD involves cognitive and behavioral aspects with impairments in many environments of children and their families’ lives. Music, with its playful, spontaneous, affective, motivational, temporal and rhythmic dimensions can be of great help for studying the aspects of time processing in ADHD. In this article we studied time processing with simple sounds and music in children with ADHD with the hypothesis that children with ADHD have a different performance when compared with children with normal development in tasks of time estimation and production. The main objective was to develop sound and musical tasks to evaluate and correlate the performance of children with ADHD, with and without methylphenidate, compared to a control group with typical development. The study involved 36 participants age 6 to 14 years, recruited at NANI-Unifesp/SP, sub-divided into three groups with 12 children in each. Data was collected through a musical keyboard using Logic Audio Software 9.0 on the computer that recorded the participant's performance in the tasks. Tasks were divided into sections: spontaneous time production, time estimation with simple sounds and time estimation with music. Results: 1. Performance of ADHD groups in temporal estimation of simple sounds in short time intervals (30 ms were statistically lower than control group (p<0,05; 2. In the task comparing musical excerpts of the same duration (7s, ADHD groups considered the tracks longer when the musical notes had longer durations, while in the control group, the duration was related to the density of musical notes in the track. The positive average performance observed in the three groups in most tasks perhaps indicates the possibility that music can, in some way, positively modulate the symptoms of inattention in ADHD.
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Inverse problem of radiofrequency sounding of ionosphere
Velichko, E. N.; Yu. Grishentsev, A.; Korobeynikov, A. G.
2016-01-01
An algorithm for the solution of the inverse problem of vertical ionosphere sounding and a mathematical model of noise filtering are presented. An automated system for processing and analysis of spectrograms of vertical ionosphere sounding based on our algorithm is described. It is shown that the algorithm we suggest has a rather high efficiency. This is supported by the data obtained at the ionospheric stations of the so-called “AIS-M” type.
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The influence of farmers\\' adoption behaviour on maize production ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
This study was therefore designed to determine the contribution of farmers\\' adoption of recommended maize production practices, namely maize varieties, seed spacing, fertilization and weeding on production efficiency in order to assess the soundness of the advice given to farmers. The research was conducted in the ...
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Vocal Imitations of Non-Vocal Sounds
Houix, Olivier; Voisin, Frédéric; Misdariis, Nicolas; Susini, Patrick
2016-01-01
Imitative behaviors are widespread in humans, in particular whenever two persons communicate and interact. Several tokens of spoken languages (onomatopoeias, ideophones, and phonesthemes) also display different degrees of iconicity between the sound of a word and what it refers to. Thus, it probably comes at no surprise that human speakers use a lot of imitative vocalizations and gestures when they communicate about sounds, as sounds are notably difficult to describe. What is more surprising is that vocal imitations of non-vocal everyday sounds (e.g. the sound of a car passing by) are in practice very effective: listeners identify sounds better with vocal imitations than with verbal descriptions, despite the fact that vocal imitations are inaccurate reproductions of a sound created by a particular mechanical system (e.g. a car driving by) through a different system (the voice apparatus). The present study investigated the semantic representations evoked by vocal imitations of sounds by experimentally quantifying how well listeners could match sounds to category labels. The experiment used three different types of sounds: recordings of easily identifiable sounds (sounds of human actions and manufactured products), human vocal imitations, and computational “auditory sketches” (created by algorithmic computations). The results show that performance with the best vocal imitations was similar to the best auditory sketches for most categories of sounds, and even to the referent sounds themselves in some cases. More detailed analyses showed that the acoustic distance between a vocal imitation and a referent sound is not sufficient to account for such performance. Analyses suggested that instead of trying to reproduce the referent sound as accurately as vocally possible, vocal imitations focus on a few important features, which depend on each particular sound category. These results offer perspectives for understanding how human listeners store and access long
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Holman, Tomlinson
2013-01-01
Achieve professional quality sound on a limited budget! Harness all new, Hollywood style audio techniques to bring your independent film and video productions to the next level.In Sound for Digital Video, Second Edition industry experts Tomlinson Holman and Arthur Baum give you the tools and knowledge to apply recent advances in audio capture, video recording, editing workflow, and mixing to your own film or video with stunning results. This fresh edition is chockfull of techniques, tricks, and workflow secrets that you can apply to your own projects from preproduction
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THE SOUND OF CINEMA: TECHNOLOGY AND CREATIVITY
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Poznin Vitaly F.
2017-12-01
Full Text Available Technology is a means of creating any product. However, in the onscreen art, it is one of the elements creating the art space of film. Considering the main stages of the development of cinematography, this article explores the influence of technology of sound recording on the creating a special artistic and physical space of film (the beginning of the use a sound in movies; the mastering the artistic means of an audiovisual work; the expansion of the spatial characteristics for the screen sound; and the sound in a modern cinema. Today, thanks to new technologies, the sound in a cinema forms a specific quasirealistic landscape, greatly enhancing the impact on the viewer of the virtual screen images.
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Phylogenetic review of tonal sound production in whales in relation to sociality
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Agnarsson Ingi
2007-08-01
Full Text Available Abstract Background It is widely held that in toothed whales, high frequency tonal sounds called 'whistles' evolved in association with 'sociality' because in delphinids they are used in a social context. Recently, whistles were hypothesized to be an evolutionary innovation of social dolphins (the 'dolphin hypothesis'. However, both 'whistles' and 'sociality' are broad concepts each representing a conglomerate of characters. Many non-delphinids, whether solitary or social, produce tonal sounds that share most of the acoustic characteristics of delphinid whistles. Furthermore, hypotheses of character correlation are best tested in a phylogenetic context, which has hitherto not been done. Here we summarize data from over 300 studies on cetacean tonal sounds and social structure and phylogenetically test existing hypotheses on their co-evolution. Results Whistles are 'complex' tonal sounds of toothed whales that demark a more inclusive clade than the social dolphins. Whistles are also used by some riverine species that live in simple societies, and have been lost twice within the social delphinoids, all observations that are inconsistent with the dolphin hypothesis as stated. However, cetacean tonal sounds and sociality are intertwined: (1 increased tonal sound modulation significantly correlates with group size and social structure; (2 changes in tonal sound complexity are significantly concentrated on social branches. Also, duration and minimum frequency correlate as do group size and mean minimum frequency. Conclusion Studying the evolutionary correlation of broad concepts, rather than that of their component characters, is fraught with difficulty, while limits of available data restrict the detail in which component character correlations can be analyzed in this case. Our results support the hypothesis that sociality influences the evolution of tonal sound complexity. The level of social and whistle complexity are correlated, suggesting that
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Sound Levels in East Texas Schools.
Turner, Aaron Lynn
A survey of sound levels was taken in several Texas schools to determine the amount of noise and sound present by size of class, type of activity, location of building, and the presence of air conditioning and large amounts of glass. The data indicate that class size and relative amounts of glass have no significant bearing on the production of…
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BOREAS TE-17 Production Efficiency Model Images
National Aeronautics and Space Administration — A BOREAS version of the Global Production Efficiency Model(www.inform.umd.edu/glopem) was developed by TE-17 to generate maps of gross and net primary production,...
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Robertson, William C
2003-01-01
Muddled about what makes music? Stuck on the study of harmonics? Dumbfounded by how sound gets around? Now you no longer have to struggle to teach concepts you really don t grasp yourself. Sound takes an intentionally light touch to help out all those adults science teachers, parents wanting to help with homework, home-schoolers seeking necessary scientific background to teach middle school physics with confidence. The book introduces sound waves and uses that model to explain sound-related occurrences. Starting with the basics of what causes sound and how it travels, you'll learn how musical instruments work, how sound waves add and subtract, how the human ear works, and even why you can sound like a Munchkin when you inhale helium. Sound is the fourth book in the award-winning Stop Faking It! Series, published by NSTA Press. Like the other popular volumes, it is written by irreverent educator Bill Robertson, who offers this Sound recommendation: One of the coolest activities is whacking a spinning metal rod...
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Determination of Energy Use Efficiency of Sesame Production
BARAN, Mehmet Firat
2018-01-01
In this research it was aimed to determine an energy use efficiency of sesame production in Şanlıurfa province, during the production season of 2015. In order to determine the energy use efficiency of sesame production, trials and measurement were performed in sesame farm in the Bozova district of Şanlıurfa province. As energy inputs, human labour energy, machinery energy, chemical fertilizers energy, irrigation water energy, chemicals energy, diesel fuel energy and seed energy as were calcul...
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Kowalski, M P; Barbee, T W; Heidemann, K F; Gursky, H; Rife, J C; Hunter, W R; Fritz, G G; Cruddace, R G
1999-11-01
We have fabricated the four flight gratings for a sounding rocket high-resolution spectrometer using a holographic ion-etching technique. The gratings are spherical (4000-mm radius of curvature), large (160 mm x 90 mm), and have a laminar groove profile of high density (3600 grooves/mm). They have been coated with a high-reflectance multilayer of Mo/Si. Using an atomic force microscope, we examined the surface characteristics of the first grating before and after multilayer coating. The average roughness is approximately 3 A rms after coating. Using synchrotron radiation, we completed an efficiency calibration map over the wavelength range 225-245 A. At an angle of incidence of 5 degrees and a wavelength of 234 A, the average efficiency in the first inside order is 10.4 +/- 0.5%, and the derived groove efficiency is 34.8 +/- 1.6%. These values exceed all previously published results for a high-density grating.
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Belakova, D.; Seile, A.; Kukle, S.; Plamus, T.
2018-04-01
Within the present study, the effect of hemp (40 wt%) and polyactide (60 wt%), non-woven surface density, thickness and number of fibre web layers on the sound absorption coefficient and the sound transmission loss in the frequency range from 50 to 5000 Hz is analysed. The sound insulation properties of the experimental samples have been determined, compared to the ones in practical use, and the possible use of material has been defined. Non-woven materials are ideally suited for use in acoustic insulation products because the arrangement of fibres produces a porous material structure, which leads to a greater interaction between sound waves and fibre structure. Of all the tested samples (A, B and D), the non-woven variant B exceeded the surface density of sample A by 1.22 times and 1.15 times that of sample D. By placing non-wovens one above the other in 2 layers, it is possible to increase the absorption coefficient of the material, which depending on the frequency corresponds to C, D, and E sound absorption classes. Sample A demonstrates the best sound absorption of all the three samples in the frequency range from 250 to 2000 Hz. In the test frequency range from 50 to 5000 Hz, the sound transmission loss varies from 0.76 (Sample D at 63 Hz) to 3.90 (Sample B at 5000 Hz).
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Cue Effectiveness in Communicatively Efficient Discourse Production
Qian, Ting; Jaeger, T. Florian
2012-01-01
Recent years have seen a surge in accounts motivated by information theory that consider language production to be partially driven by a preference for communicative efficiency. Evidence from discourse production (i.e., production beyond the sentence level) has been argued to suggest that speakers distribute information across discourse so as to…
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Airborne sound insulation of new composite wall structures
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ivanova Yonka
2018-01-01
Full Text Available Protection against noise is one of the essential requirements of the European Construction Product directive. In buildings, airborne sound insulation is used to define the acoustical quality between rooms. In order to develop wall structures with optimal sound insulation, an understanding of the physical origins of sound transmission is necessary. To develop a kind of knowledge that is applicable to the improvement of real walls and room barriers is the motive behind this study. The purpose of the work is to study the sound insulation of new composite wall structure.
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Misconceptions About Sound Among Engineering Students
Pejuan, Arcadi; Bohigas, Xavier; Jaén, Xavier; Periago, Cristina
2012-12-01
Our first objective was to detect misconceptions about the microscopic nature of sound among senior university students enrolled in different engineering programmes (from chemistry to telecommunications). We sought to determine how these misconceptions are expressed (qualitative aspect) and, only very secondarily, to gain a general idea of the extent to which they are held (quantitative aspect). Our second objective was to explore other misconceptions about wave aspects of sound. We have also considered the degree of consistency in the model of sound used by each student. Forty students answered a questionnaire including open-ended questions. Based on their free, spontaneous answers, the main results were as follows: a large majority of students answered most of the questions regarding the microscopic model of sound according to the scientifically accepted model; however, only a small number answered consistently. The main model misconception found was the notion that sound is propagated through the travelling of air particles, even in solids. Misconceptions and mental-model inconsistencies tended to depend on the engineering programme in which the student was enrolled. However, students in general were inconsistent also in applying their model of sound to individual sound properties. The main conclusion is that our students have not truly internalised the scientifically accepted model that they have allegedly learnt. This implies a need to design learning activities that take these findings into account in order to be truly efficient.
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Singbo, Alphonse G.; Lansink, Alfons Oude; Emvalomatis, Grigorios
2015-01-01
This paper analyzes technical efficiency and the value of the marginal product of productive inputs vis-a-vis pesticide use to measure allocative efficiency of pesticide use along productive inputs. We employ the data envelopment analysis framework and marginal cost techniques to estimate
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Environmental assessment. Energy efficiency standards for consumer products
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
McSwain, Berah
1980-06-01
The Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 requires DOE to prescribe energy efficiency standards for 13 consumer products. The Consumer Products Efficiency Standards (CPES) program covers: refrigerators and refrigerator-freezers, freezers, clothes dryers, water heaters, room air conditioners, home heating equipment, kitchen ranges and ovens, central air conditioners (cooling and heat pumps), furnaces, dishwashers, television sets, clothes washers, and humidifiers and dehumidifiers. This Environmental Assessment evaluates the potential environmental and socioeconomic impacts expected as a result of setting efficiency standards for all of the consumer products covered by the CPES program. DOE has proposed standards for eight of the products covered by the Program in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR). DOE expects to propose standards for home heating equipment, central air conditioners (heat pumps only), dishwashers, television sets, clothes washers, and humidifiers and dehumidifiers in 1981. No significant adverse environmental or socioeconomic impacts have been found to result from instituting the CPES.
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An experiment towards characterizing seahorse sound in a laboratory controlled environment
Digital Repository Service at National Institute of Oceanography (India)
Saran, A.K.; Sreepada, R.A.; Chakraborty, B.; Fernandes, W.A.; Srivastava, R.; Kuncolienker, D.S.; Gawde, G.
There are many reports of sounds produced by Seahorse (Hippocampus), however, little is known about the mechanism of sound production. Here, we investigate sound produced by the seahorse during feeding. We attempt to try to understand and analyze...
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The Efficiency of Damage Production in Silicon Carbide
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Weber, William J.; Gao, Fei; Devanathan, Ram; Jiang, Weilin
2004-01-01
Molecular dynamics simulations are used to study the statistics of damage production in 3C-SiC due to C, Si and Au primary knock-on atoms (PKAs) over energies from 0.25 to 50 keV. In order to account for the different displacement energies on the Si and C sublattices and accurately assess the damage efficiency, a modified version of the SRIM (Stopping and Range of Ions in Matter) code, with the electronic stopping turned off to duplicate the molecular dynamics conditions, was used to calculate the statistics of damage production for the same PKAs over the energy range from 0.1 to 400 keV under the binary collision approximation using threshold displacement energies of 20 and 35 eV for C and Si, respectively. Using the modified SRIM predictions as a reference, the efficiencies of total damage production are determined for C, Si and Au PKAs as functions of energy. The efficiency for production of C displacements is similar for all PKAs; however, C PKAs have a much lower efficiency for producing stable Si displacements than Si and Au PKAs, which leads to a much higher ratio of C to Si displacements for C PKAs. These results are consistent with the experimental damage production behavior observed in SiC irradiated with C, Si and Au ions at 150 K
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The efficiency of damage production in silicon carbide
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Weber, W.J.; Gao, F.; Devanathan, R.; Jiang, W.
2004-01-01
Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are used to study the statistics of damage production in 3C-SiC due to C, Si and Au primary knock-on atoms (PKAs) over energies from 0.25 to 50 keV. In order to account for the different displacement energies on the Si and C sublattices and accurately assess the damage efficiency, a modified version of the SRIM (stopping and range of ions in matter) code, with the electronic stopping turned off to duplicate the MD conditions, was used to calculate the statistics of damage production for the same PKAs over the energy range from 0.1 to 400 keV under the binary collision approximation using threshold displacement energies of 20 and 35 eV for C and Si, respectively. Using the modified SRIM predictions as a reference, the efficiencies of total damage production are determined for C, Si and Au PKAs as functions of energy. The efficiency for production of C displacements is similar for all PKAs; however, C PKAs have a much lower efficiency for producing stable Si displacements than Si and Au PKAs, which leads to a much higher ratio of C to Si displacements for C PKAs. These results are consistent with the experimental damage production behavior observed in SiC irradiated with C, Si and Au ions at 150 K
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Aging Affects Adaptation to Sound-Level Statistics in Human Auditory Cortex.
Herrmann, Björn; Maess, Burkhard; Johnsrude, Ingrid S
2018-02-21
Optimal perception requires efficient and adaptive neural processing of sensory input. Neurons in nonhuman mammals adapt to the statistical properties of acoustic feature distributions such that they become sensitive to sounds that are most likely to occur in the environment. However, whether human auditory responses adapt to stimulus statistical distributions and how aging affects adaptation to stimulus statistics is unknown. We used MEG to study how exposure to different distributions of sound levels affects adaptation in auditory cortex of younger (mean: 25 years; n = 19) and older (mean: 64 years; n = 20) adults (male and female). Participants passively listened to two sound-level distributions with different modes (either 15 or 45 dB sensation level). In a control block with long interstimulus intervals, allowing neural populations to recover from adaptation, neural response magnitudes were similar between younger and older adults. Critically, both age groups demonstrated adaptation to sound-level stimulus statistics, but adaptation was altered for older compared with younger people: in the older group, neural responses continued to be sensitive to sound level under conditions in which responses were fully adapted in the younger group. The lack of full adaptation to the statistics of the sensory environment may be a physiological mechanism underlying the known difficulty that older adults have with filtering out irrelevant sensory information. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Behavior requires efficient processing of acoustic stimulation. Animal work suggests that neurons accomplish efficient processing by adjusting their response sensitivity depending on statistical properties of the acoustic environment. Little is known about the extent to which this adaptation to stimulus statistics generalizes to humans, particularly to older humans. We used MEG to investigate how aging influences adaptation to sound-level statistics. Listeners were presented with sounds drawn from
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Crop and soil specific N and P efficiency and productivity in Finland
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
S. BÄCKMAN
2008-12-01
Full Text Available This paper estimates a stochastic production frontier based on experimental data of cereals production in Finland over the period 1977-1994. The estimates of the production frontier are used to analyze nitrogen and phosphorous productivity and efficiency differences between soils and crops. For this input specific efficiencies are calculated. The results can be used to recognize relations between fertilizer management and soil types as well as to learn where certain soil types and crop combinations require special attention to fertilization strategy. The combination of inputs as designed by the experiment shows significant inefficiencies for both N and P. The measures of mineral productivity and efficiency indicate that clay is the most mineral efficient and productive soil while silt and organic soils are the least efficient and productive soils. Furthermore, a positive correlation is found between mineral productivity and efficiency. The results indicate that substantial technical efficiency differences between different experiments prevail.;
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Wambaugh, Julie L.; Nessler, Christina; Cameron, Rosalea; Mauszycki, Shannon C.
2012-01-01
Purpose: This investigation was designed to elucidate the effects of repeated practice treatment on sound production accuracy in individuals with apraxia of speech (AOS) and aphasia. A secondary purpose was to determine if the addition of rate/rhythm control to treatment provided further benefits beyond those achieved with repeated practice.…
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Subtyping Children with Speech Sound Disorders by Endophenotypes
Lewis, Barbara A.; Avrich, Allison A.; Freebairn, Lisa A.; Taylor, H. Gerry; Iyengar, Sudha K.; Stein, Catherine M.
2011-01-01
Purpose: The present study examined associations of 5 endophenotypes (i.e., measurable skills that are closely associated with speech sound disorders and are useful in detecting genetic influences on speech sound production), oral motor skills, phonological memory, phonological awareness, vocabulary, and speeded naming, with 3 clinical criteria…
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Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Carlson, Thomas J. [ed.] [Pacific Northwest National Lab., Richland, WA (United States); Popper, Arthur N. [ed.] [Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
1997-06-01
A workshop on ``Use of Sound for Fish Protection at Power-Production and Water-Control Facilities`` was held in Portland, Oregon on December 12--13, 1995. This workshop convened a 22-member panel of international experts from universities, industry, and government to share knowledge, questions, and ideas about using sound for fish guidance. Discussions involved in a broad range of indigenous migratory and resident fish species and fish-protection issues in river systems, with particular focus on the Columbia River Basin. Because the use of sound behavioral barriers for fish is very much in its infancy, the workshop was designed to address the many questions being asked by fishery managers and researchers about the feasibility and potential benefits of using sound to augment physical barriers for fish protection in the Columbia River system.
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de Korte, A.C.J.; Brouwers, Jos
2011-01-01
This article focuses on the computation of the sound velocity through slurries and hardened products. The purpose is to use the sound velocity to quantify the composition of the fresh slurry as well as the hardening and hardened - porous - material. Therefore the volumetric models for hydration of
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Using Data Envelopment Analysis to Measure International Agricultural Efficiency and Productivity
Arnade, Carlos Anthony
1994-01-01
Numerous methods for measuring multifactor productivity have been used by economists. This report uses a recently developed approach, data envlopment analysis, to measure productivity. This method can be used not only to calculate productivity but also to divide productivity measures into indices that measure technical efficiency and technical change. Technical efficiency measures the efficiency with which resources are used. Technical change measures changes in output arising from improved t...
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The sound of friction: Real-time models, playability and musical applications
Serafin, Stefania
Friction, the tangential force between objects in contact, in most engineering applications needs to be removed as a source of noise and instabilities. In musical applications, friction is a desirable component, being the sound production mechanism of different musical instruments such as bowed strings, musical saws, rubbed bowls and any other sonority produced by interactions between rubbed dry surfaces. The goal of the dissertation is to simulate different instrument whose main excitation mechanism is friction. An efficient yet accurate model of a bowed string instrument, which combines the latest results in violin acoustics with the efficient digital waveguide approach, is provided. In particular, the bowed string physical model proposed uses a thermodynamic friction model in which the finite width of the bow is taken into account; this solution is compared to the recently developed elasto-plastic friction models used in haptics and robotics. Different solutions are also proposed to model the body of the instrument. Other less common instruments driven by friction are also proposed, and the elasto-plastic model is used to provide audio-visual simulations of everyday friction sounds such as squeaking doors and rubbed wine glasses. Finally, playability evaluations and musical applications in which the models have been used are discussed.
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Technical efficiency of irrigated vegetable production among ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
This study was carried out to analyse the technical efficiency of irrigated vegetable production among smallholder farmers in the guinea savannah, Nigeria, and determine the cost and returns on irrigated vegetable production. Two-stage sampling technique was used, purposive selection of two states and three Local ...
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Buy Energy-Efficient Products: A Guide for Federal Purchasers and Specifiers
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
2016-07-01
In a single year, energy-efficient product purchases could save the federal government almost a half billion dollars worth of energy. By purchasing products that exceed the minimum required efficiency levels, buyers can save the government even more energy and money. Federal employees and contractors must take an active role in ensuring that the government receives products that meet efficiency requirements. This document provides an overview of product purchasing requirements and shows you how to write compliant contracts, find funding, and confirm product compliance.
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RESOURCE USE EFFICIENCY OF GROUNDNUT PRODUCTION IN ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
AGROSEARCH UIL
2012-09-28
Sep 28, 2012 ... A stratified sampling technique was employed to select 58 respondents. ... there is still opportunity to increase their production to attain optimal economic efficiency. The ... metric tons and an average productivity of 1.4 metric tons /ha. Developing ... The educated population are gainfully employed in some.
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Root phonotropism: Early signalling events following sound perception in Arabidopsis roots.
Rodrigo-Moreno, Ana; Bazihizina, Nadia; Azzarello, Elisa; Masi, Elisa; Tran, Daniel; Bouteau, François; Baluska, Frantisek; Mancuso, Stefano
2017-11-01
Sound is a fundamental form of energy and it has been suggested that plants can make use of acoustic cues to obtain information regarding their environments and alter and fine-tune their growth and development. Despite an increasing body of evidence indicating that it can influence plant growth and physiology, many questions concerning the effect of sound waves on plant growth and the underlying signalling mechanisms remains unknown. Here we show that in Arabidopsis thaliana, exposure to sound waves (200Hz) for 2 weeks induced positive phonotropism in roots, which grew towards to sound source. We found that sound waves triggered very quickly (within minutes) an increase in cytosolic Ca 2+ , possibly mediated by an influx through plasma membrane and a release from internal stock. Sound waves likewise elicited rapid reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and K + efflux. Taken together these results suggest that changes in ion fluxes (Ca 2+ and K + ) and an increase in superoxide production are involved in sound perception in plants, as previously established in animals. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Energy efficiency and sound protection. In conflict; Energieeffizienz und Schallschutz. Im Konflikt
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Sonnenschein, Udo
2013-06-06
The trend of development of lightweight bricks will go towards a minimization of thermal conductivity and bulk densities. This results to decision conflicts between thermal insulation and sound protection. Bivalve masonries can be used to combine sound protection and thermal insulation still. Bivalve masonries combine the advantages of surface-related mass (double mass) with thermal insulation. Already with a simple construction consisting of brickwork (thermal conductivity: 0.08 W / (m K)) and insulating material (thermal conductivity: 0.035 W / (m K)) heat transfer coefficients of about 0.21 W / (m{sup 2} K) can be achieved. These constructions are harmless in terms of the moisture behavior. The choice of material and the thickness is variable. Different requirements can be met.
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POSSIBILITIES OF INCREASING EFFICIENCY WITHIN SERIAL PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
CODRUŢA DURA
2010-01-01
Full Text Available Under the impact of transition to the new post-industrial society, massproduction recently faced the most numerous difficulties. They are caused by turbulences in theexternal environment in which companies operate, manifested in particular by enhancing thedynamism of markets and by deep changes in the structure of consumers’ demands. In thiscontext, specialized literature records the concerns for increasing the efficiency and flexibilityof products, elements involving radical changes of management and manufacturingtechnologies methods. Given these issues, the paper approaches two separate ways to improvethe management of serial production: increasing economic efficiency by optimizing the size ofbatches and flexible production systems by implementing techniques to reduce the change-overtime.
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Technical efficiency of watermelon ( Citrullus lanatus ) production in ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
This study was designed to measure the level of technical efficiency, its determinants in watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) production and the constraints in the production system in Yewa North Local Government of Ogun State using a stochastic frontier production function. A combination of purposive and random sampling ...
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Robust segmentation and retrieval of environmental sounds
Wichern, Gordon
The proliferation of mobile computing has provided much of the world with the ability to record any sound of interest, or possibly every sound heard in a lifetime. The technology to continuously record the auditory world has applications in surveillance, biological monitoring of non-human animal sounds, and urban planning. Unfortunately, the ability to record anything has led to an audio data deluge, where there are more recordings than time to listen. Thus, access to these archives depends on efficient techniques for segmentation (determining where sound events begin and end), indexing (storing sufficient information with each event to distinguish it from other events), and retrieval (searching for and finding desired events). While many such techniques have been developed for speech and music sounds, the environmental and natural sounds that compose the majority of our aural world are often overlooked. The process of analyzing audio signals typically begins with the process of acoustic feature extraction where a frame of raw audio (e.g., 50 milliseconds) is converted into a feature vector summarizing the audio content. In this dissertation, a dynamic Bayesian network (DBN) is used to monitor changes in acoustic features in order to determine the segmentation of continuously recorded audio signals. Experiments demonstrate effective segmentation performance on test sets of environmental sounds recorded in both indoor and outdoor environments. Once segmented, every sound event is indexed with a probabilistic model, summarizing the evolution of acoustic features over the course of the event. Indexed sound events are then retrieved from the database using different query modalities. Two important query types are sound queries (query-by-example) and semantic queries (query-by-text). By treating each sound event and semantic concept in the database as a node in an undirected graph, a hybrid (content/semantic) network structure is developed. This hybrid network can
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De Götzen , Amalia; Mion , Luca; Tache , Olivier
2007-01-01
International audience; We call sound algorithms the categories of algorithms that deal with digital sound signal. Sound algorithms appeared in the very infancy of computer. Sound algorithms present strong specificities that are the consequence of two dual considerations: the properties of the digital sound signal itself and its uses, and the properties of auditory perception.
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Analysis of Respiratory Sounds: State of the Art
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Sandra Reichert
2008-01-01
Full Text Available Objective This paper describes state of the art, scientific publications and ongoing research related to the methods of analysis of respiratory sounds. Methods and material Review of the current medical and technological literature using Pubmed and personal experience. Results The study includes a description of the various techniques that are being used to collect auscultation sounds, a physical description of known pathologic sounds for which automatic detection tools were developed. Modern tools are based on artificial intelligence and on technics such as artificial neural networks, fuzzy systems, and genetic algorithms… Conclusion The next step will consist in finding new markers so as to increase the efficiency of decision aid algorithms and tools.
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An integrated system for dynamic control of auditory perspective in a multichannel sound field
Corey, Jason Andrew
An integrated system providing dynamic control of sound source azimuth, distance and proximity to a room boundary within a simulated acoustic space is proposed for use in multichannel music and film sound production. The system has been investigated, implemented, and psychoacoustically tested within the ITU-R BS.775 recommended five-channel (3/2) loudspeaker layout. The work brings together physical and perceptual models of room simulation to allow dynamic placement of virtual sound sources at any location of a simulated space within the horizontal plane. The control system incorporates a number of modules including simulated room modes, "fuzzy" sources, and tracking early reflections, whose parameters are dynamically changed according to sound source location within the simulated space. The control functions of the basic elements, derived from theories of perception of a source in a real room, have been carefully tuned to provide efficient, effective, and intuitive control of a sound source's perceived location. Seven formal listening tests were conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the algorithm design choices. The tests evaluated: (1) loudness calibration of multichannel sound images; (2) the effectiveness of distance control; (3) the resolution of distance control provided by the system; (4) the effectiveness of the proposed system when compared to a commercially available multichannel room simulation system in terms of control of source distance and proximity to a room boundary; (5) the role of tracking early reflection patterns on the perception of sound source distance; (6) the role of tracking early reflection patterns on the perception of lateral phantom images. The listening tests confirm the effectiveness of the system for control of perceived sound source distance, proximity to room boundaries, and azimuth, through fine, dynamic adjustment of parameters according to source location. All of the parameters are grouped and controlled together to
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Implications of energy efficiency measures in wheat production
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Meyer-Aurich, Andreas; Ziegler, T.; Scholz, L.
The economic and environmental effect of energy saving measures were analyzed for a typical wheat production system in Germany. The introduction of precision farming, reduced nitrogen fertilization and improved crop drying technologies proved to be efficient measures for enhancing energy efficiency...
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ibrahim Roshita
2017-01-01
Full Text Available Mushroom, as believed by many people, grows on specific time and condition as in the wild it grows after a heavy rain falls. The effects of lightning and thunderstorm may suppress the mychorrizal structure to grow and eventually forming fruiting body. This study was conducted to determine the effect of different acoustic sound treatments on the growth and yield of grey oyster mushroom (Pleurotussajor-caju. Five different acoustic sound treatments had been applied during spawning period which were thunder storm, hardcore music, soothing instrumental, Quranic recital and without any sound treatment applied which served as control. The parameters studied were mycelium growth rate, days of mycelium filled up the bags, days of pinhead emergence, days of fruiting body formation, total weight, percentage biological efficiency, pileus color and texture. There were significant differences (P0.05 observed in other parameters, such as pinhead emergence, fruiting bodies formation, pileus color and texture. In summary, treatments using different acoustic sound at 75 dB could be considered as better treatment to enhance the mycelium growth thus accelerate the mushroom cultivation process as well as increasing the mushroom productivity. This research could help farmers to grow and harvest their mushroom at specific time frame and fulfill customer’s demand.
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2010-10-01
... 46 Shipping 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Nantucket Sound, Vineyard Sound, Buzzards Bay, Narragansett Bay, MA, Block Island Sound and easterly entrance to Long Island Sound, NY. 7.20 Section 7.20... Atlantic Coast § 7.20 Nantucket Sound, Vineyard Sound, Buzzards Bay, Narragansett Bay, MA, Block Island...
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Masayo Soma
Full Text Available Music and dance are two remarkable human characteristics that are closely related. Communication through integrated vocal and motional signals is also common in the courtship displays of birds. The contribution of songbird studies to our understanding of vocal learning has already shed some light on the cognitive underpinnings of musical ability. Moreover, recent pioneering research has begun to show how animals can synchronize their behaviors with external stimuli, like metronome beats. However, few studies have applied such perspectives to unraveling how animals can integrate multimodal communicative signals that have natural functions. Additionally, studies have rarely asked how well these behaviors are learned. With this in mind, here we cast a spotlight on an unusual animal behavior: non-vocal sound production associated with singing in the Java sparrow (Lonchura oryzivora, a songbird. We show that male Java sparrows coordinate their bill-click sounds with the syntax of their song-note sequences, similar to percussionists. Analysis showed that they produced clicks frequently toward the beginning of songs and before/after specific song notes. We also show that bill-clicking patterns are similar between social fathers and their sons, suggesting that these behaviors might be learned from models or linked to learning-based vocalizations. Individuals untutored by conspecifics also exhibited stereotypical bill-clicking patterns in relation to song-note sequence, indicating that while the production of bill clicking itself is intrinsic, its syncopation appears to develop with songs. This paints an intriguing picture in which non-vocal sounds are integrated with vocal courtship signals in a songbird, a model that we expect will contribute to the further understanding of multimodal communication.
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On the sound insulation of acoustic metasurface using a sub-structuring approach
Yu, Xiang; Lu, Zhenbo; Cheng, Li; Cui, Fangsen
2017-08-01
The feasibility of using an acoustic metasurface (AMS) with acoustic stop-band property to realize sound insulation with ventilation function is investigated. An efficient numerical approach is proposed to evaluate its sound insulation performance. The AMS is excited by a reverberant sound source and the standardized sound reduction index (SRI) is numerically investigated. To facilitate the modeling, the coupling between the AMS and the adjacent acoustic fields is formulated using a sub-structuring approach. A modal based formulation is applied to both the source and receiving room, enabling an efficient calculation in the frequency range from 125 Hz to 2000 Hz. The sound pressures and the velocities at the interface are matched by using a transfer function relation based on ;patches;. For illustration purposes, numerical examples are investigated using the proposed approach. The unit cell constituting the AMS is constructed in the shape of a thin acoustic chamber with tailored inner structures, whose stop-band property is numerically analyzed and experimentally demonstrated. The AMS is shown to provide effective sound insulation of over 30 dB in the stop-band frequencies from 600 to 1600 Hz. It is also shown that the proposed approach has the potential to be applied to a broad range of AMS studies and optimization problems.
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Directional sound beam emission from a configurable compact multi-source system
Zhao, Jiajun
2018-01-12
We propose to achieve efficient emission of highly directional sound beams from multiple monopole sources embedded in a subwavelength enclosure. Without the enclosure, the emitted sound fields have an indistinguishable or omnidirectional radiation directivity in far fields. The strong directivity formed in the presence of the enclosure is attributed to interference of sources under degenerate Mie resonances in the enclosure of anisotropic property. Our numerical simulations of sound emission from the sources demonstrate the radiation of a highly directed sound beam of unidirectional or bidirectional patterns, depending on how the sources are configured inside the enclosure. Our scheme, if achieved, can solve the challenging problem of poor directivity of a subwavelength sound system, and can guide beam forming and collimation by miniaturized devices.
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Influence of visual appearance on loudspeaker sound quality evaluation
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Karandreas, Theodoros-Alexandros; Christensen, Flemming
2008-01-01
Product sound quality evaluation aims to identify relevant attributes and assess their influence on the overall auditory impression. Extending this sound specific rationale, the present study evaluates overall impression in relation to audition and vision, specifically for loudspeakers. In order...... to quantify the bias that the loudspeaker appearance has on the sound quality evaluation of a naive listening panel, audio stimuli of varied degradation are coupled with actual loudspeakers of different visual appearance....
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Improving radiation use efficiency in greenhouse production systems
Li, Tao
2015-01-01
SUMMARY A large increase in agricultural production is needed to feed the increasing world population with their increasing demand per capita. However, growing competition for arable land, water, energy, and the degradation of the environment impose challenges to improve crop production. Hence agricultural production efficiency needs to increase. Greenhouses provide the possibility to create optimal growth conditions for crops, thereby improving production and product quality. Light is the dr...
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Akhmad Sodiq
2009-09-01
Full Text Available Feed resources are the major constraint in increasing goat production in the village. The main constraints to goat raising are related to feeds (i the high cost of transport of crop residues and grass to the homesteads, (ii the low nutritive value of feeds used, particularly in the dry period. This research was design to evaluate goat productivity and economic efficiency of goat farming under application of feed technology production system in Peranakan Etawah goat farmer group of Gumelar Banyumas Central Java. All farmers were taken as respondents using census methods. On farm research with participative focused group discussion, indepth interview, and farm observation. Descriptive analysis and independent t test methods were used to analyze the data. Results of this study showed that there was a significant improvement goat productivity on production system with the application of feed technology. Body weight at weaning, survival rate till weaning, and doe productivity were increased 7%, 2% and 5%, respectively. There was no evidence of significant different of farmers income and economic efficiency before and after the applied feed technology (P>0.05. The calculation was based on cash flow. Before application, farmers income per year and economic efficiency were Rp14.404.520,00 and 1.21, then insignificantly improve into Rp16.487.100,00 and 1.27, respectively. (Animal Production 11(3: 202-208 (2009 Key Words: Livestock production system, Peranakan Etawah goat, feed technology aplication, productivity and economic efficiency
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[Carbon efficiency of double-rice production system in Hunan Province, China].
Chen, Zhong-du; Wu, Yao; Ti, Jin-song; Chen, Fu; Li, Yong
2015-01-01
Improving the carbon efficiency of crop production systems is one of the important ways to realize low-carbon agriculture. A life cycle assessment approach and input-output calculation method was applied for a double-rice production system in the Hunan Province. Based on statistical data of crop yield and investment in the production system in the period from 2004 to 2012, carbon emission, carbon absorption, carbon efficiency and their dynamic changes of the double rice production systems were estimated. The results showed that the average of annual carbon emission from 2004 to 2012 was 656.4 x 10(7) kg CE. Carbon emissions from production and transport of fertilizer and pesticide accounted for a majority of agricultural input carbon emissions, approximately 70.0% and 15.9%, respectively. The carbon emission showed a decreasing trend from 2004 to 2012 in the Hunan Province, with an annual reduction rate of 2.4%, but the carbon emission intensity was in a trend of increase. The average of annual carbon absorption was 1547.0 x 10(7) kg C. The annual carbon absorption also showed a decreasing trend from 2004 to 2012 in Hunan Province, with an average annual reduction rate of 1.2%, and the carbon absorption intensity showed a trend of increase. Furthermore, production efficiency of carbon showed a slow upward trend. The economic efficiency of carbon showed a larger increasing rate with time, with an average annual growth rate of 9.9%. Ecological efficiency of carbon was stable and low, maintained at about 2.4 kg C . kg-1 CE. It indicated that the integrated carbon efficiency of Hunan double rice crop production system improved slowly with time and the key to improve the carbon efficiency of double rice production systems lies in reducing the rates of nitrogen fertilizer and pesticide, and improving their use efficiencies.
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48 CFR 52.223-15 - Energy Efficiency in Energy-Consuming Products.
2010-10-01
... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 2 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Energy Efficiency in... Provisions and Clauses 52.223-15 Energy Efficiency in Energy-Consuming Products. As prescribed in 23.206, insert the following clause: Energy Efficiency in Energy-Consuming Products (DEC 2007) (a) Definition. As...
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Photobiological hydrogen production : photochemical efficiency and bioreactor design
Akkerman, I.; Janssen, M.; Rocha, J.; Wijffels, R.H.
2002-01-01
Biological production of hydrogen can be carried out by photoautotrophic or photoheterotrophic organisms. Here, the photosystems of both processes are described. The main drawback of the photoautotrophic hydrogen production process is oxygen inhibition. The few efficiencies reported on the
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Energy efficiency improvements in ammonia production--perspectives and uncertainties
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Rafiqul, Islam; Weber, Christoph; Lehmann, Bianca; Voss, Alfred
2005-01-01
The paper discusses the energy consumption and energy saving potential for a major energy-intensive product in the chemical industry-ammonia, based on technologies currently in use and possible process improvements. The paper consists of four parts. In the first part, mainly references to various ammonia production technologies are given. Energy consumption, emissions and saving potentials are discussed in the second part. Thereby, the situation in Europe, the US and India is highlighted and various data sources are compared. In the third part of the paper, a novel approach for modeling energy efficiency improvements is described that accounts for uncertainties and unobserved heterogeneity in the production processes. Besides new investments, revamping investments are also included in the modeling and the development of the production stock is accounted for. Finally, in the fourth part, this approach is applied to the modeling of energy efficiency improvements and CO 2 emission reductions in ammonia production. Thereby, considerable improvements in specific energy use and CO 2 emissions are found in the reference scenario, yet under the assumption of high oil and gas prices, a partial switch to coal based technologies is expected which lowers notably the CO 2 efficiency. Introduction of a CO 2 penalty under a certificate trading or other regime is on contrary found to foster energy efficiency and the use of low carbon technologies
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Lillis, Ashlee; Mooney, T. Aran
2018-06-01
The rich acoustic environment of coral reefs, including the sounds of a variety of fish and invertebrates, is a reflection of the structural complexity and biological diversity of these habitats. Emerging interest in applying passive acoustic monitoring and soundscape analysis to measure coral reef habitat characteristics and track ecological patterns is hindered by a poor understanding of the most common and abundant sound producers on reefs—the snapping shrimp. Here, we sought to address several basic biophysical drivers of reef sound by investigating acoustic activity patterns of snapping shrimp populations on two adjacent coral reefs using a detailed snap detection analysis routine to a high-resolution 2.5-month acoustic dataset from the US Virgin Islands. The reefs exhibited strong diel and lunar periodicity in snap rates and clear spatial differences in snapping levels. Snap rates peaked at dawn and dusk and were higher overall during daytime versus nighttime, a seldom-reported pattern in earlier descriptions of diel snapping shrimp acoustic activity. Small differences between the sites in snap rate rhythms were detected and illustrate how analyses of specific soundscape elements might reveal subtle between-reef variation. Snap rates were highly correlated with environmental variables, including water temperature and light, and were found to be sensitive to changes in oceanographic forcing. This study further establishes snapping shrimp as key players in the coral reef chorus and provides evidence that their acoustic output reflects a combination of environmental conditions, celestial influences, and spatial habitat variation. Effective application of passive acoustic monitoring in coral reef habitats using snap rates or snapping-influenced acoustic metrics will require a mechanistic understanding of the underlying spatial and temporal variation in snapping shrimp sound production across multiple scales.
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Replacing the Orchestra? - The Discernibility of Sample Library and Live Orchestra Sounds.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Reinhard Kopiez
Full Text Available Recently, musical sounds from pre-recorded orchestra sample libraries (OSL have become indispensable in music production for the stage or popular charts. Surprisingly, it is unknown whether human listeners can identify sounds as stemming from real orchestras or OSLs. Thus, an internet-based experiment was conducted to investigate whether a classic orchestral work, produced with sounds from a state-of-the-art OSL, could be reliably discerned from a live orchestra recording of the piece. It could be shown that the entire sample of listeners (N = 602 on average identified the correct sound source at 72.5%. This rate slightly exceeded Alan Turing's well-known upper threshold of 70% for a convincing, simulated performance. However, while sound experts tended to correctly identify the sound source, participants with lower listening expertise, who resembled the majority of music consumers, only achieved 68.6%. As non-expert listeners in the experiment were virtually unable to tell the real-life and OSL sounds apart, it is assumed that OSLs will become more common in music production for economic reasons.
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Sound absorption of a new oblique-section acoustic metamaterial with nested resonator
Gao, Nansha; Hou, Hong; Zhang, Yanni; Wu, Jiu Hui
2018-02-01
This study designs and investigates high-efficiency sound absorption of new oblique-section nested resonators. Impedance tube experiment results show that different combinations of oblique-section nest resonators have tunable low-frequency bandwidth characteristics. The sound absorption mechanism is due to air friction losses in the slotted region and the sample structure resonance. The acousto-electric analogy model demonstrates that the sound absorption peak and bandwidth can be modulated over an even wider frequency range by changing the geometric size and combinations of structures. The proposed structure can be easily fabricated and used in low-frequency sound absorption applications.
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Analysis of Production Funds Efficiency in the Country’s Crane Sector
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Edita Valėnaitė
2012-07-01
Full Text Available The article deals with methodological aspects of the production funds analysis. In this work the study of literature which examines the basic and transferable funds is presented. Much attention is paid to the analysis of basic production funds in the crane sector. Analysis of the basic production funds in the country’s crane sector is presented. Special attention is paid to the structure of the cranes park and crane utilization efficiency. In the analysis of basic production funds, the factors that impede the efficiency of production funds were established as follows: the greatest negative impact on basic production funds efficiency of businesses was in small tower crane fleet; a small range of tower cranes in the park is reducing the technical possibilities of the lease. Basing on the analysis and observation of tower cranes installation and dismantling, the poor supply of the parts for the work place, lack of competence and motivation of the support staff have been ascertained. After elimination of these factors it is possible to raise the efficiency of the main production funds.Article in Lithuanian
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Sound signatures and production mechanisms of three species of pipefishes (Family: Syngnathidae
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Adam Chee Ooi Lim
2015-12-01
Full Text Available Background. Syngnathid fishes produce three kinds of sounds, named click, growl and purr. These sounds are generated by different mechanisms to give a consistent signal pattern or signature which is believed to play a role in intraspecific and interspecific communication. Commonly known sounds are produced when the fish feeds (click, purr or is under duress (growl. While there are more acoustic studies on seahorses, pipefishes have not received much attention. Here we document the differences in feeding click signals between three species of pipefishes and relate them to cranial morphology and kinesis, or the sound-producing mechanism.Methods. The feeding clicks of two species of freshwater pipefishes, Doryichthys martensii and Doryichthys deokhathoides and one species of estuarine pipefish, Syngnathoides biaculeatus, were recorded by a hydrophone in acoustic dampened tanks. The acoustic signals were analysed using time-scale distribution (or scalogram based on wavelet transform. A detailed time-varying analysis of the spectral contents of the localized acoustic signal was obtained by jointly interpreting the oscillogram, scalogram and power spectrum. The heads of both Doryichthys species were prepared for microtomographical scans which were analysed using a 3D imaging software. Additionally, the cranial bones of all three species were examined using a clearing and double-staining method for histological studies.Results. The sound characteristics of the feeding click of the pipefish is species-specific, appearing to be dependent on three bones: the supraoccipital, 1st postcranial plate and 2nd postcranial plate. The sounds are generated when the head of the Dorichthyes pipefishes flexes backward during the feeding strike, as the supraoccipital slides backwards, striking and pushing the 1st postcranial plate against (and striking the 2nd postcranial plate. In the Syngnathoides pipefish, in the absence of the 1st postcranial plate, the
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Detection and generation of first sound in4He by vibrating superleak transducers
Giordano, N.; Edison, N.
1986-07-01
Measurement is made of the first-sound generation and detection efficiencies of vibrating superleak transducers (VSTs) operated in superfluid4He. This is accomplished by using an ordinary pressure transducer to generate first sound with a VST as the detector, and by using a pressure transducer to detect the sound generated by a VST. The results are in reasonably good agreement with the current theory of VST operation.
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Detection and generation of first sound in 4He by vibrating superleak transducers
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Giordano, N.; Edison, N.
1986-01-01
Measurement is made of the first-sound generation and detection efficiencies of vibrating superleak transducers (VSTs) operated in superfluid 4 He. This is accomplished by using an ordinary pressure transducer to generate first sound with a VST as the detector, and by using a pressure transducer to detect the sound generated by a VST. The results are in reasonably good agreement with the current theory of VST operation
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Maximizing Light Utilization Efficiency and Hydrogen Production in Microalgal Cultures
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Melis, Anastasios [Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
2014-12-31
The project addressed the following technical barrier from the Biological Hydrogen Production section of the Fuel Cell Technologies Program Multi-Year Research, Development and Demonstration Plan: Low Sunlight Utilization Efficiency in Photobiological Hydrogen Production is due to a Large Photosystem Chlorophyll Antenna Size in Photosynthetic Microorganisms (Barrier AN: Light Utilization Efficiency).
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Hamilton, Mark F.
1989-08-01
Four projects are discussed in this annual summary report, all of which involve basic research in nonlinear acoustics: Scattering of Sound by Sound, a theoretical study of two nonconlinear Gaussian beams which interact to produce sum and difference frequency sound; Parametric Receiving Arrays, a theoretical study of parametric reception in a reverberant environment; Nonlinear Effects in Asymmetric Sound Beams, a numerical study of two dimensional finite amplitude sound fields; and Pulsed Finite Amplitude Sound Beams, a numerical time domain solution of the KZK equation.
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PREFACE: Aerodynamic sound Aerodynamic sound
Akishita, Sadao
2010-02-01
The modern theory of aerodynamic sound originates from Lighthill's two papers in 1952 and 1954, as is well known. I have heard that Lighthill was motivated in writing the papers by the jet-noise emitted by the newly commercialized jet-engined airplanes at that time. The technology of aerodynamic sound is destined for environmental problems. Therefore the theory should always be applied to newly emerged public nuisances. This issue of Fluid Dynamics Research (FDR) reflects problems of environmental sound in present Japanese technology. The Japanese community studying aerodynamic sound has held an annual symposium since 29 years ago when the late Professor S Kotake and Professor S Kaji of Teikyo University organized the symposium. Most of the Japanese authors in this issue are members of the annual symposium. I should note the contribution of the two professors cited above in establishing the Japanese community of aerodynamic sound research. It is my pleasure to present the publication in this issue of ten papers discussed at the annual symposium. I would like to express many thanks to the Editorial Board of FDR for giving us the chance to contribute these papers. We have a review paper by T Suzuki on the study of jet noise, which continues to be important nowadays, and is expected to reform the theoretical model of generating mechanisms. Professor M S Howe and R S McGowan contribute an analytical paper, a valuable study in today's fluid dynamics research. They apply hydrodynamics to solve the compressible flow generated in the vocal cords of the human body. Experimental study continues to be the main methodology in aerodynamic sound, and it is expected to explore new horizons. H Fujita's study on the Aeolian tone provides a new viewpoint on major, longstanding sound problems. The paper by M Nishimura and T Goto on textile fabrics describes new technology for the effective reduction of bluff-body noise. The paper by T Sueki et al also reports new technology for the
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An Empirical Study of Strategic Positioning and Production Efficiency
Hsihui Chang; Guy D. Fernando; Arindam Tripathy
2015-01-01
We examine the relationship between strategic positioning of firms and their production efficiency. Firms with competitive advantages based on either cost leadership or differentiation are able to outperform their competitors. Firms pursuing a cost leadership strategy seek to be the lowest cost producer, primarily by minimizing inputs for a given level of output, thus concentrating on increasing the efficiency of their production processes. On the other hand, firms that pursue a differentiat...
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Endogeneity Corrected Stochastic Production Frontier and Technical Efficiency
Shee, A.; Stefanou, S.E.
2015-01-01
A major econometric issue in estimating production parameters and technical efficiency is the possibility that some forces influencing production are only observed by the firm and not by the econometrician. Not only can this misspecification lead to a biased inference on the output elasticity of
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Applying cybernetic technology to diagnose human pulmonary sounds.
Chen, Mei-Yung; Chou, Cheng-Han
2014-06-01
Chest auscultation is a crucial and efficient method for diagnosing lung disease; however, it is a subjective process that relies on physician experience and the ability to differentiate between various sound patterns. Because the physiological signals composed of heart sounds and pulmonary sounds (PSs) are greater than 120 Hz and the human ear is not sensitive to low frequencies, successfully making diagnostic classifications is difficult. To solve this problem, we constructed various PS recognition systems for classifying six PS classes: vesicular breath sounds, bronchial breath sounds, tracheal breath sounds, crackles, wheezes, and stridor sounds. First, we used a piezoelectric microphone and data acquisition card to acquire PS signals and perform signal preprocessing. A wavelet transform was used for feature extraction, and the PS signals were decomposed into frequency subbands. Using a statistical method, we extracted 17 features that were used as the input vectors of a neural network. We proposed a 2-stage classifier combined with a back-propagation (BP) neural network and learning vector quantization (LVQ) neural network, which improves classification accuracy by using a haploid neural network. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve verifies the high performance level of the neural network. To expand traditional auscultation methods, we constructed various PS diagnostic systems that can correctly classify the six common PSs. The proposed device overcomes the lack of human sensitivity to low-frequency sounds and various PS waves, characteristic values, and a spectral analysis charts are provided to elucidate the design of the human-machine interface.
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What factors affect the productivity and efficiency of physician practices?
Sunshine, Jonathan H; Hughes, Danny R; Meghea, Cristian; Bhargavan, Mythreyi
2010-02-01
Increasing the productivity and efficiency of physician practices could help relieve the rapid growth of US healthcare costs and the expected physician shortage. Radiology practices are an attractive specific focus for research on practices' productivity and efficiency because they are home to many purportedly productivity-enhancing operational technologies. This affords an opportunity to study the effect of production technology on physicians' output. As well, radiology is a leader in the general movement of physicians out of very small practices. And imaging is by the fastest-growing category of physician expenditure. Using data from 2003 to 2007 surveys of radiologists, we estimate a stochastic frontier model to study the effects of practice characteristics, such as work hours, practice size, and output mix, and technologies used in work production, on practices' productivity and efficiency. At the mean, the elasticities of output with respect to practice size and annual hours worked per full-time physician were 0.73 and 0.51, respectively. Some production technologies increase productivity by 15% to 20%; others generate no increase. Using "nighthawks"--ie, contracting out after-hours work to external firms that consolidate workflow--significantly increases practice efficiency. The general US trend toward larger practice size is unlikely to relieve cost or physician shortage pressures. The actual effect of purportedly productivity-enhancing operational technologies needs to be carefully evaluated before they are widely adopted. As the recently-developed innovations of nighthawks and hospitalists show, practices should give more attention to a possible choice to "buy," rather than "make," part of their output.
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Productive efficiency in the banking industry
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Martín Leandro Dutto Giolongo
2016-07-01
Full Text Available The goal of this paper is to estimate the productive efficiency of Argentine banks. For this purpose, panel data of the universe of banks under the supervision of the Central Bank of the Republic of Argentina (BCRA has been collected. In order to build the bank´s indicators, we used a database of 66 institutions, with annual information for the period 2009-2013. The sources of information were both the BCRA´s web site (www.bcra.gov.ar, and the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange´s web site (www.bolsar.com. It has been selected an efficiency indicator ranging between 0 and 1, meaning the lowest and highest level of efficiency, respectively. The concept of efficiency used here is a relative one, because it considers a Bank´s performance in relation to the behavior of the best players in the industry, being the latter the base of the industry benchmark or frontier. The results show that the mean efficiency of Argentine banks is 0,8277 in the specific period under consideration. The comparison with the results of other studies relating efficiency and competitive pressure, didn´t allow us to infer that the Argentine banking industry experienced in the period a high level of competition
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Veysset, P; Lherm, M; Roulenc, M; Troquier, C; Bébin, D
2015-12-01
Over the past 23 years (1990 to 2012), French beef cattle farms have expanded in size and increased labour productivity by over 60%, chiefly, though not exclusively, through capital intensification (labour-capital substitution) and simplifying herd feeding practices (more concentrates used). The technical efficiency of beef sector production systems, as measured by the ratio of the volume value (in constant euros) of farm output excluding aids to volume of intermediate consumption, has fallen by nearly 20% while income per worker has held stable thanks to subsidies and the labour productivity gains made. This aggregate technical efficiency of beef cattle systems is positively correlated to feed self-sufficiency, which is in turn negatively correlated to farm and herd size. While volume of farm output per hectare of agricultural area has not changed, forage feed self-sufficiency decreased by 6 percentage points. The continual increase in farm size and labour productivity has come at a cost of lower production-system efficiency - a loss of technical efficiency that 20 years of genetic, technical, technological and knowledge-driven progress has barely managed to offset.
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Recent Advances in the Sound Insulation Properties of Bio-based Materials
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Xiaodong Zhu
2013-12-01
Full Text Available Many bio-based materials, which have lower environmental impact than traditional synthetic materials, show good sound absorbing and sound insulation performances. This review highlights progress in sound transmission properties of bio-based materials and provides a comprehensive account of various multiporous bio-based materials and multilayered structures used in sound absorption and insulation products. Furthermore, principal models of sound transmission are discussed in order to aid in an understanding of sound transmission properties of bio-based materials. In addition, the review presents discussions on the composite structure optimization and future research in using co-extruded wood plastic composite for sound insulation control. This review contributes to the body of knowledge on the sound transmission properties of bio-based materials, provides a better understanding of the models of some multiporous bio-based materials and multilayered structures, and contributes to the wider adoption of bio-based materials as sound absorbers.
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Recycling ceramic industry wastes in sound absorbing materials
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
C. Arenas
2016-10-01
Full Text Available The scope of this investigation is to develop a material mainly composed (80% w/w of ceramic wastes that can be applied in the manufacture of road traffic noise reducing devices. The characterization of the product has been carried out attending to its acoustic, physical and mechanical properties, by measuring the sound absorption coefficient at normal incidence, the open void ratio, density and compressive strength. Since the sound absorbing behavior of a porous material is related to the size of the pores and the thickness of the specimen tested, the influence of the particle grain size of the ceramic waste and the thickness of the samples tested on the properties of the final product has been analyzed. The results obtained have been compared to a porous concrete made of crushed granite aggregate as a reference commercial material traditionally used in similar applications. Compositions with coarse particles showed greater sound absorption properties than compositions made with finer particles, besides presenting better sound absorption behavior than the reference porous concrete. Therefore, a ceramic waste-based porous concrete can be potentially recycled in the highway noise barriers field.
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ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY OF DIFFERENT PROTECTION TREATMENTS IN APPLE PRODUCTION
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Vesna Tomaš
2015-06-01
Full Text Available Apple is the most represented fruit species in Croatia. Codling moth, Cydia pomonella L, is one of the most important apple pests whose population is growing from year to year. The aim of this study was to determine the economic effectiveness of four treatments against codling moth (1 - based on baculovirus; 2 - based on the group of synthetic pyrethroid; 3 - based on kaolin, 4 - control treatment, on the three apple varieties. The experiment was performed at the Agricultural Institute Osijek, Croatia, during three years (2012-2014. In order to analyze the results of apple production it was necessary to calculate production efficiency, labor productivity, and profitability of production. The results of the research of economic efficiency according to market prices treatment 1 and treatment 2 had economic coefficient above 1 with tendency of significant growth, while treatment 3 and 4 were uneconomical. The treatment 1showed advantage over the treatment 2 because of its positive effects on human health and biodiversity, as well as satisfactory economic efficiency.
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Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Hampf, Benjamin
2011-08-15
In this paper we present a new approach to evaluate the environmental efficiency of decision making units. We propose a model that describes a two-stage process consisting of a production and an end-of-pipe abatement stage with the environmental efficiency being determined by the efficiency of both stages. Taking the dependencies between the two stages into account, we show how nonparametric methods can be used to measure environmental efficiency and to decompose it into production and abatement efficiency. For an empirical illustration we apply our model to an analysis of U.S. power plants.
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Pitch Based Sound Classification
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Nielsen, Andreas Brinch; Hansen, Lars Kai; Kjems, U
2006-01-01
A sound classification model is presented that can classify signals into music, noise and speech. The model extracts the pitch of the signal using the harmonic product spectrum. Based on the pitch estimate and a pitch error measure, features are created and used in a probabilistic model with soft......-max output function. Both linear and quadratic inputs are used. The model is trained on 2 hours of sound and tested on publicly available data. A test classification error below 0.05 with 1 s classification windows is achieved. Further more it is shown that linear input performs as well as a quadratic......, and that even though classification gets marginally better, not much is achieved by increasing the window size beyond 1 s....
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Ultrathin metasurface with high absorptance for waterborne sound
Mei, Jun
2018-01-12
We present a design for an acoustic metasurface which can efficiently absorb low-frequency sound energy in water. The metasurface has a simple structure and consists of only two common materials: i.e., water and silicone rubber. The optimized material and geometrical parameters of the designed metasurface are determined by an analytic formula in conjunction with an iterative process based on the retrieval method. Although the metasurface is as thin as 0.15 of the wavelength, it can absorb 99.7% of the normally incident sound wave energy. Furthermore, the metasurface maintains a substantially high absorptance over a relatively broad bandwidth, and also works well for oblique incidence with an incident angle of up to 50°. Potential applications in the field of underwater sound isolation are expected.
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Economic efficiency of extensive livestock production in the European Union
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Nastić Lana
2017-01-01
Full Text Available Various types of extensive livestock production are present worldwide, primarily in regions where natural resources such as pastures and meadows could be used. Extensive livestock production is common in the EU, as well. Therefore the goal of this research was to establish economic efficiency of extensive livestock production types and to compare their efficiency with some intensive livestock production types. In order to achieve that goal FADN (Farm Accountancy Data Network methodology was used. Source of information was FADN database as well as appropriate sector analysis and publications of European commission. It has been determined that sheep and goat production is competitive with intensive production types (dairy and granivores - pigs and poultry. Cattle production (other than dairy production proved to be economically inefficient due to low output level.
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Light quality and efficiency of consumer grade solid state lighting products
Dam-Hansen, Carsten; Corell, Dennis Dan; Thorseth, Anders; Poulsen, Peter Behrensdorff
2013-03-01
The rapid development in flux and efficiency of Light Emitting Diodes (LED) has resulted in a flooding of the lighting market with Solid State Lighting (SSL) products. Many traditional light sources can advantageously be replaced by SSL products. There are, however, large variations in the quality of these products, and some are not better than the ones they are supposed to replace. A lack of quality demands and standards makes it difficult for consumers to get an overview of the SSL products. Here the results of a two year study investigating SSL products on the Danish market are presented. Focus has been on SSL products for replacement of incandescent lamps and halogen spotlights. The warm white light and good color rendering properties of these traditional light sources are a must for lighting in Denmark and the Nordic countries. 266 SSL replacement lamps have been tested for efficiency and light quality with respect to correlated color temperature and color rendering properties. This shows a trade-off between high color rendering warm white light and energy efficiency. The lumen and color maintenance over time has been investigated and results for products running over 11000 h will be presented. A new internet based SSL product selection tool will be shown. Here the products can be compared on efficiency, light quality parameters, thus providing a better basis for the selection of SSL products for consumers.
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ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY IN TOMATOES PRODUCTION IN GREENHOUSES
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
A POPESCU
2003-07-01
Full Text Available This study aimed to appreciate the evolution of economic efficiency in tomatoes production in greenhouses within a private firm situated next to the capital. The firm owns 4 ha greenhouses and the weight of tomatoes crop in the cultivated area is just 38.75 %. In fact, during the last three years, the tomatoes cultivated surface has been diminished in favour of flowers production which, like tomatoes production is an important income source for any producer. The reduction of the tomatoes cultivated area was compensated by the increase of intensification grade using new high performance hybrids and modern technologies. Thus, the scientific production management has been looking for maintaining the total production at the same level from a year to another by an increased average tomatoes yield by 53.33 % . The continuous increase of farm input price has doubled the cost per surface unit and increased the cost per tomatoes kilogram by 33 %. The increase of tomatoes demand and of market price by 31 % have had a positive influence on the farm incomes which has doubled during the last three years. In the year 2000, the company has obtained USD 41,818 income/ha of which subtracting the related production cost we can easily get USD 4,815 profit/ha. The average profit rate recorded by the firm is 13 % in the period 2000-2002, when the study was made. As a conclusion, tomatoes production in greenhouses is a good deal. To keep a high economic efficiency, under the diminishing of the cultivated area, the producers have to increase average tomatoes production by using high performance technology based on high economic value hybrids.
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Application of Carbon Nanotube Assemblies for Sound Generation and Heat Dissipation
Kozlov, Mikhail; Haines, Carter; Oh, Jiyoung; Lima, Marcio; Fang, Shaoli
2011-03-01
Nanotech approaches were explored for the efficient transformation of an electrical signal into sound, heat, cooling action, and mechanical strain. The studies are based on the aligned arrays of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT forests) that can be grown on various substrates using a conventional CVD technique. They form a three-dimensional conductive network that possesses uncommon electrical, thermal, acoustic and mechanical properties. When heated with an alternating current or a near-IR laser modulated in 0.01--20 kHz range, the nanotube forests produce loud, audible sound. High generated sound pressure and broad frequency response (beyond 20 kHz) show that the forests act as efficient thermo-acoustic (TA) transducers. They can generate intense third and fourth TA harmonics that reveal peculiar interference-like patterns from ac-dc voltage scans. A strong dependence of the patterns on forest height can be used for characterization of carbon nanotube assemblies and for evaluation of properties of thermal interfaces. Because of good coupling with surrounding air, the forests provide excellent dissipation of heat produced by IC chips. Thermoacoustic converters based on forests can be used for thermo- and photo-acoustic sound generation, amplification and noise cancellation.
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Analysis of sound pressure levels emitted by children's toys.
Sleifer, Pricila; Gonçalves, Maiara Santos; Tomasi, Marinês; Gomes, Erissandra
2013-06-01
To verify the levels of sound pressure emitted by non-certified children's toys. Cross-sectional study of sound toys available at popular retail stores of the so-called informal sector. Electronic, mechanical, and musical toys were analyzed. The measurement of each product was carried out by an acoustic engineer in an acoustically isolated booth, by a decibel meter. To obtain the sound parameters of intensity and frequency, the toys were set to produce sounds at a distance of 10 and 50cm from the researcher's ear. The intensity of sound pressure [dB(A)] and the frequency in hertz (Hz) were measured. 48 toys were evaluated. The mean sound pressure 10cm from the ear was 102±10 dB(A), and at 50cm, 94±8 dB(A), with ptoys was above 85dB(A). The frequency ranged from 413 to 6,635Hz, with 56.3% of toys emitting frequency higher than 2,000Hz. The majority of toys assessed in this research emitted a high level of sound pressure.
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Piecewise Loglinear Estimation of Efficient Production Surfaces
Rajiv D. Banker; Ajay Maindiratta
1986-01-01
Linear programming formulations for piecewise loglinear estimation of efficient production surfaces are derived from a set of basic properties postulated for the underlying production possibility sets. Unlike the piecewise linear model of Banker, Charnes, and Cooper (Banker R. D., A. Charnes, W. W. Cooper. 1984. Models for the estimation of technical and scale inefficiencies in data envelopment analysis. Management Sci. 30 (September) 1078--1092.), this approach permits the identification of ...
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Informatics in radiology: Efficiency metrics for imaging device productivity.
Hu, Mengqi; Pavlicek, William; Liu, Patrick T; Zhang, Muhong; Langer, Steve G; Wang, Shanshan; Place, Vicki; Miranda, Rafael; Wu, Teresa Tong
2011-01-01
Acute awareness of the costs associated with medical imaging equipment is an ever-present aspect of the current healthcare debate. However, the monitoring of productivity associated with expensive imaging devices is likely to be labor intensive, relies on summary statistics, and lacks accepted and standardized benchmarks of efficiency. In the context of the general Six Sigma DMAIC (design, measure, analyze, improve, and control) process, a World Wide Web-based productivity tool called the Imaging Exam Time Monitor was developed to accurately and remotely monitor imaging efficiency with use of Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) combined with a picture archiving and communication system. Five device efficiency metrics-examination duration, table utilization, interpatient time, appointment interval time, and interseries time-were derived from DICOM values. These metrics allow the standardized measurement of productivity, to facilitate the comparative evaluation of imaging equipment use and ongoing efforts to improve efficiency. A relational database was constructed to store patient imaging data, along with device- and examination-related data. The database provides full access to ad hoc queries and can automatically generate detailed reports for administrative and business use, thereby allowing staff to monitor data for trends and to better identify possible changes that could lead to improved productivity and reduced costs in association with imaging services. © RSNA, 2011.
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Nonlocal nonlinear coupling of kinetic sound waves
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
O. Lyubchyk
2014-11-01
Full Text Available We study three-wave resonant interactions among kinetic-scale oblique sound waves in the low-frequency range below the ion cyclotron frequency. The nonlinear eigenmode equation is derived in the framework of a two-fluid plasma model. Because of dispersive modifications at small wavelengths perpendicular to the background magnetic field, these waves become a decay-type mode. We found two decay channels, one into co-propagating product waves (forward decay, and another into counter-propagating product waves (reverse decay. All wavenumbers in the forward decay are similar and hence this decay is local in wavenumber space. On the contrary, the reverse decay generates waves with wavenumbers that are much larger than in the original pump waves and is therefore intrinsically nonlocal. In general, the reverse decay is significantly faster than the forward one, suggesting a nonlocal spectral transport induced by oblique sound waves. Even with low-amplitude sound waves the nonlinear interaction rate is larger than the collisionless dissipation rate. Possible applications regarding acoustic waves observed in the solar corona, solar wind, and topside ionosphere are briefly discussed.
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Strategies for environmentally sound economic development
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Duchin, F.; Lange, G.M.
1991-01-01
This paper reports that it has been estimated that the burning of fossil fuels and the clearing of forests account for 6-7 billion tons of carbon emissions each year. Combustion also results in significant emissions of sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides. While the growth in the use of fuels has slowed considerably in the developed regions of North America, western Europe, and Japan over the past decade, pressure for increased energy use and the clearing of forests can be expected with even moderate economic and population growth in the developing regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Researchers at the Institute for Economic Analysis have begun the formulation and analysis of alternative scenarios describing environmentally sound economic development over the next 50 years. These scenarios include activities aimed at improving the standards of living in developing countries while reducing emissions of the aforementioned gases or removing carbon from the atmosphere. Specific alternatives include tropical forestation; the adoption of relatively clean and efficient boilers, especially for the production of electricity in developing countries, as well as greater use of cogeneration systems and hydroelectricity; alternative transportation strategies; and conservation of energy in households of rich and middle-income countries (e.g., efficient lighting fixtures, appliances, and cooling equipment)
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Pectoral sound generation in the blue catfish Ictalurus furcatus.
Mohajer, Yasha; Ghahramani, Zachary; Fine, Michael L
2015-03-01
Catfishes produce pectoral stridulatory sounds by "jerk" movements that rub ridges on the dorsal process against the cleithrum. We recorded sound synchronized with high-speed video to investigate the hypothesis that blue catfish Ictalurus furcatus produce sounds by a slip-stick mechanism, previously described only in invertebrates. Blue catfish produce a variably paced series of sound pulses during abduction sweeps (pulsers) although some individuals (sliders) form longer duration sound units (slides) interspersed with pulses. Typical pulser sounds are evoked by short 1-2 ms movements with a rotation of 2°-3°. Jerks excite sounds that increase in amplitude after motion stops, suggesting constructive interference, which decays before the next jerk. Longer contact of the ridges produces a more steady-state sound in slides. Pulse pattern during stridulation is determined by pauses without movement: the spine moves during about 14 % of the abduction sweep in pulsers (~45 % in sliders) although movement appears continuous to the human eye. Spine rotation parameters do not predict pulse amplitude, but amplitude correlates with pause duration suggesting that force between the dorsal process and cleithrum increases with longer pauses. Sound production, stimulated by a series of rapid movements that set the pectoral girdle into resonance, is caused by a slip-stick mechanism.
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SWEET CORN FARMING: THE EFFECT OF PRODUCTION FACTOR, EFFICIENCY AND RETURN TO SCALE
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Dwijatenaya I.B.M.A.
2017-10-01
Full Text Available This research aims to determine the effect of production factors on the sweet corn production, the efficiency of sweet corn farming, and the return to scale of sweet corn production. The sampling technique was taken by proportionate stratified random sampling method with the sample number of 57 people while the analyzer used was the program of Frointer 4.1c. The results show that the production factors of the land farm, seed, and fertilizer have a positive and significant effect on sweet corn production. On the other hand, labor production factors have a positive but not significant effect on sweet corn production. It also found that technical efficiency, price efficiency, and economic efficiency of sweet corn farming in Muara Wis Sub-district of Kutai Kartanegara Regency are not efficient yet. The return to scale of sweet corn yield has an increasing return to scale condition.
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Eco-efficiency analysis methodology on the example of the chosen polyolefins production
K. Czaplicka-Kolarz; D. Burchart-Korol; P. Krawczyk
2010-01-01
the chosen polyolefins production. The article presents also main tools of eco-efficiency analysis: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Net Present Value (NPV).Design/methodology/approach: On the basis of LCA and NPV of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and low density polyethylene (LDPE) production, eco-efficiency analysis is conducted.Findings: In this article environmental and economic performance of the chosen polyolefins production was presented. The basis phases of eco-efficiency methodology...
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An Efficiency Model For Hydrogen Production In A Pressurized Electrolyzer
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Smoglie, Cecilia; Lauretta, Ricardo
2010-09-15
The use of Hydrogen as clean fuel at a world wide scale requires the development of simple, safe and efficient production and storage technologies. In this work, a methodology is proposed to produce Hydrogen and Oxygen in a self pressurized electrolyzer connected to separate containers that store each of these gases. A mathematical model for Hydrogen production efficiency is proposed to evaluate how such efficiency is affected by parasitic currents in the electrolytic solution. Experimental set-up and results for an electrolyzer are also presented. Comparison of empirical and analytical results shows good agreement.
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THE EFFECT OF EXTERNAL TRANSPORT ON ENERGETIC EFFICIENCY OF BIODIESEL PRODUCTION
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Olga Anna Orynycz
2017-03-01
Full Text Available In several our publications energetic efficiency of biofuel production was defined as a ratio of the amount of energy obtained in a form of biofuel to the sum of energy contributions necessary to conduct production processes on all the production stages. It was also shown that such a definition enables subsequent inclusion of production steps due to additivity of reciprocals of energetic efficiency determined separately for each step. In the present work, several scenarios of the transport of biomass between plantation and industrial facility converting biomass into biofuel are considered, appropriate values of energetic efficiency are computed and compared. The analysis is confined to biodiesel production based on rapeseed. The results show substantial differences caused by various approaches to that stage of transport.
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Improving Farmers' Efficiency in Rice Production In Nigeria: The ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
This paper assesses the effects of extension services on farmers' efficiency and productivity in rice production in Kano State, Nigeria. Data for the study were collected from 126 rice farmers selected using multi stage sampling technique. Stochastic production frontier function was estimated to ascertain the effects of ...
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Grimshaw, Mark; Garner, Tom Alexander
2014-01-01
We make the case in this essay that sound that is imagined is both a perception and as much a sound as that perceived through external stimulation. To argue this, we look at the evidence from auditory science, neuroscience, and philosophy, briefly present some new conceptual thinking on sound...... that accounts for this view, and then use this to look at what the future might hold in the context of imagining sound and developing technology....
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Tool-use-associated sound in the evolution of language.
Larsson, Matz
2015-09-01
Proponents of the motor theory of language evolution have primarily focused on the visual domain and communication through observation of movements. In the present paper, it is hypothesized that the production and perception of sound, particularly of incidental sound of locomotion (ISOL) and tool-use sound (TUS), also contributed. Human bipedalism resulted in rhythmic and more predictable ISOL. It has been proposed that this stimulated the evolution of musical abilities, auditory working memory, and abilities to produce complex vocalizations and to mimic natural sounds. Since the human brain proficiently extracts information about objects and events from the sounds they produce, TUS, and mimicry of TUS, might have achieved an iconic function. The prevalence of sound symbolism in many extant languages supports this idea. Self-produced TUS activates multimodal brain processing (motor neurons, hearing, proprioception, touch, vision), and TUS stimulates primate audiovisual mirror neurons, which is likely to stimulate the development of association chains. Tool use and auditory gestures involve motor processing of the forelimbs, which is associated with the evolution of vertebrate vocal communication. The production, perception, and mimicry of TUS may have resulted in a limited number of vocalizations or protowords that were associated with tool use. A new way to communicate about tools, especially when out of sight, would have had selective advantage. A gradual change in acoustic properties and/or meaning could have resulted in arbitrariness and an expanded repertoire of words. Humans have been increasingly exposed to TUS over millions of years, coinciding with the period during which spoken language evolved. ISOL and tool-use-related sound are worth further exploration.
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Efficient protein production by yeast requires global tuning of metabolism
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Huang, Mingtao; Bao, Jichen; Hallstrom, Bjorn M.
2017-01-01
The biotech industry relies on cell factories for production of pharmaceutical proteins, of which several are among the top-selling medicines. There is, therefore, considerable interest in improving the efficiency of protein production by cell factories. Protein secretion involves numerous...... intracellular processes with many underlying mechanisms still remaining unclear. Here, we use RNA-seq to study the genome-wide transcriptional response to protein secretion in mutant yeast strains. We find that many cellular processes have to be attuned to support efficient protein secretion. In particular...... that by tuning metabolism cells are able to efficiently secrete recombinant proteins. Our findings provide increased understanding of which cellular regulations and pathways are associated with efficient protein secretion....
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Benacchio, Simon; Mamou-Mani, Adrien; Chomette, Baptiste; Finel, Victor
2016-03-01
The vibrational behavior of musical instruments is usually studied using physical modeling and simulations. Recently, active control has proven its efficiency to experimentally modify the dynamical behavior of musical instruments. This approach could also be used as an experimental tool to systematically study fine physical phenomena. This paper proposes to use modal active control as an alternative to sound simulation to study the complex case of the coupling between classical guitar strings and soundboard. A comparison between modal active control and sound simulation investigates the advantages, the drawbacks, and the limits of these two approaches.
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ADDED VALUE AS EFFICIENCY CRITERION FOR INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION PROCESS
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
L. M. Korotkevich
2016-01-01
Full Text Available Literary analysis has shown that the majority of researchers are using classical efficiency criteria for construction of an optimization model for production process: profit maximization; cost minimization; maximization of commercial product output; minimization of back-log for product demand; minimization of total time consumption due to production change. The paper proposes to use an index of added value as an efficiency criterion because it combines economic and social interests of all main interested subjects of the business activity: national government, property owners, employees, investors. The following types of added value have been considered in the paper: joint-stock, market, monetary, economic, notional (gross, net, real. The paper makes suggestion to use an index of real value added as an efficiency criterion. Such approach permits to bring notional added value in comparable variant because added value can be increased not only due to efficiency improvement of enterprise activity but also due to environmental factors – excess in rate of export price increases over rate of import growth. An analysis of methods for calculation of real value added has been made on a country-by-country basis (extrapolation, simple and double deflation. A method of double deflation has been selected on the basis of the executed analysis and it is counted according to the Laspeyires, Paasche, Fischer indices. A conclusion has been made that the used expressions do not take into account fully economic peculiarities of the Republic of Belarus: they are considered as inappropriate in the case when product cost is differentiated according to marketing outlets; they do not take account of difference in rate of several currencies and such approach is reflected in export price of a released product and import price for raw material, supplies and component parts. Taking this into consideration expressions for calculation of real value added have been specified
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Management of efficiency of agricultural production on the basis of ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Management of efficiency of agricultural production on the basis of margin approach. ... Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences ... and systematized to the management of production costs of agricultural products, the proposed definition ...
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Development of an eco-efficient product/process for the vulcanising industry
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Becerra, M. B.
2014-08-01
Full Text Available This paper presents the development of an eco-efficient product/process, which has improved mechanical properties from the introduction of natural fibres in the EPDM (Ethylene-Propylene-Diene-Terpolymer rubber formulation. The optimisation analysis is made by a fractional factorial design 211-7. Different formulations were evaluated using a multi-response desirability function, with the aim of finding efficient levels for the manufacturing time-cycle, improving the mechanical properties of the product, and reducing the raw material costs. The development of an eco-efficient product/process generates a sustainable alternative to conventional manufacturing.
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Essays on pig production efficiency and farmers' financial decisions under uncertainty
Labajova, Katarina.
2018-01-01
Recent structural changes in agricultural production towards fewer, but larger, units pose challenges for farmers in decision making about practical production and about managerial practices to increase efficiency, which are vital for farm productivity and profitability. In studies using mathematical programming and econometric models, this thesis evaluated farm-specific characteristics related to the individual technical efficiency (TE) of each input and output factor and of managerial chara...
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Methodical Approach to Diagnostics of Efficiency of Production Economic Activity of an Enterprise
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Zhukov Andrii V.
2014-03-01
Full Text Available The article offers developments of a methodical approach to diagnostics of efficiency of production economic activity of an enterprise, which, unlike the existing ones, is realised through the following stages: analysis of the enterprise external environment; analysis of the enterprise internal environment; identification of components of efficiency of production economic activity for carrying out complex diagnostics by the following directions: efficiency of subsystems of the enterprise production economic activity, efficiency of use of separate types of resources and socio-economic efficiency; scorecard formation; study of tendencies of change of indicators; identification of cause-effect dependencies between the main components of efficiency for diagnosing reasons of its level; diagnosing deviations of indicator values from their optimal values; development of a managerial decision on preserving and increasing efficiency of production economic activity of the enterprise.
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Giurgiu, I. I.
1974-01-01
The sound insulating capacity of building elements made up of light concretes is considered. Analyzing differentially the behavior of light concrete building elements under the influence of incident acoustic energy and on the basis of experimental measurements, coefficients of correction are introduced into the basic formulas for calculating the sound insulating capacity for the 100-3,2000 Hz frequency band.
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Measurement of sound velocity profiles in fluids for process monitoring
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Wolf, M; Kühnicke, E; Lenz, M; Bock, M
2012-01-01
In ultrasonic measurements, the time of flight to the object interface is often the only information that is analysed. Conventionally it is only possible to determine distances or sound velocities if the other value is known. The current paper deals with a novel method to measure the sound propagation path length and the sound velocity in media with moving scattering particles simultaneously. Since the focal position also depends on sound velocity, it can be used as a second parameter. Via calibration curves it is possible to determine the focal position and sound velocity from the measured time of flight to the focus, which is correlated to the maximum of averaged echo signal amplitude. To move focal position along the acoustic axis, an annular array is used. This allows measuring sound velocity locally resolved without any previous knowledge of the acoustic media and without a reference reflector. In previous publications the functional efficiency of this method was shown for media with constant velocities. In this work the accuracy of these measurements is improved. Furthermore first measurements and simulations are introduced for non-homogeneous media. Therefore an experimental set-up was created to generate a linear temperature gradient, which also causes a gradient of sound velocity.
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Energy sources consumption: end uses, efficiency and productivity
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Martin, J.M.
2005-01-01
This document analyzes the impact of the choices made by all actors, from the energy producers to the process and infrastructure designers and the end users, in the evolution of energy consumptions. Some very little improvements made in the energy efficiency of appliances can become equivalent to the production of several oil fields or power plants at the world scale. More efficient energy uses will not replace the additional productions but they must be considered together to be compared. The energy files are first analyzed as a whole in order to show the hidden field of energy choices. In this framework, users, designers and fitters have to face very different choices because they consider efficiency improvements under different aspects: scientifical, technical, economical and social (public information and habits). These differences in efficiency uses have a time and spatial impact on the growth of energy consumption. The economical and social factors influence the collective way to consume energy and are expressed by the energy intensity of the economic activity. The last part of this document analyzes the influence of this notion on the world energy consumption scenarios at the 2050 prospects. (J.S.)
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Measurement of the velocity of sound in crystals by pulsed neutron diffraction
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Willis, B.T.M.; Carlile, C.J.; Ward, R.C.; David, W.I.F.; Johnson, M.W.
1986-03-01
The diffraction method of observing elementary excitations in crystals has been applied to the study of one-phonon thermal diffuse scattering from pyrolytic graphite on a high resolution pulsed neutron diffractometer. The variation of the phase velocity of sound as a function of direction in the crystal and efficient method of determining sound velocities in crystals under extreme conditions. (author)
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International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Radicke, Marcus
2009-01-01
The method presented in this thesis combines ultrasound techniques with the magnetic-resonance tomography (MRT). An ultrasonic wave generates in absorbing media a static force in sound-propagation direction. The force leads at sound intensities of some W/cm 2 and a sound frequency in the lower MHz range to a tissue shift in the micrometer range. This tissue shift depends on the sound power, the sound frequency, the sound absorption, and the elastic properties of the tissue. A MRT sequence of the Siemens Healthcare AG was modified so that it measures (indirectly) the tissue shift, codes as grey values, and presents as 2D picture. By means of the grey values the sound-beam slope in the tissue can be visualized, and so additionally sound obstacles (changes of the sound impedance) can be detected. By the MRT images token up spatial changes of the tissue parameters sound absorption and elasticity can be detected. In this thesis measurements are presented, which show the feasibility and future chances of this method especially for the mammary-cancer diagnostics. [de
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Evaluation of the efficiency of alternative enzyme production technologies
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Albæk, Mads Orla
Enzymes are used in an increasing number of industries. The application of enzymes is extending into the production of lignocellulosic ethanol in processes that economically can compete with fossil fuels. Since lignocellulosic ethanol is based on renewable resources it will have a positive impact...... production of cellulases and hemi-cellulases. The aim of the thesiswas to use modeling tools to identify alternative technologies that have higher energy or raw material efficiency than the current technology. The enzyme production by T. reesei was conducted as an aerobic fed-batch fermentation. The process...... of the uncertainty and sensitivity of the model indicated the biological parameters to be responsible for most of the model uncertainty. A number of alternative fermentation technologies for enzyme production were identified in the open literature. Their mass transfer capabilities and their energy efficiencies were...
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Efficient promotion of electricity production from offshore wind
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Panzer, Christian; Auer, Hans; Lettner, Georg
2014-01-01
Efficient promotion of electricity production from offshore wind stands in dynamic relationship with various influence factors, the most important of which are promotion instruments, topographic givens, regulation of grid connection, and supraregional market integration concepts. Using three case studies from different countries to highlight national differences in the promotion of offshore wind power plants the present analysis points out ways of improving the efficiency of promotion instruments.
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A system for heart sounds classification.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Grzegorz Redlarski
Full Text Available The future of quick and efficient disease diagnosis lays in the development of reliable non-invasive methods. As for the cardiac diseases - one of the major causes of death around the globe - a concept of an electronic stethoscope equipped with an automatic heart tone identification system appears to be the best solution. Thanks to the advancement in technology, the quality of phonocardiography signals is no longer an issue. However, appropriate algorithms for auto-diagnosis systems of heart diseases that could be capable of distinguishing most of known pathological states have not been yet developed. The main issue is non-stationary character of phonocardiography signals as well as a wide range of distinguishable pathological heart sounds. In this paper a new heart sound classification technique, which might find use in medical diagnostic systems, is presented. It is shown that by combining Linear Predictive Coding coefficients, used for future extraction, with a classifier built upon combining Support Vector Machine and Modified Cuckoo Search algorithm, an improvement in performance of the diagnostic system, in terms of accuracy, complexity and range of distinguishable heart sounds, can be made. The developed system achieved accuracy above 93% for all considered cases including simultaneous identification of twelve different heart sound classes. The respective system is compared with four different major classification methods, proving its reliability.
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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.
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Profitability and Technical Efficiency of Soybean Production in Northern Nigeria
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ugbabe, OO.
2017-01-01
Full Text Available The International Institute of Tropical Agriculture and collaborating partners have been introducing and disseminating short season soybean varieties among farm households in the Sudan savannas of Northern Nigeria since 2008. Yet, there is no empirical information on the profitability and technical efficiency of soybean production. This study estimated the profitability and efficiency of production of the early maturing soybean. Nine hundred soybean farming households in thirty communities from three Local Government Areas (LGAs in Kano State were sampled for the study. Partial budget technique and stochastic frontier production function were used to analyze the data elicited from the sampled farm households. Results from the study established the profitability of soybean production in all the three LGAs of Kano State. The highest profit of N178,613/ha and returns per naira invested of 2.5 respectively was earned by the soybean producing households of Dawakin-Tofa LGA. Net profit was N157,261in Shanono with a returns of 1.75 per naira invested. In Bunkure, net benefit was N143,342 with returns of 1.66 per Naira invested. The mean technical efficiency was highest for the Dawakin-Tofa LGA soybean growing households (87%, followed by Bunkure LGA (68%, and Shanono LGA (59%. This result implies that given the current level of resources available to the soybean producing households, they can increase their soybean output in the short run by a margin 13%, 32% and 41% in Dawakin-Tofa, Bunkure and Shanono LGAs respectively through efficient utilization of their available resources. Farmer-specific efficiency factors, which comprise age, education, access to credit, extension contact and farming experience, were found to be the significant factors that account for the observed variation in efficiency among the farmers in the 3 LGAs. It was recommended that the soybean farmers through the assistance of extension agents should be encouraged to adhere
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Resource use efficiency in small-scale rice production in Nigeria ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
The production function for rice, elasticity of production, return to scale, marginal productivity and level of efficiency of inputs used in rice production were determined. ... With the exception of fertilizer that was over-utilized, all other inputs were underutilized with ratios of marginal value products to unit prices greater than unity ...
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Analysis of the drilling sound in maxillo-facial surgery
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Hoffmann, Pablo F.; Gosselin, Florian; Taha, Farid
2009-01-01
Auditory feedback can have a great potential in surgical simulators that aim at training skills associated to the correct interpretation of acoustic information. Here, we present a preliminary analysis of the sound that is produced by the drilling procedure in a maxillo-facial surgery when...... performed by expert surgeons. The motivation of this work is to find relevant acoustic parameters that allow for an efficient synthesis method of the drilling sound and to set the basis of the audio component in the simulator so that expert surgical drilling can effectively be conveyed to users...
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Lawson, L G; Bruun, J; Coelli, T; Agger, J F; Lund, M
2004-01-01
Relationships of various reproductive disorders and milk production performance of Danish dairy farms were investigated. A stochastic frontier production function was estimated using data collected in 1998 from 514 Danish dairy farms. Measures of farm-level milk production efficiency relative to this production frontier were obtained, and relationships between milk production efficiency and the incidence risk of reproductive disorders were examined. There were moderate positive relationships between milk production efficiency and retained placenta, induction of estrus, uterine infections, ovarian cysts, and induction of birth. Inclusion of reproductive management variables showed that these moderate relationships disappeared, but directions of coefficients for almost all those variables remained the same. Dystocia showed a weak negative correlation with milk production efficiency. Farms that were mainly managed by young farmers had the highest average efficiency scores. The estimated milk losses due to inefficiency averaged 1142, 488, and 256 kg of energy-corrected milk per cow, respectively, for low-, medium-, and high-efficiency herds. It is concluded that the availability of younger cows, which enabled farmers to replace cows with reproductive disorders, contributed to high cow productivity in efficient farms. Thus, a high replacement rate more than compensates for the possible negative effect of reproductive disorders. The use of frontier production and efficiency/inefficiency functions to analyze herd data may enable dairy advisors to identify inefficient herds and to simulate the effect of alternative management procedures on the individual herd's efficiency.
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Environmental policy and the energy efficiency of vertically differentiated consumer products
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Brzeskot, Magdalena; Haupt, Alexander
2013-01-01
We analyse optimal environmental policies in a market that is vertically differentiated in terms of the energy efficiency of products. Considering energy taxes, subsidies to firms for investment in more eco-friendly products, and product standards, we are particularly interested in how distributional goals in addition to environmental goals shape the choice of policy instruments. We find that an industry-friendly government levies an energy tax to supplement a lax product standard, but shies away from subsidies to firms. By contrast, a consumer-friendly government relies heavily on a strict product standard and additionally implements a moderate subsidy to firms, but avoids energy taxes. - Highlights: ► We analyse how distributional goals shape environmental policy. ► Firms invest in the energy efficiency of their products and compete in prices. ► An industry-friendly government implements an energy tax and a lax product standard. ► A consumer-friendly government chooses a subsidy to firms instead of an energy tax. ► A consumer-friendly government implements a strict energy efficiency standard
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Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Reichel, Thomas; Ruenger, Gudula; Steger, Daniel; Xu, Haibin
2010-07-07
The development of low-cost, energy-saving and resources-saving products is increasingly important. Thecalculation of the life cycle cost is an important basis for this. For this, it is necessary to extract empirical, decision-relevant data from IT systems of product development (e.g. product data management systems) and operation (e.g. enterprise resource planning systems), and to give the planner appropriate methods for data aggregation. Life cycle data are particularly important for optimising energy efficiency, which may be achieved either by enhanced productivity at constant energy consumption or by reduced energy consumption at constant productivity. The report presents an IT view of the product development process. First, modern methods of product development are analysed including IT support and IT systems. Requirements on IT systems are formulated which enable energy efficiency assessment and optimisation in all phases of product development on the basis of the IT systems used. IT systems for energy-sensitive product development will support the construction engineer in the development of energy-efficient products. For this, the functionalities of existing PDM systems must be enhanced by methods of analysis, synthesis and energy efficiency assessment. Finally, it is shown how the methods for analyzing energy-relevant data can be integrated in the work flow.
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Production Efficiency Audit on Tea Beverage Agroindustry
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Hendra Adiyatna, . Marimin
2001-04-01
Full Text Available The objective of this work was to investigate and to apply economic efficiency performance measurement methods for tea beverage agroindustry. These measurements were based on twelve technique and economic efficiency criteria, which illustrate the condition of the processes. This illustration was able to explain the material and the energy utilization, variance of the processes and product, handling of the waste and acceptance in the market. The methodology was divided into three steps: (1 defining the technique and the economic criteria, appropriate to the circumstance of the processes, (2 state efficiency the level status, (3 evaluation and structure prioritizing of the processes improvement alternatives. The results of this work indicates that there are seven appropriate criteria. The status of the efficiency is in the medium level. The improvement priorities recommended include optimization of material and energy usage and minimization of breaktime of the critical processes
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Development of Prediction Tool for Sound Absorption and Sound Insulation for Sound Proof Properties
Yoshio Kurosawa; Takao Yamaguchi
2015-01-01
High frequency automotive interior noise above 500 Hz considerably affects automotive passenger comfort. To reduce this noise, sound insulation material is often laminated on body panels or interior trim panels. For a more effective noise reduction, the sound reduction properties of this laminated structure need to be estimated. We have developed a new calculate tool that can roughly calculate the sound absorption and insulation properties of laminate structure and handy ...
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Parameterizing Sound: Design Considerations for an Environmental Sound Database
2015-04-01
associated with, or produced by, a physical event or human activity and 2) sound sources that are common in the environment. Reproductions or sound...Rogers S. Confrontation naming of environmental sounds. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology . 2000;22(6):830–864. 14 VanDerveer NJ
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Methionine supplementation in the productive efficiency, carcass ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
The effect of dietary methionine supplementation at varying levels on the productive efficiency, carcass characteristics and economics of growing indigenous turkey was investigated. Four Isocaloric and Isonitrogenous diets were formulated. The diets were supplemented with 0.00%, 0.05%, 0.10%, and 0.15% respectively.
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Labour productivity and resource use efficiency amongst ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
The study examined labour productivity and resource efficiency amongst smallholder cocoa farmers in Abia State, Nigeria. A purposive random sampling technique was adopted in selecting 60 cocoa farmers from three agricultural zones in the State. The analytical techniques used involve inferential statistics like means, ...
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Strategies of Production Control as Tools of Efficient Management of Production Enterprises
Budynek, Mateusz; Celińska, Elżbieta; Dybikowska, Adrianna; Kozak, Monika; Ratajczak, Joanna; Urban, Jagoda; Materne, Karolina
2016-03-01
The paper discusses the problem of principle methods of production control as a strategy supporting the production system and stimulating efficient solutions in respect management in production enterprises. The article describes MRP, ERP, JIT, KANBAN and TOC methods and focuses on their main goals, principles of functioning as well as benefits resulting from their application. The methods represent two diverse strategies of production control, i.e. pull and push strategies. Push strategies are used when the plans apply to the first and principle part of production and are based on the demand forecasts. Pull strategies are used when all planning decisions apply to the final stage and depend on the actual demand or orders from customers.
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Making fictions sound real - On film sound, perceptual realism and genre
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Birger Langkjær
2010-05-01
Full Text Available This article examines the role that sound plays in making fictions perceptually real to film audiences, whether these fictions are realist or non-realist in content and narrative form. I will argue that some aspects of film sound practices and the kind of experiences they trigger are related to basic rules of human perception, whereas others are more properly explained in relation to how aesthetic devices, including sound, are used to characterise the fiction and thereby make it perceptually real to its audience. Finally, I will argue that not all genres can be defined by a simple taxonomy of sounds. Apart from an account of the kinds of sounds that typically appear in a specific genre, a genre analysis of sound may also benefit from a functionalist approach that focuses on how sounds can make both realist and non-realist aspects of genres sound real to audiences.
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Making fictions sound real - On film sound, perceptual realism and genre
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Birger Langkjær
2009-09-01
Full Text Available This article examines the role that sound plays in making fictions perceptually real to film audiences, whether these fictions are realist or non-realist in content and narrative form. I will argue that some aspects of film sound practices and the kind of experiences they trigger are related to basic rules of human perception, whereas others are more properly explained in relation to how aesthetic devices, including sound, are used to characterise the fiction and thereby make it perceptually real to its audience. Finally, I will argue that not all genres can be defined by a simple taxonomy of sounds. Apart from an account of the kinds of sounds that typically appear in a specific genre, a genre analysis of sound may also benefit from a functionalist approach that focuses on how sounds can make both realist and non-realist aspects of genres sound real to audiences.
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Acoustic analysis of trill sounds.
Dhananjaya, N; Yegnanarayana, B; Bhaskararao, Peri
2012-04-01
In this paper, the acoustic-phonetic characteristics of steady apical trills--trill sounds produced by the periodic vibration of the apex of the tongue--are studied. Signal processing methods, namely, zero-frequency filtering and zero-time liftering of speech signals, are used to analyze the excitation source and the resonance characteristics of the vocal tract system, respectively. Although it is natural to expect the effect of trilling on the resonances of the vocal tract system, it is interesting to note that trilling influences the glottal source of excitation as well. The excitation characteristics derived using zero-frequency filtering of speech signals are glottal epochs, strength of impulses at the glottal epochs, and instantaneous fundamental frequency of the glottal vibration. Analysis based on zero-time liftering of speech signals is used to study the dynamic resonance characteristics of vocal tract system during the production of trill sounds. Qualitative analysis of trill sounds in different vowel contexts, and the acoustic cues that may help spotting trills in continuous speech are discussed.
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Roots, plant production and nutrient use efficiency
Willigen, de P.; Noordwijk, van M.
1987-01-01
The role of roots in obtaining high crop production levels as well as a high nutrient use efficiency is discussed. Mathematical models of diffusion and massflow of solutes towards roots are developed for a constant daily uptake requirement. Analytical solutions are given for simple and more
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An intelligent artificial throat with sound-sensing ability based on laser induced graphene
Tao, Lu-Qi; Tian, He; Liu, Ying; Ju, Zhen-Yi; Pang, Yu; Chen, Yuan-Quan; Wang, Dan-Yang; Tian, Xiang-Guang; Yan, Jun-Chao; Deng, Ning-Qin; Yang, Yi; Ren, Tian-Ling
2017-02-01
Traditional sound sources and sound detectors are usually independent and discrete in the human hearing range. To minimize the device size and integrate it with wearable electronics, there is an urgent requirement of realizing the functional integration of generating and detecting sound in a single device. Here we show an intelligent laser-induced graphene artificial throat, which can not only generate sound but also detect sound in a single device. More importantly, the intelligent artificial throat will significantly assist for the disabled, because the simple throat vibrations such as hum, cough and scream with different intensity or frequency from a mute person can be detected and converted into controllable sounds. Furthermore, the laser-induced graphene artificial throat has the advantage of one-step fabrication, high efficiency, excellent flexibility and low cost, and it will open practical applications in voice control, wearable electronics and many other areas.
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Biomass production efficiency controlled by management in temperate and boreal ecosystems
Campioli, M.; Vicca, S.; Luyssaert, S.; Bilcke, J.; Ceschia, E.; Chapin, F.S. III; Ciais, P.; Fernández-Martínez, M.; Malhi, Y.; Obersteiner, M.; Olefeldt, D.; Papale, D.; Piao, S.L.; Peñuelas, J.; Sullivan, P. F.; Wang, X.; Zenone, T.; Janssens, I.A.
2015-01-01
Plants acquire carbon through photosynthesis to sustain biomass production, autotrophic respiration and production of non-structural compounds for multiple purposes. The fraction of photosynthetic production used for biomass production, the biomass production efficiency, is a key determinant of the
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Measuring efficiency of cotton cultivation in Pakistan: a restricted production frontier study.
Watto, Muhammad Arif; Mugera, Amin
2014-11-01
Massive groundwater pumping for irrigation has started lowering water tables rapidly in different regions of Pakistan. Declining water tables have thus prompted research efforts to improve agricultural productivity and efficiency to make efficient use of scarce water resources. This study employs a restricted stochastic production frontier to estimate the level of, and factors affecting, technical efficiency of groundwater-irrigated cotton farms in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The mean technical efficiency estimates indicate substantial technical inefficiencies among cotton growers. On average, tube-well owners and water buyers can potentially increase cotton production by 19% and 28%, respectively, without increasing the existing input level. The most influential factors affecting technical efficiency positively are the use of improved quality seed, consultation with extension field staff and farmers' perceptions concerning the availability of groundwater resources for irrigation in the future. This study proposes that adopting improved seed for new cotton varieties and providing better extension services regarding cotton production technology would help to achieve higher efficiency in cotton farming. Within the context of falling water tables, educating farmers about the actual crop water requirements and guiding them about groundwater resource availability may also help to achieve higher efficiencies. © 2014 Society of Chemical Industry. © 2014 Society of Chemical Industry.
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Productive efficiency of tea industry: A stochastic frontier approach ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
In an economy where recourses are scarce and opportunities for a new technology are lacking, studies will be able to show the possibility of raising productivity by improving the industry's efficiency. This study attempts to measure the status of technical efficiency of tea-producing industry for panel data in Bangladesh using ...
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Efficient recombinant production of prodigiosin in Pseudomonas putida
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Andreas eDomröse
2015-09-01
Full Text Available Serratia marcescens and several other bacteria produce the red-colored pigment prodigiosin which possesses bioactivities as an antimicrobial, anticancer and immunosuppressive agent. Therefore, there is a great interest to produce this natural compound. Efforts aiming at its biotechnological production have so far largely focused on the original producer and opportunistic human pathogen S. marcescens. Here, we demonstrate efficient prodigiosin production in the heterologous host Pseudomonas putida. Random chromosomal integration of the 21 kb prodigiosin biosynthesis gene cluster of S. marcescens in P. putida KT2440 was employed to construct constitutive prodigiosin production strains. Standard cultivation parameters were optimized such that titers of 94 mg/L culture were obtained upon growth of P. putida at 20 °C using rich medium under high aeration conditions. Subsequently, a novel, fast and effective protocol for prodigiosin extraction and purification was established enabling the straightforward isolation of prodigiosin from P. putida growth medium. In summary, we describe here a highly efficient method for the heterologous biosynthetic production of prodigiosin which may serve as a basis to produce large amounts of this bioactive natural compound and may provide a platform for further in-depth studies of prodiginine biosynthesis.
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Fuchs, H. V.; Möser, M.
Sound absorption indicates the transformation of sound energy into heat. It is, for instance, employed to design the acoustics in rooms. The noise emitted by machinery and plants shall be reduced before arriving at a workplace; auditoria such as lecture rooms or concert halls require a certain reverberation time. Such design goals are realised by installing absorbing components at the walls with well-defined absorption characteristics, which are adjusted for corresponding demands. Sound absorbers also play an important role in acoustic capsules, ducts and screens to avoid sound immission from noise intensive environments into the neighbourhood.
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Influence of visual stimuli on the sound quality evaluation of loudspeaker systems
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Karandreas, Theodoros-Alexandros; Christensen, Flemming
Product sound quality evaluation aims to identify relevant attributes and assess their influence on the overall auditory impression. Extending this sound specific rationale, the present study evaluates overall impression in relation to hearing and vision, specifically for loudspeakers. In order...... to quantify the bias that the image of a loudspeaker has on the sound quality evaluation of a naive listening panel, loudspeaker sounds of varied degradation are coupled with positively or negatively biasing visual input of actual loudspeakers, and in a separate experiment by pictures of the same loudspeakers....
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Efficiency in energy production and consumption
Kellogg, Ryan Mayer
This dissertation deals with economic efficiency in the energy industry and consists of three parts. The first examines how joint experience between pairs of firms working together in oil and gas drilling improves productivity. Part two asks whether oil producers time their drilling optimally by taking real options effects into consideration. Finally, I investigate the efficiency with which energy is consumed, asking whether extending Daylight Saving Time (DST) reduces electricity use. The chapter "Learning by Drilling: Inter-Firm Learning and Relationship Persistence in the Texas Oilpatch" examines how oil production companies and the drilling rigs they hire improve drilling productivity by learning through joint experience. I find that the joint productivity of a lead firm and its drilling contractor is enhanced significantly as they accumulate experience working together. Moreover, this result is robust to other relationship specificities and standard firm-specific learning-by-doing effects. The second chapter, "Drill Now or Drill Later: The Effect of Expected Volatility on Investment," investigates the extent to which firms' drilling behavior accords with a key prescription of real options theory: irreversible investments such as drilling should be deferred when the expected volatility of the investments' payoffs increases. I combine detailed data on oil drilling with expectations of future oil price volatility that I derive from the NYMEX futures options market. Conditioning on expected price levels, I find that oil production companies significantly reduce the number of wells they drill when expected price volatility is high. I conclude with "Daylight Time and Energy: Evidence from an Australian Experiment," co-authored with Hendrik Wolff. This chapter assesses DST's impact on electricity demand using a quasi-experiment in which parts of Australia extended DST in 2000 to facilitate the Sydney Olympics. We show that the extension did not reduce overall
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An analysis of the productivity and technical efficiency of smallholder ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
This study used the stochastic frontier production function to analyse the productivity and technical efficiency of 4 different agricultural production systems in Ethiopia; namely, irrigated seasonal farms on traditional irrigation systems, irrigated seasonal farms on modern communal irrigation systems, rainfed seasonal farms for ...
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STRATEGIES OF PRODUCTION CONTROL AS TOOLS OF EFFICIENT MANAGEMENT OF PRODUCTION ENTERPRISES
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Mateusz BUDYNEK
2016-01-01
Full Text Available The paper discusses the problem of principle methods of production control as a strategy supporting the production system and stimulating efficient solutions in respect management in production enterprises. The article describes MRP, ERP, JIT, KANBAN and TOC methods and focuses on their main goals, principles of functioning as well as benefits re-sulting from their application. The methods represent two diverse strategies of production control, i.e. pull and push strategies. Push strategies are used when the plans apply to the first and principle part of production and are based on the demand forecasts. Pull strategies are used when all planning decisions apply to the final stage and depend on the actual demand or orders from customers.
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Deal, Walter F., III
2007-01-01
Sound provides and offers amazing insights into the world. Sound waves may be defined as mechanical energy that moves through air or other medium as a longitudinal wave and consists of pressure fluctuations. Humans and animals alike use sound as a means of communication and a tool for survival. Mammals, such as bats, use ultrasonic sound waves to…
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High efficiency power production from biomass and waste
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Rabou, L.P.L.M.; Van Leijenhorst, R.J.C.; Hazewinkel, J.H.O. [ECN Biomass, Coal and Environment, Petten (Netherlands)
2008-11-15
Two-stage gasification allows power production from biomass and waste with high efficiency. The process involves pyrolysis at about 550C followed by heating of the pyrolysis gas to about 1300C in order to crack hydrocarbons and obtain syngas, a mixture of H2, CO, H2O and CO2. The second stage produces soot as unwanted by-product. Experimental results are reported on the suppression of soot formation in the second stage for two different fuels: beech wood pellets and Rofire pellets, made from rejects of paper recycling. Syngas obtained from these two fuels and from an industrial waste fuel has been cleaned and fed to a commercial SOFC stack for 250 hours in total. The SOFC stack showed comparable performance on real and synthetic syngas and no signs of accelerated degradation in performance over these tests. The experimental results have been used for the design and analysis of a future 25 MWth demonstration plant. As an alternative, a 2.6 MWth system was considered which uses the Green MoDem approach to convert waste fuel into bio-oil and syngas. The 25 MWth system can reach high efficiency only if char produced in the pyrolysis step is converted into additional syngas by steam gasification, and if SOFC off-gas and system waste heat are used in a steam bottoming cycle for additional power production. A net electrical efficiency of 38% is predicted. In addition, heat can be delivered with 37% efficiency. The 2.6 MWth system with only a dual fuel engine to burn bio-oil and syngas promises nearly 40% electrical efficiency plus 41% efficiency for heat production. If syngas is fed to an SOFC system and off-gas and bio-oil to a dual fuel engine, the electrical efficiency can rise to 45%. However, the efficiency for heat production drops to 15%, as waste heat from the SOFC system cannot be used effectively. The economic analysis makes clear that at -20 euro/tonne fuel, 70 euro/MWh for electricity and 7 euro/GJ for heat the 25 MWth system is not economically viable at the
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Dynamic Assessment of Phonological Awareness for Children with Speech Sound Disorders
Gillam, Sandra Laing; Ford, Mikenzi Bentley
2012-01-01
The current study was designed to examine the relationships between performance on a nonverbal phoneme deletion task administered in a dynamic assessment format with performance on measures of phoneme deletion, word-level reading, and speech sound production that required verbal responses for school-age children with speech sound disorders (SSDs).…
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Abnormal sound detection device
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Yamada, Izumi; Matsui, Yuji.
1995-01-01
Only components synchronized with rotation of pumps are sampled from detected acoustic sounds, to judge the presence or absence of abnormality based on the magnitude of the synchronized components. A synchronized component sampling means can remove resonance sounds and other acoustic sounds generated at a synchronously with the rotation based on the knowledge that generated acoustic components in a normal state are a sort of resonance sounds and are not precisely synchronized with the number of rotation. On the other hand, abnormal sounds of a rotating body are often caused by compulsory force accompanying the rotation as a generation source, and the abnormal sounds can be detected by extracting only the rotation-synchronized components. Since components of normal acoustic sounds generated at present are discriminated from the detected sounds, reduction of the abnormal sounds due to a signal processing can be avoided and, as a result, abnormal sound detection sensitivity can be improved. Further, since it is adapted to discriminate the occurrence of the abnormal sound from the actually detected sounds, the other frequency components which are forecast but not generated actually are not removed, so that it is further effective for the improvement of detection sensitivity. (N.H.)
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Kok, Annebelle C M; Engelberts, J Pamela; Kastelein, Ronald A; Helder-Hoek, Lean; Van de Voorde, Shirley; Visser, Fleur; Slabbekoorn, Hans
2018-02-01
The continuing rise in underwater sound levels in the oceans leads to disturbance of marine life. It is thought that one of the main impacts of sound exposure is the alteration of foraging behaviour of marine species, for example by deterring animals from a prey location, or by distracting them while they are trying to catch prey. So far, only limited knowledge is available on both mechanisms in the same species. The harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) is a relatively small marine mammal that could quickly suffer fitness consequences from a reduction of foraging success. To investigate effects of anthropogenic sound on their foraging efficiency, we tested whether experimentally elevated sound levels would deter two captive harbour porpoises from a noisy pool into a quiet pool (Experiment 1) and reduce their prey-search performance, measured as prey-search time in the noisy pool (Experiment 2). Furthermore, we tested the influence of the temporal structure and amplitude of the sound on the avoidance response of both animals. Both individuals avoided the pool with elevated sound levels, but they did not show a change in search time for prey when trying to find a fish hidden in one of three cages. The combination of temporal structure and SPL caused variable patterns. When the sound was intermittent, increased SPL caused increased avoidance times. When the sound was continuous, avoidance was equal for all SPLs above a threshold of 100 dB re 1 μPa. Hence, we found no evidence for an effect of sound exposure on search efficiency, but sounds of different temporal patterns did cause spatial avoidance with distinct dose-response patterns. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Nonlinear effects in the damping of third-sound pulses
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Browne, D.A.
1984-01-01
We show that nonlinearities in the equations of motion for a third-sound pulse in a thick superfluid film lead to the production of short-wavelength solitons. The soliton damping arises from viscous stresses in the film, rather than from coupling to thermal currents in the vapor and the substrate as in the hydrodynamic regime. These solitons are more strongly damped than a long-wavelength third-sound wave and lead to a larger attenuation of the pulse. We show that this mechanism can account for the discrepancy between attenuation calculated theoretically for the long-wavelength limit and the experimentally observed attenuation of low-amplitude third-sound pulses
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AN ESTIMATION OF TECHNICAL EFFICIENCY OF GARLIC PRODUCTION IN KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA PAKISTAN
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Nabeel Hussain
2014-04-01
Full Text Available This study was conducted to estimate the technical efficiency of farmers in garlic production in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan. Data was randomly collected from 110 farmers using multistage sampling technique. Maximum likelihood estimation technique was used to estimate Cob-Douglas frontier production function. The analysis revealed that the estimated mean technical efficiency was 77 percent indicating that total output can be further increased with efficient use of resources and technology. The estimated gamma value was found to be 0.93 which shows 93% variation in garlic output due to inefficiency factors. The analysis further revealed that seed rate, tractor hours, fertilizer, FYM and weedicides were positive and statistically significant production factors. The results also show that age and education were statistically significant inefficiency factors, age having positive and education having negative relationship with the output of garlic. This study suggests that in order to increase the production of garlic by taking advantage of their high efficiency level, the government should invest in the research and development aspects for introducing good quality seeds to increase garlic productivity and should organize training programs to educate farmers about garlic production.
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Sound Synthesis of the Harpsichord Using a Computationally Efficient Physical Model
Vesa Välimäki; Henri Penttinen; Mikael Laurson; Jonte Knif; Cumhur Erkut
2004-01-01
A sound synthesis algorithm for the harpsichord has been developed by applying the principles of digital waveguide modeling. A modification to the loss filter of the string model is introduced that allows more flexible control of decay rates of partials than is possible with a one-pole digital filter, which is a usual choice for the loss filter. A version of the commuted waveguide synthesis approach is used, where each tone is generated with a parallel combination of the string model and a s...
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Cavitating Orifice: Flow regime transitions and low frequency sound production
Testud, P.; Moussou, P.; Hirschberg, A.; Aurégan, Y.
2005-01-01
Detailed data are provided for the broadband noise in a cavitating pipe flow through a circular orifice in water. Experiments are performed under industrial conditions, i.e., with a pressure drop varying from 3 to 30 bars and a cavitation number in the range 0.10 = s = 0.77. The speed of sound
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Cambridge journals blog: Improving feed efficiency in dairy production
Because the cost of feeding animals is one of the greatest expenses in dairy production (40-60% of production costs), research focused on ways to identify and select for animals that are the most efficient at converting feed into milk has greatly expanded during the last decade. The animal Article o...
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
2006-01-01
Sound search is provided by the major search engines, however, indexing is text based, not sound based. We will establish a dedicated sound search services with based on sound feature indexing. The current demo shows the concept of the sound search engine. The first engine will be realased June...
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Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Brandenberger, Jill M.; Louchouarn, Patrick; Kuo, Li-Jung; Crecelius, Eric A.; Cullinan, Valerie I.; Gill, Gary A.; Garland, Charity R.; Williamson, J. B.; Dhammapala, R.
2010-07-05
The results of the Phase 1 Toxics Loading study suggested that runoff from the land surface and atmospheric deposition directly to marine waters have resulted in considerable loads of contaminants to Puget Sound (Hart Crowser et al. 2007). The limited data available for atmospheric deposition fluxes throughout Puget Sound was recognized as a significant data gap. Therefore, this study provided more recent or first reported atmospheric deposition fluxes of PAHs, PBDEs, and select trace elements for Puget Sound. Samples representing bulk atmospheric deposition were collected during 2008 and 2009 at seven stations around Puget Sound spanning from Padilla Bay south to Nisqually River including Hood Canal and the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Revised annual loading estimates for atmospheric deposition to the waters of Puget Sound were calculated for each of the toxics and demonstrated an overall decrease in the atmospheric loading estimates except for polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and total mercury (THg). The median atmospheric deposition flux of total PBDE (7.0 ng/m2/d) was higher than that of the Hart Crowser (2007) Phase 1 estimate (2.0 ng/m2/d). The THg was not significantly different from the original estimates. The median atmospheric deposition flux for pyrogenic PAHs (34.2 ng/m2/d; without TCB) shows a relatively narrow range across all stations (interquartile range: 21.2- 61.1 ng/m2/d) and shows no influence of season. The highest median fluxes for all parameters were measured at the industrial location in Tacoma and the lowest were recorded at the rural sites in Hood Canal and Sequim Bay. Finally, a semi-quantitative apportionment study permitted a first-order characterization of source inputs to the atmosphere of the Puget Sound. Both biomarker ratios and a principal component analysis confirmed regional data from the Puget Sound and Straits of Georgia region and pointed to the predominance of biomass and fossil fuel (mostly liquid petroleum products such
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Phuong, Vu Hung
2018-03-01
This research applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach to analyze Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and efficiency changes in Vietnam coal mining industry from 2007 to 2013. The TFP of Vietnam coal mining companies decreased due to slow technological progress and unimproved efficiency. The decadence of technical efficiency in many enterprises proved that the coal mining industry has a large potential to increase productivity through technical efficiency improvement. Enhancing human resource training, technology and research & development investment could help the industry to improve efficiency and productivity in Vietnam coal mining industry.
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International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Wang, H.; Zhou, P.; Zhou, D.Q.
2013-01-01
Improving energy efficiency and productivity is one of the most cost-effective ways for achieving the sustainable development target in China. This paper employs non-radial directional distance function approach to empirically investigate energy efficiency and energy productivity by including CO 2 emissions as an undesirable output. Three production scenarios, namely energy conservation (EC), energy conservation and emission reduction (ECER), and energy conservation, emission reduction and economic growth (ECEREG), are specified to assess China's energy efficiency and productivity growth during the period of Eleventh Five-Year Plan. Our empirical results show that there exist substantial differences in China's total-factor energy efficiency and productivity under different scenarios. Under the ECEREG scenario, the national average total-factor energy efficiency score was 0.6306 in 2005–2010, while the national average total-factor energy productivity increased by 0.27% annually during the period. The main driving force for energy productivity growth in China was energy technological change rather than energy efficiency change. - Highlights: • China's regional energy efficiency and productivity in 2005–2010 are evaluated. • Three production scenarios are considered. • Non-radial directional distance function with CO 2 emissions is employed. • Technological change is the main driver for China's energy productivity growth
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Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Drotleff, Horst; Wack, Roman; Leistner, Philip; Holm, Andreas; Ziegler, Matthias; Sedlbauer, Klaus [Fraunhofer-Institut fuer Bauphysik IBP, Stuttgart (Germany)
2011-10-15
From the perspectives of energy as well as indoor climate, thermally activated concrete ceilings make sense. Used in office buildings, however, their drawback becomes apparent: they are acoustically reflective. The conventional approaches use sound-absorbing suspended sails and absorber baffles or heat-conducting sound absorbers embedded in large areas of the concrete. In this paper, an alternative approach is presented and is evaluated acoustically and thermally. A few strips of sound absorber, arranged at intervals, are mounted flush into the concrete ceiling. To calculate the sound-absorption spectrum, an already widely publicised model (the Rayleigh approach) is used. It predicts the sound-absorption spectrum for normal sound incidence very well. For diffuse sound incidence, the difference to reverberation chamber measurements is greater, presumably because of the edge effect. The sound- absorption coefficient of the design can be tuned by skilful choice of the strip geometry, and it is significantly higher than the expected average value for the surface. On the one hand, the thermal efficiency of the components is determined by comparing the heat fluxes in the ceilings with absorber strips to an untreated reference ceiling. On the other hand, the indoor climate is investigated using a room model for office rooms of both solid and lightweight constructions. The influence of the strips (proportion of absorber area 20 %) on the thermal efficiency and indoor climate is low. Two absorber materials are examined in the strip approach: open-cell foam glass and a micro-perforated metallic absorber. While the metallic absorber displays thermal advantages, its sound absorption spectrum - even at high surface-coverage proportions - exhibits a much lower absorption coefficient than, for example, open-cell foam glass strips with only 20 % ceiling coverage. A demonstration in situ shows the potential of the absorber strips spaced at intervals. However, the method chosen in
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Liang, Xiuying; Zhu, Chunyan
2017-11-01
With rising global emphasizes on climate change and sustainable development, how to accelerate the transformation of energy efficiency has become an important question. Designing and implementing energy-efficiency policies for super-efficient products represents an important direction to achieve breakthroughs in the field of energy conservation. On December 31, 2014, China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) jointly six other ministerial agencies launched China Leading Energy Efficiency Program (LEP), which identifies top efficiency models for selected product categories. LEP sets the highest energy efficiency benchmark. Design of LEP took into consideration of how to best motivate manufacturers to accelerate technical innovation, promote high efficiency products. This paper explains core elements of LEP, such as objectives, selection criteria, implementation method and supportive policies. It also proposes recommendations to further improve LEP through international policy comparison with Japan’s Top Runner Program, U.S. Energy Star Most Efficient, and SEAD Global Efficiency Medal.
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Early Sound Symbolism for Vowel Sounds
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ferrinne Spector
2013-06-01
Full Text Available Children and adults consistently match some words (e.g., kiki to jagged shapes and other words (e.g., bouba to rounded shapes, providing evidence for non-arbitrary sound–shape mapping. In this study, we investigated the influence of vowels on sound–shape matching in toddlers, using four contrasting pairs of nonsense words differing in vowel sound (/i/ as in feet vs. /o/ as in boat and four rounded–jagged shape pairs. Crucially, we used reduplicated syllables (e.g., kiki vs. koko rather than confounding vowel sound with consonant context and syllable variability (e.g., kiki vs. bouba. Toddlers consistently matched words with /o/ to rounded shapes and words with /i/ to jagged shapes (p < 0.01. The results suggest that there may be naturally biased correspondences between vowel sound and shape.
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Sound Art and Spatial Practices: Situating Sound Installation Art Since 1958
Ouzounian, Gascia
2008-01-01
This dissertation examines the emergence and development ofsound installation art, an under-recognized tradition that hasdeveloped between music, architecture, and media art practicessince the late 1950s. Unlike many musical works, which are concernedwith organizing sounds in time, sound installations organize sounds inspace; they thus necessitate new theoretical and analytical modelsthat take into consideration the spatial situated-ness of sound. Existingdiscourses on “spatial sound” privile...
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Control of Sound Radiation and Reflection With Advanced Smart Foam Blankets
National Research Council Canada - National Science Library
Fuller, Chris
2003-01-01
.... The past few years of the project have demonstrated the high potential of using smart foam blankets for efficiently reducing the interior sound levels in the payloads of launch vehicles in the low...
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Noise control, sound, and the vehicle design process
Donavan, Paul
2005-09-01
For many products, noise and sound are viewed as necessary evils that need to be dealt with in order to bring the product successfully to market. They are generally not product ``exciters'' although some vehicle manufacturers do tune and advertise specific sounds to enhance the perception of their products. In this paper, influencing the design process for the ``evils,'' such as wind noise and road noise, are considered in more detail. There are three ingredients to successfully dealing with the evils in the design process. The first of these is knowing how excesses in noise effects the end customer in a tangible manner and how that effects customer satisfaction and ultimately sells. The second is having and delivering the knowledge of what is required of the design to achieve a satisfactory or even better level of noise performance. The third ingredient is having the commitment of the designers to incorporate the knowledge into their part, subsystem or system. In this paper, the elements of each of these ingredients are discussed in some detail and the attributes of a successful design process are enumerated.
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Sound a very short introduction
Goldsmith, Mike
2015-01-01
Sound is integral to how we experience the world, in the form of noise as well as music. But what is sound? What is the physical basis of pitch and harmony? And how are sound waves exploited in musical instruments? Sound: A Very Short Introduction looks at the science of sound and the behaviour of sound waves with their different frequencies. It also explores sound in different contexts, covering the audible and inaudible, sound underground and underwater, acoustic and electronic sound, and hearing in humans and animals. It concludes with the problem of sound out of place—noise and its reduction.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Fadzlan Sufian
2014-12-01
Full Text Available The present study employs the state of the art bias-corrected Malmquist Productivity Index method to examine the sources of efficiency and productivity of the foreign and domestic banks operating in the Malaysian banking sector. The preferred methodology enables us to isolate efforts to catch up to the frontier (efficiency change from shifts in the frontier (technological change [TECHCH]. The results indicate that the Malaysian banking sector has exhibited productivity progress mainly attributed to technological progress. The empirical findings suggest that both the domestic and foreign banks have exhibited productivity progress albeit at different quantum attributed mainly to progress in TECHCH.
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Unsupervised Feature Learning for Heart Sounds Classification Using Autoencoder
Hu, Wei; Lv, Jiancheng; Liu, Dongbo; Chen, Yao
2018-04-01
Cardiovascular disease seriously threatens the health of many people. It is usually diagnosed during cardiac auscultation, which is a fast and efficient method of cardiovascular disease diagnosis. In recent years, deep learning approach using unsupervised learning has made significant breakthroughs in many fields. However, to our knowledge, deep learning has not yet been used for heart sound classification. In this paper, we first use the average Shannon energy to extract the envelope of the heart sounds, then find the highest point of S1 to extract the cardiac cycle. We convert the time-domain signals of the cardiac cycle into spectrograms and apply principal component analysis whitening to reduce the dimensionality of the spectrogram. Finally, we apply a two-layer autoencoder to extract the features of the spectrogram. The experimental results demonstrate that the features from the autoencoder are suitable for heart sound classification.
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Control of the dehydration process in production of intermediate-moisture meat products: a review.
Chang, S F; Huang, T C; Pearson, A M
1996-01-01
IM meat products are produced by lowering the aw to 0.90 to 0.60. Such products are stable at ambient temperature and humidity and are produced in nearly every country in the world, especially in developing areas where refrigeration is limited or unavailable. Traditionally IM meats use low cost sources of energy for drying, such as sun drying, addition of salt, or fermentation. Products produced by different processes are of interest since they do not require refrigeration during distribution and storage. Many different IM meat products can be produced by utilizing modern processing equipment and methods. Production can be achieved in a relatively short period of time and their advantages during marketing and distribution can be utilized. Nevertheless, a better understanding of the principles involved in heat transfer and efficiency of production are still needed to increase efficiency of processing. A basic understanding of the influence of water vapor pressure and sorption phenomena on water activity can materially improve the efficiency of drying of IM meats. Predrying treatments, such as fermentation and humidity control, can also be taken advantage of during the dehydration process. Such information can lead to process optimization and reduction of energy costs during production of IM meats. The development of sound science-based methods to assure the production of high-quality and nutritious IM meats is needed. Finally, such products also must be free of pathogenic microorganisms to assure their success in production and marketing.
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International benchmaking: Supplying the information for product efficiency policy makers
Siderius, H.P.; Jeffcott, S.; Blok, K.
2012-01-01
In the development of effective product efficiency policy, the critical element for policy makers is comprehensive, independent information. However, easily accessible, reliable information on the energy performance of products and policies is often scarce within a particular market, and rarer still
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Roozen, N. B.; Muellner, H.; Labelle, L.; Rychtáriková, M.; Glorieux, C.
2015-06-01
Structural details and workmanship can cause considerable differences in sound insulation properties of timber frame partitions. In this study, the influence of panel fastening is investigated experimentally by means of standardized sound reduction index measurements, supported by detailed scanning laser Doppler vibrometry. In particular the effect of the number of screws used to fasten the panels to the studs, and the tightness of the screws, is studied using seven different configurations of lightweight timber frame building elements. In the frequency range from 300 to 4000 Hz, differences in the weighted sound reduction index RW as large as 10 dB were measured, suggesting that the method of fastening can have a large impact on the acoustic performance of building elements. Using the measured vibrational responses of the element, its acoustic radiation efficiency was computed numerically by means of a Rayleigh integral. The increased radiation efficiency partly explains the reduced sound reduction index. Loosening the screws, or reducing the number of screws, lowers the radiation efficiency, and significantly increases the sound reduction index of the partition.
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Low complexity lossless compression of underwater sound recordings.
Johnson, Mark; Partan, Jim; Hurst, Tom
2013-03-01
Autonomous listening devices are increasingly used to study vocal aquatic animals, and there is a constant need to record longer or with greater bandwidth, requiring efficient use of memory and battery power. Real-time compression of sound has the potential to extend recording durations and bandwidths at the expense of increased processing operations and therefore power consumption. Whereas lossy methods such as MP3 introduce undesirable artifacts, lossless compression algorithms (e.g., flac) guarantee exact data recovery. But these algorithms are relatively complex due to the wide variety of signals they are designed to compress. A simpler lossless algorithm is shown here to provide compression factors of three or more for underwater sound recordings over a range of noise environments. The compressor was evaluated using samples from drifting and animal-borne sound recorders with sampling rates of 16-240 kHz. It achieves >87% of the compression of more-complex methods but requires about 1/10 of the processing operations resulting in less than 1 mW power consumption at a sampling rate of 192 kHz on a low-power microprocessor. The potential to triple recording duration with a minor increase in power consumption and no loss in sound quality may be especially valuable for battery-limited tags and robotic vehicles.
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Technology management for environmentally sound and sustainable development
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Zaidi, S.M.J.
1992-01-01
With the evolutionary change in the production activities of human societies, the concept of development has also been changing. In the recent years the emphasis has been on the environmentally sound and sustainable development. The environmentally sound and sustainable development can be obtained through judicious use of technology. Technology as a resource transformer has emerged as the most important factor which can constitute to economic growth. But technology is not an independent and autonomous force, it is only an instrument which needs to be used carefully, properly and appropriately which necessitates technology management. (author)
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Nelson, Peter
2014-01-01
What is sound? This question is posed in contradiction to the every-day understanding that sound is a phenomenon apart from us, to be heard, made, shaped and organised. Thinking through the history of computer music, and considering the current configuration of digital communi-cations, sound is reconfigured as a type of network. This network is envisaged as non-hierarchical, in keeping with currents of thought that refuse to prioritise the human in the world. The relationship of sound to musi...
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Talbot-Smith, Michael
1990-01-01
Broadcast Sound Technology provides an explanation of the underlying principles of modern audio technology. Organized into 21 chapters, the book first describes the basic sound; behavior of sound waves; aspects of hearing, harming, and charming the ear; room acoustics; reverberation; microphones; phantom power; loudspeakers; basic stereo; and monitoring of audio signal. Subsequent chapters explore the processing of audio signal, sockets, sound desks, and digital audio. Analogue and digital tape recording and reproduction, as well as noise reduction, are also explained.
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Wahlberg, Magnus; Larsen, Ole Næsbye
2017-01-01
properties can be modified by sound absorption, refraction, and interference from multi paths caused by reflections.The path from the source to the receiver may be bent due to refraction. Besides geometrical attenuation, the ground effect and turbulence are the most important mechanisms to influence...... communication sounds for airborne acoustics and bottom and surface effects for underwater sounds. Refraction becomes very important close to shadow zones. For echolocation signals, geometric attenuation and sound absorption have the largest effects on the signals....
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Enhancement of Energy Efficiency and Food Product Quality Using Adsorption Dryer with Zeolite
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Moh Djaeni
2013-06-01
Full Text Available Drying is a basic operation in wood, food, pharmaceutical and chemical industry. Currently, several drying methods are often not efficient in terms of energy consumption (energy efficiency of 20-60% and have an impact on product quality degradation due to the introduction of operational temperature upper 80oC. This work discusses the development of adsorption drying with zeolite to improve the energy efficiency as well as product quality. In this process, air as drying medium is dehumidified by zeolite. As a result humidity of air can be reduced up to 0.1 ppm. So, for heat sensitive products, the drying process can be performed in low or medium temperature with high driving force. The study has been conducted in three steps: designing the dryer, performing laboratory scale equipment (tray, spray, and fluidised bed dryers with zeolite, and evaluating the dryer performance based on energy efficiency and product quality. Results showed that the energy efficiency of drying process is 15-20% higher than that of conventional dryer. In additon, the dryer can speed up drying time as well as retaining product quality.
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Langkjær, Birger
2010-01-01
This article examines the role that sound plays in making fictions perceptually real to film audiences, whether these fictions are realist or non-realist in content and narrative form. I will argue that some aspects of film sound practices and the kind of experiences they trigger are related...... to basic rules of human perception, whereas others are more properly explained in relation to how aesthetic devices, including sound, are used to characterise the fiction and thereby make it perceptually real to its audience. Finally, I will argue that not all genres can be defined by a simple taxonomy...... of sounds. Apart from an account of the kinds of sounds that typically appear in a specific genre, a genre analysis of sound may also benefit from a functionalist approach that focuses on how sounds can make both realist and non-realist aspects of genres sound real to audiences....
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Solar cell efficiency measurements
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Ostoja, P.
1989-01-01
Solar cells (and solar modules) have to be tested for their performance by means of sound reliable measurement procedures. The need for such measurements arises at various stages of research, of production, and of photovoltaic systems sizing and dimensioning. In fact, accurate measurements are necessary to the researcher, who studies new materials and new processes, to the manufacturer, who has to control his product and, finally, to the user, who needs sound measurements, in order to be in a position to make effective decisions about what kink of product will be needed and with what critical characteristics. In short, standard measurements that allow cells and modules to be characterized serve as a common language, allowing effective communication about products and requirements. 3 refs
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Hydrogen Production System with High Temperature Electrolysis for Nuclear Power Plant
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Kentaro, Matsunaga; Eiji, Hoashi; Seiji, Fujiwara; Masato, Yoshino; Taka, Ogawa; Shigeo, Kasai
2006-01-01
Steam electrolysis with solid oxide cells is one of the most promising methods for hydrogen production, which has the potential to be high efficiency. Its most parts consist of environmentally sound and common materials. Recent development of ceramics with high ionic conductivity suggests the possibility of widening the range of operating temperature with maintaining the high efficiency. Toshiba is constructing a hydrogen production system with solid oxide electrolysis cells for nuclear power plants. Tubular-type cells using YSZ (Yttria-Stabilized- Zirconia) as electrolyte showed good performance of steam electrolysis at 800 to 900 deg C. Larger electrolysis cells with present configuration are to be combined with High Temperature Reactors. The hydrogen production efficiency on the present designed system is expected around 50% at 800 to 900 deg C of operating temperature. For the Fast Reactors, 'advanced cell' with higher efficiency at lower temperature are to be introduced. (authors)
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Intensive treatment with ultrasound visual feedback for speech sound errors in childhood apraxia
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Jonathan L Preston
2016-08-01
Full Text Available Ultrasound imaging is an adjunct to traditional speech therapy that has shown to be beneficial in the remediation of speech sound errors. Ultrasound biofeedback can be utilized during therapy to provide clients additional knowledge about their tongue shapes when attempting to produce sounds that are in error. The additional feedback may assist children with childhood apraxia of speech in stabilizing motor patterns, thereby facilitating more consistent and accurate productions of sounds and syllables. However, due to its specialized nature, ultrasound visual feedback is a technology that is not widely available to clients. Short-term intensive treatment programs are one option that can be utilized to expand access to ultrasound biofeedback. Schema-based motor learning theory suggests that short-term intensive treatment programs (massed practice may assist children in acquiring more accurate motor patterns. In this case series, three participants ages 10-14 diagnosed with childhood apraxia of speech attended 16 hours of speech therapy over a two-week period to address residual speech sound errors. Two participants had distortions on rhotic sounds, while the third participant demonstrated lateralization of sibilant sounds. During therapy, cues were provided to assist participants in obtaining a tongue shape that facilitated a correct production of the erred sound. Additional practice without ultrasound was also included. Results suggested that all participants showed signs of acquisition of sounds in error. Generalization and retention results were mixed. One participant showed generalization and retention of sounds that were treated; one showed generalization but limited retention; and the third showed no evidence of generalization or retention. Individual characteristics that may facilitate generalization are discussed. Short-term intensive treatment programs using ultrasound biofeedback may result in the acquisition of more accurate motor
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Production and efficiency of large wildland fire suppression effort: A stochastic frontier analysis.
Katuwal, Hari; Calkin, David E; Hand, Michael S
2016-01-15
This study examines the production and efficiency of wildland fire suppression effort. We estimate the effectiveness of suppression resource inputs to produce controlled fire lines that contain large wildland fires using stochastic frontier analysis. Determinants of inefficiency are identified and the effects of these determinants on the daily production of controlled fire line are examined. Results indicate that the use of bulldozers and fire engines increase the production of controlled fire line, while firefighter crews do not tend to contribute to controlled fire line production. Production of controlled fire line is more efficient if it occurs along natural or built breaks, such as rivers and roads, and within areas previously burned by wildfires. However, results also indicate that productivity and efficiency of the controlled fire line are sensitive to weather, landscape and fire characteristics. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Scaling production and improving efficiency in DEA: an interactive approach
Rödder, Wilhelm; Kleine, Andreas; Dellnitz, Andreas
2017-10-01
DEA models help a DMU to detect its (in-)efficiency and to improve activities, if necessary. Efficiency is only one economic aim for a decision-maker; however, up- or downsizing might be a second one. Improving efficiency is the main topic in DEA; the long-term strategy towards the right production size should attract our attention as well. Not always the management of a DMU primarily focuses on technical efficiency but rather is interested in gaining scale effects. In this paper, a formula for returns to scale (RTS) is developed, and this formula is even applicable for interior points of technology. Particularly, technical and scale inefficient DMUs need sophisticated instruments to improve their situation. Considering RTS as well as efficiency, in this paper, we give an advice for each DMU to find an economically reliable path from its actual situation to better activities and finally to most productive scale size (mpss), perhaps. For realizing this path, we propose an interactive algorithm, thus harmonizing the scientific findings and the interests of the management. Small numerical examples illustrate such paths for selected DMUs; an empirical application in theatre management completes the contribution.
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Sound sensitivity of neurons in rat hippocampus during performance of a sound-guided task
Vinnik, Ekaterina; Honey, Christian; Schnupp, Jan; Diamond, Mathew E.
2012-01-01
To investigate how hippocampal neurons encode sound stimuli, and the conjunction of sound stimuli with the animal's position in space, we recorded from neurons in the CA1 region of hippocampus in rats while they performed a sound discrimination task. Four different sounds were used, two associated with water reward on the right side of the animal and the other two with water reward on the left side. This allowed us to separate neuronal activity related to sound identity from activity related to response direction. To test the effect of spatial context on sound coding, we trained rats to carry out the task on two identical testing platforms at different locations in the same room. Twenty-one percent of the recorded neurons exhibited sensitivity to sound identity, as quantified by the difference in firing rate for the two sounds associated with the same response direction. Sensitivity to sound identity was often observed on only one of the two testing platforms, indicating an effect of spatial context on sensory responses. Forty-three percent of the neurons were sensitive to response direction, and the probability that any one neuron was sensitive to response direction was statistically independent from its sensitivity to sound identity. There was no significant coding for sound identity when the rats heard the same sounds outside the behavioral task. These results suggest that CA1 neurons encode sound stimuli, but only when those sounds are associated with actions. PMID:22219030
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Light quality and efficiency of consumer grade solid state lighting products
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Dam-Hansen, Carsten; Corell, Dennis Dan; Thorseth, Anders
2013-01-01
The rapid development in flux and efficiency of Light Emitting Diodes (LED) has resulted in a flooding of the lighting market with Solid State Lighting (SSL) products. Many traditional light sources can advantageously be replaced by SSL products. There are, however, large variations in the quality...... of these products, and some are not better than the ones they are supposed to replace. A lack of quality demands and standards makes it difficult for consumers to get an overview of the SSL products. Here the results of a two year study investigating SSL products on the Danish market are presented. Focus has been...... on SSL products for replacement of incandescent lamps and halogen spotlights. The warm white light and good color rendering properties of these traditional light sources are a must for lighting in Denmark and the Nordic countries. 266 SSL replacement lamps have been tested for efficiency and light...
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Efficiency, Effectiveness and Productivity: The Abstract Measures of ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
This paper makes a case for reviving the system. Efficiency, effectiveness and productivity which are all quality indices are carefully discussed and synthesized into management techniques that will create in the staff and management officials the culture of excellent performance in our higher educational system.
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Efficiency analysis of hydrogen production methods from biomass
Ptasinski, K.J.
2008-01-01
Abstract: Hydrogen is considered as a universal energy carrier for the future, and biomass has the potential to become a sustainable source of hydrogen. This article presents an efficiency analysis of hydrogen production processes from a variety of biomass feedstocks by a thermochemical method –
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Towards a more efficient energy use in photovoltaic powered products
Kan, S.Y.; Strijk, R.
2006-01-01
This paper analyzes the energy saving and power management solutions necessary to improve the energy consumption efficiency in photovoltaic powered products. Important in the design of such products is not only the energy supply optimization required to deliver the actual energy to fulfil their
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EFFICIENCY THE KEY TO FUTURE PIG PRODUCTION E.H. Kemm
African Journals Online (AJOL)
The continued production of pigs and pig products will no doubt greatly ..... body mass to 56 days of age has increased fronr l.5kpl to. Thc overall efficiency with ... Braude believes that the annual output of lean meat per sow can be increased ...
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In Search of the Golden Age Hip-Hop Sound (1986–1996
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ben Duinker
2017-09-01
Full Text Available The notion of a musical repertoire's "sound" is frequently evoked in journalism and scholarship, but what parameters comprise such a sound? This question is addressed through a statistically-driven corpus analysis of hip-hop music released during the genre's Golden Age era. The first part of the paper presents a methodology for developing, transcribing, and analyzing a corpus of 100 hip-hop tracks released during the Golden Age. Eight categories of aurally salient musical and production parameters are analyzed: tempo, orchestration and texture, harmony, form, vocal and lyric profiles, global and local production effects, vocal doubling and backing, and loudness and compression. The second part of the paper organizes the analysis data into three trend categories: trends of change (parameters that change over time, trends of prevalence (parameters that remain generally constant across the corpus, and trends of similarity (parameters that are similar from song to song. These trends form a generalized model of the Golden Age hip-hop sound which considers both global (the whole corpus and local (unique songs within the corpus contexts. By operationalizing "sound" as the sum of musical and production parameters, aspects of popular music that are resistant to traditional music-analytical methods can be considered.
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Maximizing Efficiency in Two-step Solar-thermochemical Fuel Production
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Ermanoski, I. [Sandia National Laboratories (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
2015-05-01
Widespread solar fuel production depends on its economic viability, largely driven by the solar-to-fuel conversion efficiency. In this paper, the material and energy requirements in two-step solar-thermochemical cycles are considered.The need for advanced redox active materials is demonstrated, by considering the oxide mass flow requirements at a large scale. Two approaches are also identified for maximizing the efficiency: optimizing reaction temperatures, and minimizing the pressure in the thermal reduction step by staged thermal reduction. The results show that each approach individually, and especially the two in conjunction, result in significant efficiency gains.
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33 CFR 167.1702 - In Prince William Sound: Prince William Sound Traffic Separation Scheme.
2010-07-01
... 33 Navigation and Navigable Waters 2 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false In Prince William Sound: Prince William Sound Traffic Separation Scheme. 167.1702 Section 167.1702 Navigation and Navigable Waters COAST....1702 In Prince William Sound: Prince William Sound Traffic Separation Scheme. The Prince William Sound...
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Sisay Diriba Lemessa
2017-09-01
Full Text Available This study analyzes the technical efficiency and production risk of 862 maize farmers in major maize producing regions of Ethiopia. It employs the stochastic frontier approach (SFA to estimate the level of technical efficiencies of stallholder farmers. The stochastic frontier approach (SFA uses flexible risk properties to account for production risk. Thus, maize production variability is assessed from two perspectives, the production risk and the technical efficiency. The study also attempts to determine the socio-economic and farm characteristics that influence technical efficiency of maize production in the study area. The findings of the study showed the existence of both production risk and technical inefficiency in maize production process. Input variables (amounts per hectare such as fertilizer and labor positively influence maize output. The findings also show that farms in the study area exhibit decreasing returns to scale. Fertilizer and ox plough days reduce output risk while labor and improved seed increase output risk. The mean technical efficiency for maize farms is 48 percent. This study concludes that production risk and technical inefficiency prevents the maize farmers from realizing their frontier output. The best factors that improve the efficiency of the maize farmers in the study area include: frequency of extension contact, access to credit and use of intercropping. It was also realized that altitude and terracing in maize farms had influence on farmer efficiency.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Alexander Birich
2018-02-01
Full Text Available Very often, the production of silver causes devastating environmental issues, because of the use of toxic reagents like cyanide and mercury. Due to severe environmental damage caused by humans in the last decades, the social awareness regarding the sustainable production processes is on the rise. Terms like “sustainable” and “green” in product descriptions are becoming more and more popular and producers are forced to satisfy the rising environmental awareness of their customers. Within this work, an alternative environmental sound silver recovery process was developed for a vein type silver ore from Mina Porka, Bolivia. A foregoing characterization of the input material reveals its mineral composition. In the following mineral processing, around 92.9% silver was concentrated by separating 59.5 wt. % of non-silver minerals. Nitric acid leaching of the generated concentrate enabled a silver recovery of up to 98%. The dissolved silver was then separated via copper cementation to generate a metallic silver product of >99% purity. Summarizing all process steps, a silver yield of 87% was achieved in lab scale. A final upscaling trial was conducted to prove the process’ robustness. Within this trial, almost 4 kg of metallic silver with a purity of higher than 99.5 wt. % was produced.
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Sounds Exaggerate Visual Shape
Sweeny, Timothy D.; Guzman-Martinez, Emmanuel; Ortega, Laura; Grabowecky, Marcia; Suzuki, Satoru
2012-01-01
While perceiving speech, people see mouth shapes that are systematically associated with sounds. In particular, a vertically stretched mouth produces a /woo/ sound, whereas a horizontally stretched mouth produces a /wee/ sound. We demonstrate that hearing these speech sounds alters how we see aspect ratio, a basic visual feature that contributes…
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Problems of Development and Increase of Economic Efficiency of Sugar Beet Production
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Tomashevska Olga A.
2017-06-01
Full Text Available The aim of the article is the studying of the trends of development and economic efficiency of sugar beet production (using the example of agricultural enterprises of Rokytne district of Kyiv region and an attempt to outline the directions for improvement of the situation in the sugar beet industry. As a result of the research, the dynamics of development and economic efficiency of sugar beet production at farms of Rokytne district of Kyiv region is analyzed, and the break-even volume of sugar beet production by agrarian enterprises of Kiev region and an individual enterprise of Rokytne district is determined. Particular attention is paid to the dynamics of profitability of sugar beet production in the period from 2011 to 2015. The main problems hindering the development of sugar beet production are identified, namely, the lack of sales channels and high production costs. Prospects for further research in this area are to increase the economic efficiency of sugar beet production and find ways to develop this sector, provided that the production is properly organized, the manufacturing process is followed, the fertilizers are properly used, the seeds are chosen correctly, advanced technologies and high-performance equipment are applied, etc.
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Low-frequency sound affects active micromechanics in the human inner ear
Kugler, Kathrin; Wiegrebe, Lutz; Grothe, Benedikt; Kössl, Manfred; Gürkov, Robert; Krause, Eike; Drexl, Markus
2014-01-01
Noise-induced hearing loss is one of the most common auditory pathologies, resulting from overstimulation of the human cochlea, an exquisitely sensitive micromechanical device. At very low frequencies (less than 250 Hz), however, the sensitivity of human hearing, and therefore the perceived loudness is poor. The perceived loudness is mediated by the inner hair cells of the cochlea which are driven very inadequately at low frequencies. To assess the impact of low-frequency (LF) sound, we exploited a by-product of the active amplification of sound outer hair cells (OHCs) perform, so-called spontaneous otoacoustic emissions. These are faint sounds produced by the inner ear that can be used to detect changes of cochlear physiology. We show that a short exposure to perceptually unobtrusive, LF sounds significantly affects OHCs: a 90 s, 80 dB(A) LF sound induced slow, concordant and positively correlated frequency and level oscillations of spontaneous otoacoustic emissions that lasted for about 2 min after LF sound offset. LF sounds, contrary to their unobtrusive perception, strongly stimulate the human cochlea and affect amplification processes in the most sensitive and important frequency range of human hearing. PMID:26064536
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Møller, Martin Bo; Olsen, Martin
2017-01-01
Sound zones, i.e. spatially confined regions of individual audio content, can be created by appropriate filtering of the desired audio signals reproduced by an array of loudspeakers. The challenge of designing filters for sound zones is twofold: First, the filtered responses should generate...... an acoustic separation between the control regions. Secondly, the pre- and post-ringing as well as spectral deterioration introduced by the filters should be minimized. The tradeoff between acoustic separation and filter ringing is the focus of this paper. A weighted L2-norm penalty is introduced in the sound...
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Maximum herd efficiency in meat production I. Optima for slaughter ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Profit rate for a meat production enterprise can be decomposedinto the unit price for meat and herd ... supply and demand, whereas breeding improvement is gen- ... Herd efficiency is total live mass for slaughter divided by costs .... tenance and above-maintenance components by Dickerson, and ..... Growth and productivity.
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Efficient production of transgenic soybean (Glycine max [L] Merrill ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Efficient production of transgenic soybean (Glycine max [L] Merrill) plants mediated via whisker-supersonic (WSS) method. MM Khalafalla, HA El-Shemy, SM Rahman, M Teraishi, H Hasegawa, T Terakawa, M Ishimoto ...
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Semi-Supervised Active Learning for Sound Classification in Hybrid Learning Environments
Han, Wenjing; Coutinho, Eduardo; Li, Haifeng; Schuller, Björn; Yu, Xiaojie; Zhu, Xuan
2016-01-01
Coping with scarcity of labeled data is a common problem in sound classification tasks. Approaches for classifying sounds are commonly based on supervised learning algorithms, which require labeled data which is often scarce and leads to models that do not generalize well. In this paper, we make an efficient combination of confidence-based Active Learning and Self-Training with the aim of minimizing the need for human annotation for sound classification model training. The proposed method pre-processes the instances that are ready for labeling by calculating their classifier confidence scores, and then delivers the candidates with lower scores to human annotators, and those with high scores are automatically labeled by the machine. We demonstrate the feasibility and efficacy of this method in two practical scenarios: pool-based and stream-based processing. Extensive experimental results indicate that our approach requires significantly less labeled instances to reach the same performance in both scenarios compared to Passive Learning, Active Learning and Self-Training. A reduction of 52.2% in human labeled instances is achieved in both of the pool-based and stream-based scenarios on a sound classification task considering 16,930 sound instances. PMID:27627768
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Semi-Supervised Active Learning for Sound Classification in Hybrid Learning Environments.
Han, Wenjing; Coutinho, Eduardo; Ruan, Huabin; Li, Haifeng; Schuller, Björn; Yu, Xiaojie; Zhu, Xuan
2016-01-01
Coping with scarcity of labeled data is a common problem in sound classification tasks. Approaches for classifying sounds are commonly based on supervised learning algorithms, which require labeled data which is often scarce and leads to models that do not generalize well. In this paper, we make an efficient combination of confidence-based Active Learning and Self-Training with the aim of minimizing the need for human annotation for sound classification model training. The proposed method pre-processes the instances that are ready for labeling by calculating their classifier confidence scores, and then delivers the candidates with lower scores to human annotators, and those with high scores are automatically labeled by the machine. We demonstrate the feasibility and efficacy of this method in two practical scenarios: pool-based and stream-based processing. Extensive experimental results indicate that our approach requires significantly less labeled instances to reach the same performance in both scenarios compared to Passive Learning, Active Learning and Self-Training. A reduction of 52.2% in human labeled instances is achieved in both of the pool-based and stream-based scenarios on a sound classification task considering 16,930 sound instances.
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International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Pedersen, Eja; Berg, Frits van den; Bakker, Roel; Bouma, Jelte
2010-01-01
Wind turbines are favoured in the switch-over to renewable energy. Suitable sites for further developments could be difficult to find as the sound emitted from the rotor blades calls for a sufficient distance to residents to avoid negative effects. The aim of this study was to explore if road traffic sound could mask wind turbine sound or, in contrast, increases annoyance due to wind turbine noise. Annoyance of road traffic and wind turbine noise was measured in the WINDFARMperception survey in the Netherlands in 2007 (n=725) and related to calculated levels of sound. The presence of road traffic sound did not in general decrease annoyance with wind turbine noise, except when levels of wind turbine sound were moderate (35-40 dB(A) Lden) and road traffic sound level exceeded that level with at least 20 dB(A). Annoyance with both noises was intercorrelated but this correlation was probably due to the influence of individual factors. Furthermore, visibility and attitude towards wind turbines were significantly related to noise annoyance of modern wind turbines. The results can be used for the selection of suitable sites, possibly favouring already noise exposed areas if wind turbine sound levels are sufficiently low.
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HelioTrope: An innovative and efficient prototype for solar power production
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Papageorgiou George
2014-01-01
Full Text Available The solar energy alternative could provide us with all the energy we need as it exist in vast quantities all around us. We only should be innovative enough in order to improve the efficiency of our systems in capturing and converting solar energy in usable forms of power. By making a case for the solar energy alternative, we identify areas where efficiency can be improved and thereby Solar Energy can become a competitive energy source. This paper suggests an innovative approach to solar energy power production, which is manifested in a prototype given the name HelioTrope. The Heliotrope Solar Energy Production prototype is tested on its' capabilities to efficiently covert solar energy to generation of electricity and other forms of energy for storage or direct use. HelioTrope involves an innovative Stirling engine design and a parabolic concentrating dish with a sun tracking system implementing a control algorithm to maximize the capturing of solar energy. Further, it utilizes a patent developed by the authors where a mechanism is designed for the transmission of reciprocating motion of variable amplitude into unidirectional circular motion. This is employed in our prototype for converting linear reciprocating motion into circular for electricity production, which gives a significant increase in efficiency and reduces maintenance costs. Preliminary calculations indicate that the Heliotrope approach constitutes a competitive solution to solar power production.
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Effect of voltage waveform on dielectric barrier discharge ozone production efficiency
Mericam-Bourdet, N.; Kirkpatrick, M. J.; Tuvache, F.; Frochot, D.; Odic, E.
2012-03-01
Dielectric barrier discharges (DBDs) are commonly used for gas effluent cleanup and ozone generation. For these applications, the energy efficiency of the discharge is a major concern. This paper reports on investigations carried out on the voltage shape applied to DBD reactor electrodes, aiming to evaluate a possible energy efficiency improvement for ozone production. Two DBD reactor geometries were used: pin-to-pin and cylinder-to-cylinder, both driven either by a bi-directional power supply (voltage rise rate 1 kV/μs) or by a pulsed power supply (voltage rise rate 1 kV/ns). Ozone formed in dry air was measured at the reactor outlet. Special attention was paid to discharge input power evaluation using different methods including instantaneous current-voltage product and transferred charge-applied voltage figures. The charge transferred by the discharges was also correlated to the ozone production. It is shown that, in the case of the DBD reactors under investigation, the applied voltage shape has no influence on the ozone production efficiency. For the considered voltage rise rate, the charge deposit on the dielectric inserted inside the discharge gap is the important factor (as opposed to the voltage shape) governing the efficiency of the discharge - it does this by tailoring the duration of the current peak into the tens of nanosecond range.
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Perfect sound insulation property of reclaimed waste tire rubber
Ubaidillah, Harjana, Yahya, Iwan; Kristiani, Restu; Muqowi, Eki; Mazlan, Saiful Amri
2016-03-01
This article reports an experimental investigation of sound insulation and absorption performance of a materials made of reclaimed ground tire rubber which is known as un-recyclable thermoset. The bulk waste tire is processed using single step recycling methods namely high-pressure high-temperature sintering (HPHTS). The bulk waste tire is simply placed into a mold and then a pressure load of 3 tons and a heating temperature of 200°C are applied to the mold. The HPHTS conducted for an hour and then it is cooled in room temperature. The resulted product is then evaluated the acoustical properties namely sound transmission loss (STL) and sound absorption coefficient using B&K Tube Kit Type 4206-T based on ISO 10534-2, ASTM E1050 and ASTM E2611. The sound absorption coefficient is found about 0.04 until 0.08 while STL value ranges between 50 to 60 dB. The sound absorption values are found to be very low (<0.1), while the average STL is higher than other elastomeric matrix found in previous work. The reclaimed tire rubber through HPHTS technique gives good soundproof characteristic.
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Structure-borne sound structural vibrations and sound radiation at audio frequencies
Cremer, L; Petersson, Björn AT
2005-01-01
Structure-Borne Sound"" is a thorough introduction to structural vibrations with emphasis on audio frequencies and the associated radiation of sound. The book presents in-depth discussions of fundamental principles and basic problems, in order to enable the reader to understand and solve his own problems. It includes chapters dealing with measurement and generation of vibrations and sound, various types of structural wave motion, structural damping and its effects, impedances and vibration responses of the important types of structures, as well as with attenuation of vibrations, and sound radi
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Efficiency of resource-use and elasticity of production among catfish ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
This study employed the use of the Stochastic Frontier Production Function in the empirical analysis of efficiency of resource-use and elasticity of production among catfish farmers in Kaduna, Nigeria. The simple random sampling technique was employed in selecting 60 catfish farmers drawn from the sampling frame ...
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Sonnenwald, Diane H.; Gopinath, B.; Haberman, Gary O.
1990-01-01
The authors explore ways to enhance users' comprehension of complex applications using music and sound effects to present application-program events that are difficult to detect visually. A prototype system, Infosound, allows developers to create and store musical sequences and sound effects with...
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A sound worth saving: acoustic characteristics of a massive fish spawning aggregation.
Erisman, Brad E; Rowell, Timothy J
2017-12-01
Group choruses of marine animals can produce extraordinarily loud sounds that markedly elevate levels of the ambient soundscape. We investigated sound production in the Gulf corvina ( Cynoscion othonopterus ), a soniferous marine fish with a unique reproductive behaviour threatened by overfishing, to compare with sounds produced by other marine animals. We coupled echosounder and hydrophone surveys to estimate the magnitude of the aggregation and sounds produced during spawning. We characterized individual calls and documented changes in the soundscape generated by the presence of as many as 1.5 million corvina within a spawning aggregation spanning distances up to 27 km. We show that calls by male corvina represent the loudest sounds recorded in a marine fish, and the spatio-temporal magnitude of their collective choruses are among the loudest animal sounds recorded in aquatic environments. While this wildlife spectacle is at great risk of disappearing due to overfishing, regional conservation efforts are focused on other endangered marine animals. © 2017 The Author(s).
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Merwade, Venkatesh; Eichinger, David; Harriger, Bradley; Doherty, Erin; Habben, Ryan
2014-01-01
While the science of sound can be taught by explaining the concept of sound waves and vibrations, the authors of this article focused their efforts on creating a more engaging way to teach the science of sound--through engineering design. In this article they share the experience of teaching sound to third graders through an engineering challenge…
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Resource Use Efficiency in Rice Production in Jere Local ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
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Descriptive statistics and production function were used as analytical tools. The result ..... women's active participation in agriculture. The result also .... Poverty Reduction. Through the ... and the Efficiencies of India Farm Using. Panel Data ...
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Resource Use Efficiency Analysis for Potato Production in Nepal
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Mahesh Sapkota
2018-05-01
Full Text Available Potato is one of the most important staple foods supporting food security and livelihood to millions of marginalized and poor farmers in Nepal. Generally the smallholders’ farmers, especially those located in remote villages are inadequately informed about technical knowledge, inputs and efficient use of resources causing poor production and low productivity. Thus, the present survey aimed to examine the efficiency of resources used in potato production in Baglung District, one of the remote hilly place located in Central Himalaya. The total of 120 potato growing households was selected using simple random sampling technique from the two potato pocket in 2016. The regression coefficients of each inputs using Cobb-Douglas production function were estimated using Stata software. Our results showed that major inputs such as labor, bullock, Farm Yard Manure (FYM and intercultural operations were overused and need to decrease in terms of cost by 109, 177, 51 and 185%, respectively for its optimum allocation. Similarly, seed was found underused and need to increase its cost by 70% for optimum allocation. We concluded that inadequate training, exposure, knowledge gap and extension service to farmers in study sites were the reasons that farmers were using their resources inefficiently. It is recommended that the farmers involved in potato farming in the surveyed sites should be provided with additional proper technical knowledge for optimizing the use of resources which would help to increase the production and return from potato production.
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Efficiency increase of complex production and transport systems management
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Kornilov S.
2017-01-01
Full Text Available This article deals with the problem of the reduced efficiency of management in complex production - transport systems due to the lack of co-ordination in the operation of industrial enterprises and transport carrying out their maintenance. The existing transport service schedules for auxiliary departments do not take into account possible changes in operating conditions, the probability of malfunctions and the amount of reserves, which leads to an increase in general production costs. To solve this problem, we propose to use the interval regulation of production and transport processes in all departments of the complex production and transport systems. Also, such regulation involves the determination of traffic service priority. This will allow passing on from the regulated control of production and transport processes to the situational one, adapted to specific conditions, and reducing losses from untimely transport servicing, which will lead to a stores reduction and efficiency increase of the enterprise circulating facilities use. Testing the effectiveness of interval regulation was performed on the system and dynamics simulation model of liquid iron transportation in the oxygen converter shop of the metallurgical enterprise. It was established that the use of interval regulation processes in iron production and its transportation will allow decreasing non-productive downtime by 21% and the amount of the liquid iron in anticipation of recasting in the oxygen converter shop – by 33%. Economical effect of reducing the liquid iron downtime during transportation to the oxygen converter shop will be about 30 million rubles per year.
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ANALYSIS AND IMPROVEMENT OF PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY IN A CONSTRUCTION MACHINE ASSEMBLY LINE
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Alidiane Xavier
2016-07-01
Full Text Available The increased competitiveness in the market encourages the ongoing development of systems and production processes. The aim is to increase production efficiency to production costs and waste be reduced to the extreme, allowing an increased product competitiveness. The objective of this study was to analyze the overall results of implementing a Kaizen philosophy in an automaker of construction machinery, using the methodology of action research, which will be studied in situ the macro production process from receipt of parts into the end of the assembly line , prioritizing the analysis time of shipping and handling. The results show that the continuous improvement activities directly impact the elimination of waste from the assembly process, mainly related to shipping and handling, improving production efficiency by 30% in the studied processes.
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Ma, Ruijuan; Thomas-Hall, Skye R; Chua, Elvis T; Eltanahy, Eladl; Netzel, Michael E; Netzel, Gabriele; Lu, Yinghua; Schenk, Peer M
2018-03-01
The microalga Nannochloropsis produces high-value omega-3-rich fatty acids and carotenoids. In this study the effects of light intensity and wavelength on biomass, fatty acid, and carotenoid production with respect to light output efficiency were investigated. Similar biomass and fatty acid yields were obtained at high light intensity (150 μmol m -2 s -1 ) LEDs on day 7 and low light intensity (50 μmol m -2 s -1 ) LEDs on day 11 during cultivation, but the power efficiencies of biomass and fatty acid (specifically eicosapentaenoic acid) production were higher for low light intensity. Interestingly, low light intensity enhanced both, carotenoid power efficiency of carotenoid biosynthesis and yield. White LEDs were neither advantageous for biomass and fatty acid yields, nor the power efficiency of biomass, fatty acid, and carotenoid production. Noticeably, red LED resulted in the highest biomass and fatty acid power efficiency, suggesting that LEDs can be fine-tuned to grow Nannochloropsis algae more energy-efficiently. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Technical efficiency in pig production in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
This study was designed to measure the level of technical efficiency and its determinants in pig production in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria using a stochastic frontier production function. Multistage random sampling technique was used to select 60 pig farms from which input-output data were collected in 2004. The estimated ...
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Influence of visual stimuli in the sound quality evaluation of loudspeaker systems
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Karandreas, Theodoros-Alexandros; Christensen, Flemming
2006-01-01
There is currently an increasing demand to evaluate sound quality attributes of products and understand to what extend they influence a user's overall impression, since there is usually more than one modality stimulating this evaluation. The present study uses the loudspeakers as an example...... and evaluates the overall impression in relation to hearing and vision.In order to quantify the bias that the image of a loudspeaker has on the sound quality evaluation done by a naive listening panel, loudspeaker sounds of varied degradation are coupled with positively or negatively biasing visual input...
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SoundScapes - Beyond Interaction... in search of the ultimate human-centred interface
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Brooks, Tony
2006-01-01
that can also benefit communication. To achieve this a new generation of intuitive natural interfaces will be required and SoundScapes (see below) is a step toward this goal to discover the ultimate interface for matching the human experience to technology. Emergent hypothesis that have developed...... as a result of the SoundScapes research will be discussed. Introduction to SoundScapes SoundScapes is a contemporary art concept that has become widely known as an interdisciplinary platform for knowledge exchange, innovative product creation of creative and scientific work that uses non-invasive sensor...... Resonance. The multimedia content is adaptable so that the environment is tailored for each participant according to a user profile. This full body movement or the smallest of gesture results in human data input to SoundScapes. The same technology that enables this empowerment is used for performance art...
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Techniques and instrumentation for the measurement of transient sound energy flux
Watkinson, P. S.; Fahy, F. J.
1983-12-01
The evaluation of sound intensity distributions, and sound powers, of essentially continuous sources such as automotive engines, electric motors, production line machinery, furnaces, earth moving machinery and various types of process plants were studied. Although such systems are important sources of community disturbance and, to a lesser extent, of industrial health hazard, the most serious sources of hearing hazard in industry are machines operating on an impact principle, such as drop forges, hammers and punches. Controlled experiments to identify major noise source regions and mechanisms are difficult because it is normally impossible to install them in quiet, anechoic environments. The potential for sound intensity measurement to provide a means of overcoming these difficulties has given promising results, indicating the possibility of separation of directly radiated and reverberant sound fields. However, because of the complexity of transient sound fields, a fundamental investigation is necessary to establish the practicability of intensity field decomposition, which is basic to source characterization techniques.
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Development, Qualification and Production of Space Solar Cells with 30% EOL Efficiency
Guter, Wolfgang; Ebel, Lars; Fuhrmann, Daniel; Kostler, Wolfgang; Meusel, Matthias
2014-08-01
AZUR SPACE's latest qualified solar cell product 3G30-advanced provides a high end-of-life (EOL) efficiency of 27.8% for 5E14 (1 MeV e-/cm2) at low production costs. In order to further reduce the mass, the 3G30-advanced was thinned down to as thin as 20 μm and tested in space. Next generation solar cells must exceed the EOL efficiency of the 3G30-advanced and therefore will utilize the excess current of the Ge subcell. This can be achieved by a metamorphic cell concept. While average beginning-of-life efficiencies above 31% have already been demonstrated with upright metamorphic triple-junction cells, AZUR's next generation product will comprise a metamorphic 4- junction device targeting 30% EOL.
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Crop and soil specific N and P efficiency and productivity in Finland
Bäckman, S.; Oude Lansink, A.G.J.M.
2005-01-01
This paper estimates a stochastic production frontier based on experimental data of cereals production in Finland over the period 1977-1994. The estimates of the production frontier are used to analyze nitrogen and phosphorous productivity and efficiency differences between soils and crops. For this
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Impacts of Rural Labor Resource Change on the Technical Efficiency of Crop Production in China
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Ning Yin
2017-03-01
Full Text Available This paper probes effects of the evolvement of labor resources on technical efficiency in crop production in rural China. Based on twelve years of data on crop production of 30 provinces in China, a stochastic frontier production function model is used to measure crop production efficiency in three crop-functional areas—the production area, the consumption area, and the balanced area. Then effects of both quantity and quality change in labor force on technical efficiency in different regions of China are analyzed. Results show that rural China generally has an increasing number of employees shifted to non-agricultural sectors and a decreasing trend of the stock of human capital. However, both these two changes in rural labor force have significantly positive effects on improving crop production efficiency. In addition, China’s technical inefficiency is at an average of 22.2%. Dynamically, the technical efficiencies show a tendency to rise steadily throughout China and in three areas, while the consumption area possesses the highest technical efficiency. Those results may lend some experience for other countries that are currently experiencing rural labor force and economic transition.
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Hearing Aids and Personal Sound Amplifiers: Know the Difference
... Products For Consumers Home For Consumers Consumer Updates Hearing Aids and Personal Sound Amplifiers: Know the Difference ... that FDA launched today. Signs of Loss of Hearing Mann says that consumers who suspect they suffer ...
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Energy security for India: Biofuels, energy efficiency and food productivity
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Gunatilake, Herath; Roland-Holst, David; Sugiyarto, Guntur
2014-01-01
The emergence of biofuel as a renewable energy source offers opportunities for significant climate change mitigation and greater energy independence to many countries. At the same time, biofuel represents the possibility of substitution between energy and food. For developing countries like India, which imports over 75% of its crude oil, fossil fuels pose two risks—global warming pollution and long-term risk that oil prices will undermine real living standards. This paper examines India's options for managing energy price risk in three ways: biofuel development, energy efficiency promotion, and food productivity improvements. Our salient results suggest that biodiesel shows promise as a transport fuel substitute that can be produced in ways that fully utilize marginal agricultural resources and hence promote rural livelihoods. First-generation bioethanol, by contrast, appears to have a limited ability to offset the impacts of oil price hikes. Combining the biodiesel expansion policy with energy efficiency improvements and food productivity increases proved to be a more effective strategy to enhance both energy and food security, help mitigate climate change, and cushion the economy against oil price shocks. - Highlights: • We investigate the role of biofuels in India applying a CGE model. • Biodiesel enhances energy security and improve rural livelihoods. • Sugarcane ethanol does not show positive impact on the economy. • Biodiesel and energy efficiency improvements together provide better results. • Food productivity further enhances biodiesel, and energy efficiency impacts
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Karam, P Andrew
2010-01-01
Our world is largely defined by what we see and hear-but our uses for light and sound go far beyond simply seeing a photo or hearing a song. A concentrated beam of light, lasers are powerful tools used in industry, research, and medicine, as well as in everyday electronics like DVD and CD players. Ultrasound, sound emitted at a high frequency, helps create images of a developing baby, cleans teeth, and much more. Light and Sound teaches how light and sound work, how they are used in our day-to-day lives, and how they can be used to learn about the universe at large.
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Statistical learning of recurring sound patterns encodes auditory objects in songbird forebrain.
Lu, Kai; Vicario, David S
2014-10-07
Auditory neurophysiology has demonstrated how basic acoustic features are mapped in the brain, but it is still not clear how multiple sound components are integrated over time and recognized as an object. We investigated the role of statistical learning in encoding the sequential features of complex sounds by recording neuronal responses bilaterally in the auditory forebrain of awake songbirds that were passively exposed to long sound streams. These streams contained sequential regularities, and were similar to streams used in human infants to demonstrate statistical learning for speech sounds. For stimulus patterns with contiguous transitions and with nonadjacent elements, single and multiunit responses reflected neuronal discrimination of the familiar patterns from novel patterns. In addition, discrimination of nonadjacent patterns was stronger in the right hemisphere than in the left, and may reflect an effect of top-down modulation that is lateralized. Responses to recurring patterns showed stimulus-specific adaptation, a sparsening of neural activity that may contribute to encoding invariants in the sound stream and that appears to increase coding efficiency for the familiar stimuli across the population of neurons recorded. As auditory information about the world must be received serially over time, recognition of complex auditory objects may depend on this type of mnemonic process to create and differentiate representations of recently heard sounds.
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Achieving energy efficiency through product policy: the UK experience
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Boardman, Brenda
2004-01-01
The focus of this paper is on energy efficiency of domestic equipment. It is contended that, in the UK and--by extension--elsewhere. Government has to take the lead in defining low-energy standards for products. In the absence of policy, manufacturers do not recognize the need for carbon reductions in the equipment they design and consumers are unaware of the variation in energy performance in the product range. At present, neither market pull nor technology push can be relied upon to deliver energy savings. The imposition of a weak minimum standard on domestic fridges and freezers in 1999 will, over the lifetime of the appliances already sold by December 2002, save 1 Mt C of carbon dioxide at nil cost to government or to the manufacturers, and a net benefit to consumers of pound 855 m: a highly cost-effective policy. The difference between energy efficiency and energy conservation is that it takes time for the cumulative benefits of an energy efficiency improvement to result in the maximum effect on energy demand reduction: the benefits of the 1999 energy efficiency standard will accumulate until at least 2020. This period is equivalent to the cycle of stock replacement for that particular object. The final level of energy conservation depends upon the offsetting effects of growth in ownership levels and the size of new equipment purchases
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Material efficiency: providing material services with less material production.
Allwood, Julian M; Ashby, Michael F; Gutowski, Timothy G; Worrell, Ernst
2013-03-13
Material efficiency, as discussed in this Meeting Issue, entails the pursuit of the technical strategies, business models, consumer preferences and policy instruments that would lead to a substantial reduction in the production of high-volume energy-intensive materials required to deliver human well-being. This paper, which introduces a Discussion Meeting Issue on the topic of material efficiency, aims to give an overview of current thinking on the topic, spanning environmental, engineering, economics, sociology and policy issues. The motivations for material efficiency include reducing energy demand, reducing the emissions and other environmental impacts of industry, and increasing national resource security. There are many technical strategies that might bring it about, and these could mainly be implemented today if preferred by customers or producers. However, current economic structures favour the substitution of material for labour, and consumer preferences for material consumption appear to continue even beyond the point at which increased consumption provides any increase in well-being. Therefore, policy will be required to stimulate material efficiency. A theoretically ideal policy measure, such as a carbon price, would internalize the externality of emissions associated with material production, and thus motivate change directly. However, implementation of such a measure has proved elusive, and instead the adjustment of existing government purchasing policies or existing regulations-- for instance to do with building design, planning or vehicle standards--is likely to have a more immediate effect.
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Bendixen, Cecilie
Sound is a part of architecture, and sound is complex. Upon this, sound is invisible. How is it then possible to design visual objects that interact with the sound? This paper addresses the problem of how to get access to the complexity of sound and how to make textile material revealing the form...... goemetry by analysing the sound pattern at a specific spot. This analysis is done theoretically with algorithmic systems and practical with waves in water. The paper describes the experiments and the findings, and explains how an analysis of sound can be catched in a textile form....
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Eihab Fathelrahman
2014-12-01
Full Text Available Sheep and goat production systems in the United Arab Emirates (UAE operate under scarce natural resource constraints. A cross-sectional survey that covered 661 mixed farms, including major sheep and goat production, was conducted in the three regions of Abu Dhabi Emirate (Al-Ain, Western Region and Abu Dhabi city during 2012. A Cobb-Douglas, double-logarithmic stochastic frontier production function and maximum likelihood estimation were applied to estimate important economic derivatives and the associated risk of small ruminant production in this arid area. The highest impact of an input on the output level was found to be labor for raising sheep and alfalfa grass for raising goats. Both labor and alfalfa variables were found to be overutilized for sheep and goat production, respectively. Overall, the results indicate that average technical efficiency is 0.62 for raising sheep and only 0.34 for raising goats in the study area. Technical efficiency analysis included measuring the frequency of farms at each level of estimated technical efficiency in the range between zero and one. Zero for the technical efficiency coefficient indicates a lack of technical efficiency in resource use. The results of this study indicated that only 1% of the sheep farms show a technical efficiency coefficient of 0.25 or less; the same can be said for 41% of goat producers. However, these technical efficiencies were found to be more than 0.75 for 12% and 5% of the sheep and goat farms, respectively. Overall, goat farming in the UAE was found to be less efficient than sheep production. The results also indicated that flock size and type of breed were the most influential factors relative to other factors, and both show a positive relationship with technical efficiency. Other than flock size, factors, such as owners’ years of experience and management practices, were found to be more influential on goat farming system efficiency relative to sheep farming.
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Mondal, Ashok; Bhattacharya, P S; Saha, Goutam
2011-01-01
During the recording time of lung sound (LS) signals from the chest wall of a subject, there is always heart sound (HS) signal interfering with it. This obscures the features of lung sound signals and creates confusion on pathological states, if any, of the lungs. A novel method based on empirical mode decomposition (EMD) technique is proposed in this paper for reducing the undesired heart sound interference from the desired lung sound signals. In this, the mixed signal is split into several components. Some of these components contain larger proportions of interfering signals like heart sound, environmental noise etc. and are filtered out. Experiments have been conducted on simulated and real-time recorded mixed signals of heart sound and lung sound. The proposed method is found to be superior in terms of time domain, frequency domain, and time-frequency domain representations and also in listening test performed by pulmonologist.
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Turbine sound may influence the metamorphosis behaviour of estuarine crab megalopae.
Pine, Matthew K; Jeffs, Andrew G; Radford, Craig A
2012-01-01
It is now widely accepted that a shift towards renewable energy production is needed in order to avoid further anthropogenically induced climate change. The ocean provides a largely untapped source of renewable energy. As a result, harvesting electrical power from the wind and tides has sparked immense government and commercial interest but with relatively little detailed understanding of the potential environmental impacts. This study investigated how the sound emitted from an underwater tidal turbine and an offshore wind turbine would influence the settlement and metamorphosis of the pelagic larvae of estuarine brachyuran crabs which are ubiquitous in most coastal habitats. In a laboratory experiment the median time to metamorphosis (TTM) for the megalopae of the crabs Austrohelice crassa and Hemigrapsus crenulatus was significantly increased by at least 18 h when exposed to either tidal turbine or sea-based wind turbine sound, compared to silent control treatments. Contrastingly, when either species were subjected to natural habitat sound, observed median TTM decreased by approximately 21-31% compared to silent control treatments, 38-47% compared to tidal turbine sound treatments, and 46-60% compared to wind turbine sound treatments. A lack of difference in median TTM in A. crassa between two different source levels of tidal turbine sound suggests the frequency composition of turbine sound is more relevant in explaining such responses rather than sound intensity. These results show that estuarine mudflat sound mediates natural metamorphosis behaviour in two common species of estuarine crabs, and that exposure to continuous turbine sound interferes with this natural process. These results raise concerns about the potential ecological impacts of sound generated by renewable energy generation systems placed in the nearshore environment.
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Turbine sound may influence the metamorphosis behaviour of estuarine crab megalopae.
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Matthew K Pine
Full Text Available It is now widely accepted that a shift towards renewable energy production is needed in order to avoid further anthropogenically induced climate change. The ocean provides a largely untapped source of renewable energy. As a result, harvesting electrical power from the wind and tides has sparked immense government and commercial interest but with relatively little detailed understanding of the potential environmental impacts. This study investigated how the sound emitted from an underwater tidal turbine and an offshore wind turbine would influence the settlement and metamorphosis of the pelagic larvae of estuarine brachyuran crabs which are ubiquitous in most coastal habitats. In a laboratory experiment the median time to metamorphosis (TTM for the megalopae of the crabs Austrohelice crassa and Hemigrapsus crenulatus was significantly increased by at least 18 h when exposed to either tidal turbine or sea-based wind turbine sound, compared to silent control treatments. Contrastingly, when either species were subjected to natural habitat sound, observed median TTM decreased by approximately 21-31% compared to silent control treatments, 38-47% compared to tidal turbine sound treatments, and 46-60% compared to wind turbine sound treatments. A lack of difference in median TTM in A. crassa between two different source levels of tidal turbine sound suggests the frequency composition of turbine sound is more relevant in explaining such responses rather than sound intensity. These results show that estuarine mudflat sound mediates natural metamorphosis behaviour in two common species of estuarine crabs, and that exposure to continuous turbine sound interferes with this natural process. These results raise concerns about the potential ecological impacts of sound generated by renewable energy generation systems placed in the nearshore environment.
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Broadband low-frequency sound isolation by lightweight adaptive metamaterials
Liao, Yunhong; Chen, Yangyang; Huang, Guoliang; Zhou, Xiaoming
2018-03-01
Blocking broadband low-frequency airborne noises is highly desirable in lots of engineering applications, while it is extremely difficult to be realized with lightweight materials and/or structures. Recently, a new class of lightweight adaptive metamaterials with hybrid shunting circuits has been proposed, demonstrating super broadband structure-borne bandgaps. In this study, we aim at examining their potentials in broadband sound isolation by establishing an analytical model that rigorously combines the piezoelectric dynamic couplings between adaptive metamaterials and acoustics. Sound transmission loss of the adaptive metamaterial is investigated with respect to both the frequency and angular spectrum to demonstrate their sound-insulation effects. We find that efficient sound isolation can indeed be pursued in the broadband bi-spectrum for not only the case of the small resonator's periodicity where only one mode relevant to the mass-spring resonance exists, but also for the large-periodicity scenario, so that the total weight can be even lighter, in which the multiple plate-resonator coupling modes appear. In the latter case, the negative spring stiffness provided by the piezoelectric stack has been utilized to suppress the resonance-induced high acoustic transmission. Such kinds of adaptive metamaterials could open a new approach for broadband noise isolation with extremely lightweight structures.
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Xenos, P; Yfantopoulos, J; Nektarios, M; Polyzos, N; Tinios, P; Constantopoulos, A
2017-01-01
This study is an initial effort to examine the dynamics of efficiency and productivity in Greek public hospitals during the first phase of the crisis 2009-2012. Data were collected by the Ministry of Health after several quality controls ensuring comparability and validity of hospital inputs and outputs. Productivity is estimated using the Malmquist Indicator, decomposing the estimated values into efficiency and technological change. Hospital efficiency and productivity growth are calculated by bootstrapping the non-parametric Malmquist analysis. The advantage of this method is the estimation efficiency and productivity through the corresponding confidence intervals. Additionally, a Random-effects Tobit model is explored to investigate the impact of contextual factors on the magnitude of efficiency. Findings reveal substantial variations in hospital productivity over the period from 2009 to 2012. The economic crisis of 2009 had a negative impact in productivity. The average Malmquist Productivity Indicator (MPI) score is 0.72 with unity signifying stable production. Approximately 91% of the hospitals score lower than unity. Substantial increase is observed between 2010 and 2011, as indicated by the average MPI score which fluctuates to 1.52. Moreover, technology change scored more than unity in more than 75% of hospitals. The last period (2011-2012) has shown stabilization in the expansionary process of productivity. The main factors contributing to overall productivity gains are increases in occupancy rates, type and size of the hospital. This paper attempts to offer insights in efficiency and productivity growth for public hospitals in Greece. The results suggest that the average hospital experienced substantial productivity growth between 2009 and 2012 as indicated by variations in MPI. Almost all of the productivity increase was due to technology change which could be explained by the concurrent managerial and financing healthcare reforms. Hospitals operating
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Berkhoff, Arthur P.
2008-01-01
A sound generator, particularly a loudspeaker, configured to emit sound, comprising a rigid element (2) enclosing a plurality of air compartments (3), wherein the rigid element (2) has a back side (B) comprising apertures (4), and a front side (F) that is closed, wherein the generator is provided
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Berkhoff, Arthur P.
2010-01-01
A sound generator, particularly a loudspeaker, configured to emit sound, comprising a rigid element (2) enclosing a plurality of air compartments (3), wherein the rigid element (2) has a back side (B) comprising apertures (4), and a front side (F) that is closed, wherein the generator is provided
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Berkhoff, Arthur P.
2007-01-01
A sound generator, particularly a loudspeaker, configured to emit sound, comprising a rigid element (2) enclosing a plurality of air compartments (3), wherein the rigid element (2) has a back side (B) comprising apertures (4), and a front side (F) that is closed, wherein the generator is provided
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Aliev, Ali E; Mayo, Nathanael K; Baughman, Ray H; Avirovik, Dragan; Priya, Shashank; Zarnetske, Michael R; Blottman, John B
2014-10-10
Carbon nanotube (CNT) aerogel sheets produce smooth-spectra sound over a wide frequency range (1-10(5) Hz) by means of thermoacoustic (TA) sound generation. Protective encapsulation of CNT sheets in inert gases between rigid vibrating plates provides resonant features for the TA sound projector and attractive performance at needed low frequencies. Energy conversion efficiencies in air of 2% and 10% underwater, which can be enhanced by further increasing the modulation temperature. Using a developed method for accurate temperature measurements for the thin aerogel CNT sheets, heat dissipation processes, failure mechanisms, and associated power densities are investigated for encapsulated multilayered CNT TA heaters and related to the thermal diffusivity distance when sheet layers are separated. Resulting thermal management methods for high applied power are discussed and deployed to construct efficient and tunable underwater sound projector for operation at relatively low frequencies, 10 Hz-10 kHz. The optimal design of these TA projectors for high-power SONAR arrays is discussed.
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International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Aliev, Ali E; Mayo, Nathanael K; Baughman, Ray H; Avirovik, Dragan; Priya, Shashank; Zarnetske, Michael R; Blottman, John B
2014-01-01
Carbon nanotube (CNT) aerogel sheets produce smooth-spectra sound over a wide frequency range (1–10 5 Hz) by means of thermoacoustic (TA) sound generation. Protective encapsulation of CNT sheets in inert gases between rigid vibrating plates provides resonant features for the TA sound projector and attractive performance at needed low frequencies. Energy conversion efficiencies in air of 2% and 10% underwater, which can be enhanced by further increasing the modulation temperature. Using a developed method for accurate temperature measurements for the thin aerogel CNT sheets, heat dissipation processes, failure mechanisms, and associated power densities are investigated for encapsulated multilayered CNT TA heaters and related to the thermal diffusivity distance when sheet layers are separated. Resulting thermal management methods for high applied power are discussed and deployed to construct efficient and tunable underwater sound projector for operation at relatively low frequencies, 10 Hz–10 kHz. The optimal design of these TA projectors for high-power SONAR arrays is discussed. (paper)
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National Aeronautics and Space Administration — NASA has released a series of space sounds via sound cloud. We have abstracted away some of the hassle in accessing these sounds, so that developers can play with...
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Stocco, G; Cipolat-Gotet, C; Gasparotto, V; Cecchinato, A; Bittante, G
2018-02-01
Little is known about cheese-making efficiency at the individual cow level, so our objective was to study the effects of herd productivity, individual herd within productivity class and breed of cow within herd by producing, then analyzing, 508 model cheeses from the milk of 508 cows of six different breeds reared in 41 multi-breed herds classified into two productivity classes (high v. low). For each cow we obtained six milk composition traits; four milk nutrient (fat, protein, solids and energy) recovery traits (REC) in curd; three actual % cheese yield traits (%CY); two theoretical %CYs (fresh cheese and cheese solids) calculated from milk composition; two overall cheese-making efficiencies (% ratio of actual to theoretical %CYs); daily milk yield (dMY); and three actual daily cheese yield traits (dCY). The aforementioned phenotypes were analyzed using a mixed model which included the fixed effects of herd productivity, parity, days in milk (DIM) and breed; the random effects were the water bath, vat, herd and residual. Cows reared in high-productivity herds yielded more milk with higher nutrient contents and more cheese per day, had greater theoretical %CY, and lower cheese-making efficiency than low-productivity herds, but there were no differences between them in terms of REC traits. Individual herd within productivity class was an intermediate source of total variation in REC, %CY and efficiency traits (10.0% to 17.2%), and a major source of variation in milk yield and dCY traits (43.1% to 46.3%). Parity of cows was an important source of variation for productivity traits, whereas DIM affected almost all traits. Breed within herd greatly affected all traits. Holsteins produced more milk, but Brown Swiss cows produced milk with higher actual and theoretical %CYs and cheese-making efficiency, so that the two large-framed breeds had the same dCY. Compared with the two large-framed breeds, the small Jersey cows produced much less milk, but with greater actual
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Nordahl, Rolf; Nilsson, Niels Christian
2014-01-01
The concept “presence”—often defined as the sensation of “being there”—has received increasing attention in the last decades. Out of the many domains of application, presence is particularly relevant in relation to Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR). Despite the growing attention in the concept pres...... to illustrating how sound production and perception relate to the four constituents of the framework: immersion, illusions of place, illusions of plausibility, and virtual body ownership....
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Potential benefits from improved energy efficiency of key electrical products: The case of India
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
McNeil, Michael A.; Iyer, Maithili; Meyers, Stephen; Letschert, Virginie E.; McMahon, James E.
2008-01-01
The economy of the world's second most populous country continues to grow rapidly, bringing prosperity to a growing middle class while further straining an energy infrastructure already stretched beyond capacity. At the same time, efficiency policy initiatives have gained a foothold in India, and promise to grow in number over the coming years. This paper considers the maximum cost-effective potential of efficiency improvement for key energy-consuming products in the Indian context. The products considered are: household refrigerators, window air conditioners, motors and distribution transformers. Together, these products account for about 27% of delivered electricity consumption in India. The analysis estimates the minimum Life-Cycle Cost option for each product class, according to use patterns and prevailing customer marginal rates in each sector. This option represents an efficiency improvement ranging between 12% and 60%, depending on product class. If this level of efficiency was achieved starting in 2010, we estimate that total electricity consumption in India could be reduced by 4.7% by 2020, saving over 74 million tons of oil equivalent and over 246 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Net present financial savings of this efficiency improvement totals 8.1 billion dollars
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Opo lidar sounding of trace atmospheric gases in the 3 - 4 μm spectral range
Romanovskii, Oleg A.; Sadovnikov, Sergey A.; Kharchenko, Olga V.; Yakovlev, Semen V.
2018-04-01
The applicability of a KTA crystal-based laser system with optical parametric oscillators (OPO) generation to lidar sounding of the atmosphere in the spectral range 3-4 μm is studied in this work. A technique developed for lidar sounding of trace atmospheric gases (TAG) is based on differential absorption lidar (DIAL) method and differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS). The DIAL-DOAS technique is tested to estimate its efficiency for lidar sounding of atmospheric trace gases. The numerical simulation performed shows that a KTA-based OPO laser is a promising source of radiation for remote DIAL-DOAS sounding of the TAGs under study along surface tropospheric paths. A possibility of using a PD38-03-PR photodiode for the DIAL gas analysis of the atmosphere is shown.
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Sun, Xiuwen; Li, Xiaoling; Ji, Lingyu; Han, Feng; Wang, Huifen; Liu, Yang; Chen, Yao; Lou, Zhiyuan; Li, Zhuoyun
2018-01-01
Based on the existing research on sound symbolism and crossmodal correspondence, this study proposed an extended research on cross-modal correspondence between various sound attributes and color properties in a group of non-synesthetes. In Experiment 1, we assessed the associations between each property of sounds and colors. Twenty sounds with five auditory properties (pitch, roughness, sharpness, tempo and discontinuity), each varied in four levels, were used as the sound stimuli. Forty-nine colors with different hues, saturation and brightness were used to match to those sounds. Result revealed that besides pitch and tempo, roughness and sharpness also played roles in sound-color correspondence. Reaction times of sound-hue were a little longer than the reaction times of sound-lightness. In Experiment 2, a speeded target discrimination task was used to assess whether the associations between sound attributes and color properties could invoke natural cross-modal correspondence and improve participants' cognitive efficiency in cognitive tasks. Several typical sound-color pairings were selected according to the results of Experiment 1. Participants were divided into two groups (congruent and incongruent). In each trial participants had to judge whether the presented color could appropriately be associated with the sound stimuli. Result revealed that participants responded more quickly and accurately in the congruent group than in the incongruent group. It was also found that there was no significant difference in reaction times and error rates between sound-hue and sound-lightness. The results of Experiment 1 and 2 indicate the existence of a robust crossmodal correspondence between multiple attributes of sound and color, which also has strong influence on cognitive tasks. The inconsistency of the reaction times between sound-hue and sound-lightness in Experiment 1 and 2 is probably owing to the difference in experimental protocol, which indicates that the complexity
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DEPENDENCE OF ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND COST OF PRODUCTION
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
D. Sklyarov
2016-01-01
Full Text Available Economic systems exist on condition of receipt and spending of energy. Energy consumption is a necessary condition for the existence and functioning of the economic systems of any scale: macroeconomics, microeconomics, regional economy or the world economy.The economic system operates on the scale at which it is able to produce energy and get access to energy. Moreover, receipt and consumption of energy in the operation of the economic system is mainly determined by, the level of energy production from energy sources, since this level is determined by the level of energy consumption by industries and enterprises of the economy.Currently, the economic system does not produce energy in reserve. Thus, the question of energy effi ciency and energy saving was always acute.The article describes the energy efficiency and energy saving effect on the cost of production. Were used two methods: “costs and release” matrix and “price - value added” matrix. The result is the equation of dependence of energy efficiency and costs.
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Sound Insulation between Dwellings
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Rasmussen, Birgit
2011-01-01
Regulatory sound insulation requirements for dwellings exist in more than 30 countries in Europe. In some countries, requirements have existed since the 1950s. Findings from comparative studies show that sound insulation descriptors and requirements represent a high degree of diversity...... and initiate – where needed – improvement of sound insulation of new and existing dwellings in Europe to the benefit of the inhabitants and the society. A European COST Action TU0901 "Integrating and Harmonizing Sound Insulation Aspects in Sustainable Urban Housing Constructions", has been established and runs...... 2009-2013. The main objectives of TU0901 are to prepare proposals for harmonized sound insulation descriptors and for a European sound classification scheme with a number of quality classes for dwellings. Findings from the studies provide input for the discussions in COST TU0901. Data collected from 24...
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Anita Romsdal
2014-07-01
Full Text Available This paper addresses the complex production planning and control (PPC challenges in food supply chains. The study illustrates how food producers' traditional make‐to‐stock (MTS approach is not well suited to meet the trends of increasing product variety, higher demand uncertainty, increasing sales of fresh food products and more demanding customers. The paper proposes a framework for differentiated PPC that combines MTS with make‐to‐order (MTO.The framework matches products with the most appropriate PPC approaches and buffering techniques depending on market and product characteristics. The core idea is to achieve more volume flexibility in the production system by exploiting favourable product and market characteristics (high demand predictability, long customer order leadtime allowances and low product perishability. A case study is used to demonstrate how the framework can enable food producers to achieve efficiency in production, inventory and PPC processes – and simultaneously be responsive to market requirements.
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Groth, Sanne Krogh
2015-01-01
PROFESSOR PORTRAIT: Sanne Krogh Groth met Holger Schulze, newly appointed professor in Musicology at the Department for Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen, to a talk about anthropology of sound, sound studies, musical canons and ideology.......PROFESSOR PORTRAIT: Sanne Krogh Groth met Holger Schulze, newly appointed professor in Musicology at the Department for Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen, to a talk about anthropology of sound, sound studies, musical canons and ideology....
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Boyle, Kelly S; Colleye, Orphal; Parmentier, Eric
2014-09-22
Elucidating the origins of complex biological structures has been one of the major challenges of evolutionary studies. Within vertebrates, the capacity to produce regular coordinated electric organ discharges (EODs) has evolved independently in different fish lineages. Intermediate stages, however, are not known. We show that, within a single catfish genus, some species are able to produce sounds, electric discharges or both signals (though not simultaneously). We highlight that both acoustic and electric communication result from actions of the same muscle. In parallel to their abilities, the studied species show different degrees of myofibril development in the sonic and electric muscle. The lowest myofibril density was observed in Synodontis nigriventris, which produced EODs but no swim bladder sounds, whereas the greatest myofibril density was observed in Synodontis grandiops, the species that produced the longest sound trains but did not emit EODs. Additionally, S. grandiops exhibited the lowest auditory thresholds. Swim bladder sounds were similar among species, while EODs were distinctive at the species level. We hypothesize that communication with conspecifics favoured the development of species-specific EOD signals and suggest an evolutionary explanation for the transition from a fast sonic muscle to electrocytes. © 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.
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Product lifetime, energy efficiency and climate change: A case study of air conditioners in Japan.
Nishijima, Daisuke
2016-10-01
This study proposed a modelling technique for estimating life-cycle CO2 emissions of durable goods by considering changes in product lifetime and energy efficiency. The stock and flow of durable goods was modelled by Weibull lifetime distributions and the trend in annual energy efficiency (i.e., annual electricity consumption) of an "average" durable good was formulated as a reverse logistic curve including a technologically critical value (i.e., limit energy efficiency) with respect to time. I found that when the average product lifetime is reduced, there is a trade-off between the reduction in emissions during product use (use phase), due to the additional purchases of new, more energy-efficient air conditioners, and the increase in emissions arising from the additional production of new air conditioners stimulated by the reduction of the average product lifetime. A scenario analysis focused on residential air conditioners in Japan during 1972-2013 showed that for a reduction of average lifetime of 1 year, if the air conditioner energy efficiency limit can be improved by 1.4% from the estimated current efficiency level, then CO2 emissions can be reduced by approximately the same amount as for an extension of average product lifetime of 1 year. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Electronic medical records and efficiency and productivity during office visits.
Furukawa, Michael F
2011-04-01
To estimate the relationship between electronic medical record (EMR) use and efficiency of utilization and provider productivity during visits to US office-based physicians. Cross-sectional analysis of the 2006-2007 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. The sample included 62,710 patient visits to 2625 physicians. EMR systems included demographics, clinical notes, prescription orders, and laboratory and imaging results. Efficiency was measured as utilization of examinations, laboratory tests, radiology procedures, health education, nonmedication treatments, and medications. Productivity was measured as total services provided per 20-minute period. Survey-weighted regressions estimated association of EMR use with services provided, visit intensity/duration, and productivity. Marginal effects were estimated by averaging across all visits and by major reason for visit. EMR use was associated with higher probability of any examination (7.7%, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 2.4%, 13.1%); any laboratory test (5.7%, 95% CI = 2.6%, 8.8%); any health education (4.9%, 95% CI = 0.2%, 9.6%); and fewer laboratory tests (-7.1%, 95% CI = -14.2%, -0.1%). During pre/post surgery visits, EMR use was associated with 7.3% (95% CI= -12.9%, -1.8%) fewer radiology procedures. EMR use was not associated with utilization of nonmedication treatments and medications, or visit duration. During routine visits for a chronic problem, EMR use was associated with 11.2% (95% CI = 5.7%, 16.8%) more diagnostic/screening services provided per 20-minute period. EMR use had a mixed association with efficiency and productivity during office visits. EMRs may improve provider productivity, especially during visits for a new problem and routine chronic care.
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Industrial policy, production efficiency improvement and the Chinese county economic growth
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Wang Zhenhua
2016-12-01
Full Text Available This study aims at analyzing the difference in the level of economic development between China’s counties from the two perspectives of industrial policy and production efficiency. Based on panel data of 1830 Chinese counties, this study employs the new classical economic growth theory framework to analyze the counties’ economic growth by the perpetual inventory method, Malmquist index, among others. The results show that the economy of the counties exhibits δ convergence since 2004, and the absolute differences in the different counties are expanding. Industrial policy ensures the additional deepening of the level of capital in the county. Additionally, a substantial difference was observed between the agricultural sector and the non-agricultural sector, whereby the total factor productivity and the technical efficiency are on the rise, resulting in the phenomenon of dual paths of technological progress. In summary, the capital deepening difference between the sectors, production efficiency, and dual paths of technological progress owing to the counties’ industrial policy are the basic reasons for the regional differences in the level of economic development in China.
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Fenko, Anna; Lotterman, Henriët; Galetzka, Mirjam
2016-01-01
In the global market, consumers are exposed to multiple brand names in unfamiliar languages. Even meaningless words can trigger certain semantic associations. This phenomenon is known as sound symbolism, i.e., the direct link between a sound and a meaning. Sound symbolism helps consumers to form
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The productive efficiency of organic farming: the case of grape sector in Catalonia
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Guesmi, B.; Serra, T.; Kallas, Z.; Gil Roig, J. M.
2012-11-01
Knowledge about productivity and efficiency differences between conventional and organic farms has important implications for the evaluation of the economic viability of these two agricultural practices. The main purpose of this study was to compare the efficiency ratings of organic and conventional grape farms in Catalonia. To do so, we fit a stochastic production frontier to cross sectional, farm-level data collected from a sample of 141 Catalan farms that specialize in grape growing. Results show that organic farmers, on average, are more efficient than their conventional counterparts (efficiency ratings are on the order of 0.80 and 0.64, respectively). Apart from adoption of organic practices, experience is also found to improve technical efficiency. Conversely, technical efficiency tends to decrease with the relevance of unpaid family labor, farm location in less favored areas, and farmers strong environmental preservation preferences. (Author) 41 refs.
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Future consequences of decreasing marginal production efficiency in the high-yielding dairy cow.
Moallem, U
2016-04-01
The objectives were to examine the gross and marginal production efficiencies in high-yielding dairy cows and the future consequences on dairy industry profitability. Data from 2 experiments were used in across-treatments analysis (n=82 mid-lactation multiparous Israeli-Holstein dairy cows). Milk yields, body weights (BW), and dry matter intakes (DMI) were recorded daily. In both experiments, cows were fed a diet containing 16.5 to 16.6% crude protein and net energy for lactation (NEL) at 1.61 Mcal/kg of dry matter (DM). The means of milk yield, BW, DMI, NEL intake, and energy required for maintenance were calculated individually over the whole study, and used to calculate gross and marginal efficiencies. Data were analyzed in 2 ways: (1) simple correlation between variables; and (2) cows were divided into 3 subgroups, designated low, moderate, and high DMI (LDMI, MDMI, and HDMI), according to actual DMI per day: ≤ 26 kg (n=27); >26 through 28.2 kg (n=28); and >28.2 kg (n=27). The phenotypic Pearson correlations among variables were analyzed, and the GLM procedure was used to test differences between subgroups. The relationships between milk and fat-corrected milk yields and the corresponding gross efficiencies were positive, whereas BW and gross production efficiency were negatively correlated. The marginal production efficiency from DM and energy consumed decreased with increasing DMI. The difference between BW gain as predicted by the National Research Council model (2001) and the present measurements increased with increasing DMI (r=0.68). The average calculated energy balances were 1.38, 2.28, and 4.20 Mcal/d (standard error of the mean=0.64) in the LDMI, MDMI, and HDMI groups, respectively. The marginal efficiency for milk yields from DMI or energy consumed was highest in LDMI, intermediate in MDMI, and lowest in HDMI. The predicted BW gains for the whole study period were 22.9, 37.9, and 75.8 kg for the LDMI, MDMI, and HDMI groups, respectively. The
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Turbine Sound May Influence the Metamorphosis Behaviour of Estuarine Crab Megalopae
Pine, Matthew K.; Jeffs, Andrew G.; Radford, Craig A.
2012-01-01
It is now widely accepted that a shift towards renewable energy production is needed in order to avoid further anthropogenically induced climate change. The ocean provides a largely untapped source of renewable energy. As a result, harvesting electrical power from the wind and tides has sparked immense government and commercial interest but with relatively little detailed understanding of the potential environmental impacts. This study investigated how the sound emitted from an underwater tidal turbine and an offshore wind turbine would influence the settlement and metamorphosis of the pelagic larvae of estuarine brachyuran crabs which are ubiquitous in most coastal habitats. In a laboratory experiment the median time to metamorphosis (TTM) for the megalopae of the crabs Austrohelice crassa and Hemigrapsus crenulatus was significantly increased by at least 18 h when exposed to either tidal turbine or sea-based wind turbine sound, compared to silent control treatments. Contrastingly, when either species were subjected to natural habitat sound, observed median TTM decreased by approximately 21–31% compared to silent control treatments, 38–47% compared to tidal turbine sound treatments, and 46–60% compared to wind turbine sound treatments. A lack of difference in median TTM in A. crassa between two different source levels of tidal turbine sound suggests the frequency composition of turbine sound is more relevant in explaining such responses rather than sound intensity. These results show that estuarine mudflat sound mediates natural metamorphosis behaviour in two common species of estuarine crabs, and that exposure to continuous turbine sound interferes with this natural process. These results raise concerns about the potential ecological impacts of sound generated by renewable energy generation systems placed in the nearshore environment. PMID:23240063
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Lapointe, Brian E.; O'Connell, Julie
1989-04-01
The green alga Cladophora prolifera (Chlorophyta, Cladophorales) has formed widespread blooms in Bermuda's inshore waters during the past 20 years, but, to date, no conclusive evidence links these blooms to nutrient enrichment. This study assessed the nutrient-dependance of productivity of Cladophora collected from Harrington Sound, a confined P-limited marine system where Cladophora first became abundant. Both N- and P-enrichment decreased the doubling time of Cladophora, which ranged from 14 days (with N and P enrichment) to 100 days (without enrichment). Nutrient enrichment also enhanced the light-saturated photosynthetic capacity (i.e. P max) of Cladophora, which ranged from 0·50 mg C g dry wt -1 h -1 (without enrichment) to 1·0 mg C g dry wt -1 h -1 (with enrichment). Tissue C:N, C:P and N:P ratios of unenriched Cladophora were elevated—25, 942, and 49, respectively—levels that suggest limitation by both N and P but primary limitation by P. Pore-waters under Cladophora mats had reduced salinities, elevated concentrations of NH 4, and high N:P ratios (N:P of 85), suggesting that N-rich groundwater seepage enriches Cladophora mats. The alkaline phosphatase capacity of Cladophora was high compared to other macroalgae in Harrington Sound, and its capacity was enhanced by N-enrichment and suppressed by P-enrichment. Because the productivity of Cladophora is nutrient-limited in shallow waters of Harrington Sound, enhanced growth and increased biomass of Cladophora result from cumulative seepage of N-rich groundwaters coupled with efficient utilization and recycling of dissolved organo-phosphorus compounds.
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Dias, Weeratilake
1998-01-01
Efficient operation of agricultural credit markets is very important both for the producer as well as for the policy makers. DEA approach is used to calculate productivity analysis which allows decomposition of sources of productivity changes into efficiency and technical change. Measured efficiencies are comparable to most recent parametric studies.
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International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Schneir, M.; Imberman, M.; Ramamurthy, N.; Golub, L.
1987-01-01
The objective of this study was to quantify the contribution of both ribosome amount and ribosomal efficiency to decreased collagen production in skin of diabetic rats and diabetic rats treated with dietary ascorbic acid. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were distributed equally into the following categories: non-diabetic controls; diabetics; ascorbic acid-treated diabetics. On day-20, all rats were injected with ( 3 H)proline and killed after 2 h. Absolute rate of collagen production, ribosome content, and ribosomal efficiency of collagen production were quantified. Also ribosomal efficiency was quantified for ribosomes in sucrose-gradient fractionated post-mitochondrial supernatants. The results indicate that decreased ribosomal efficiency was responsible for 70% of the decreased collagen production with 30% caused by decreased ribosome content, when measured for total skin or sucrose gradient-isolated ribosomes. At both levels of analysis, ascorbic acid treatment normalized ribosomal efficiency, indicating diabetes-mediated decreased ribosomal efficiency for collagen production is related to a co-translational event, such as procollagen underhydroxylation
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Non-parametric analysis of production efficiency of poultry egg ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Non-parametric analysis of production efficiency of poultry egg farmers in Delta ... analysis of factors affecting the output of poultry farmers showed that stock ... should be put in place for farmers to learn the best farm practices carried out on the ...
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Strori, Dorina; Zaar, Johannes; Cooke, Martin
2017-01-01
Recent evidence has shown that nonlinguistic sounds co-occurring with spoken words may be retained in memory and affect later retrieval of the words. This sound-specificity effect shares many characteristics with the classic voice-specificity effect. In this study, we argue that the sound......-specificity effect is conditional upon the context in which the word and sound coexist. Specifically, we argue that, besides co-occurrence, integrality between words and sounds is a crucial factor in the emergence of the effect. In two recognition-memory experiments, we compared the emergence of voice and sound...... from a mere co-occurrence context effect by removing the intensity modulation. The absence of integrality led to the disappearance of the sound-specificity effect. Taken together, the results suggest that the assimilation of background sounds into memory cannot be reduced to a simple context effect...
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Active sound reduction system and method
2016-01-01
The present invention refers to an active sound reduction system and method for attenuation of sound emitted by a primary sound source, especially for attenuation of snoring sounds emitted by a human being. This system comprises a primary sound source, at least one speaker as a secondary sound
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Improving Sound Systems by Electrical Means
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Schneider, Henrik
to intelligent control and protection functionality and so on. In this work different strategies towards improvements of sound systems by electrical means was investigated considering the interfaces between each component and the performance of the full system. The strategies can be categorized by improvements...... reduction in the best case. This technology is very promising since it compensates for most distortion mechanisms of the transducer such as non-linearities, production variation, wear-n-tear, temperature changes and so on. Furthermore the accelerometer output can be used for protection purposes. The only...... of the bended copper foils to optimize the DC resistance. The DC resistance was reduced by 30 % compared to the starting point for a 10 turn toroidal inductor using this method. The combined work indicate that large sound system improvements are in reach by use of electrical means. Innovative solutions have...
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Sound Symbolism in Basic Vocabulary
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Søren Wichmann
2010-04-01
Full Text Available The relationship between meanings of words and their sound shapes is to a large extent arbitrary, but it is well known that languages exhibit sound symbolism effects violating arbitrariness. Evidence for sound symbolism is typically anecdotal, however. Here we present a systematic approach. Using a selection of basic vocabulary in nearly one half of the world’s languages we find commonalities among sound shapes for words referring to same concepts. These are interpreted as due to sound symbolism. Studying the effects of sound symbolism cross-linguistically is of key importance for the understanding of language evolution.
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van den Berg, G P
2005-01-01
Sound from wind turbines involves a number of sound production mechanisms related to different interactions between the turbine blades and the air. An important contribution to the low frequency part of the sound spectrum is due to the sudden variation in air flow which the blade encounters when it
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Sounding the Alarm: An Introduction to Ecological Sound Art
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Jonathan Gilmurray
2016-12-01
Full Text Available In recent years, a number of sound artists have begun engaging with ecological issues through their work, forming a growing movement of ˝ecological sound art˝. This paper traces its development, examines its influences, and provides examples of the artists whose work is currently defining this important and timely new field.
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Eco-efficiency of intensification scenarios for milk production in New Zealand
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Basset-Mens, Claudine; Ledgard, Stewart; Boyes, Mark [AgResearch Limited, Ruakura Research Centre, East Street, Private Bag 3123, Hamilton (New Zealand)
2009-04-15
New Zealand (NZ) dairy farms used to be the lowest input and most efficient dairy farms of the world. However, intensification of the traditional pasture-based system has occurred over the last decade and has not always been accompanied by increased efficiency. The purpose of this paper is to produce an updated reference of the eco-efficiency of NZ dairy farm systems and to analyse the implications of intensification on their eco-efficiency. Results for an average NZ dairy farm system were compared with those for three dairy farmlet systems representing a wide range in intensification practices. A low input system (LI) (no N fertiliser, no brought-in feed supplement, stocking rate of 2.3 cows/ha) was compared with an N-fertilised farm system (NF) (170 kg fertiliser-N/ha/year, 3 cows/ha) representing a first level of intensification and with an N-fertilised and maize silage supplemented system (NFMS) (170 kg fertiliser-N/ha/year, 13 t DM maize silage/ha/year, 5.2 cows/ha), representing a possible future intensification option. Their eco-efficiency in terms of milk production and land use was compared using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. NZ dairy farm systems rely on favourable temperate climate conditions and long-term perennial ryegrass/white clover pasture, to achieve eco-efficient milk production and land use compared to European systems. However, intensification of NZ dairy farms was shown to be detrimental to their eco-efficiency in terms both of milk production and land use functions and could greatly reduce their advantage compared to European systems. The eco-efficiency of LI was very high whatever the functional unit which is remarkable from an LCA perspective. NF and NFMS had a similar eco-efficiency except for energy use which corresponded to the most critical hot spot of NFMS. All studied NZ systems presented some areas for improvement where some new technologies available for dairy farms might play a promising role in the future. Finally, it
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Sound Stuff? Naïve materialism in middle-school students' conceptions of sound
Eshach, Haim; Schwartz, Judah L.
2006-06-01
Few studies have dealt with students’ preconceptions of sounds. The current research employs Reiner et al. (2000) substance schema to reveal new insights about students’ difficulties in understanding this fundamental topic. It aims not only to detect whether the substance schema is present in middle school students’ thinking, but also examines how students use the schema’s properties. It asks, moreover, whether the substance schema properties are used as islands of local consistency or whether one can identify more global coherent consistencies among the properties that the students use to explain the sound phenomena. In-depth standardized open-ended interviews were conducted with ten middle school students. Consistent with the substance schema, sound was perceived by our participants as being pushable, frictional, containable, or transitional. However, sound was also viewed as a substance different from the ordinary with respect to its stability, corpuscular nature, additive properties, and inertial characteristics. In other words, students’ conceptions of sound do not seem to fit Reiner et al.’s schema in all respects. Our results also indicate that students’ conceptualization of sound lack internal consistency. Analyzing our results with respect to local and global coherence, we found students’ conception of sound is close to diSessa’s “loosely connected, fragmented collection of ideas.” The notion that sound is perceived only as a “sort of a material,” we believe, requires some revision of the substance schema as it applies to sound. The article closes with a discussion concerning the implications of the results for instruction.
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Sound symbolism: the role of word sound in meaning.
Svantesson, Jan-Olof
2017-09-01
The question whether there is a natural connection between sound and meaning or if they are related only by convention has been debated since antiquity. In linguistics, it is usually taken for granted that 'the linguistic sign is arbitrary,' and exceptions like onomatopoeia have been regarded as marginal phenomena. However, it is becoming more and more clear that motivated relations between sound and meaning are more common and important than has been thought. There is now a large and rapidly growing literature on subjects as ideophones (or expressives), words that describe how a speaker perceives a situation with the senses, and phonaesthemes, units like English gl-, which occur in many words that share a meaning component (in this case 'light': gleam, glitter, etc.). Furthermore, psychological experiments have shown that sound symbolism in one language can be understood by speakers of other languages, suggesting that some kinds of sound symbolism are universal. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1441. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1441 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Energy efficiency of an innovative vertical axial rotary kiln for pottery production
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Carlos Andrés Forero Núñez
2015-01-01
Full Text Available Colombia is a remarkablecoal producer and exporter worldwide; several sectors use this resource for electricity and thermal energy production. Among them, the ceramic industry consumed 118,590 tons in 2011. Most of the pottery production companies in this country arelocated in rural areas and use old coal fired kilns with low energy efficiencies, generating environmental effects to the population nearby. Despite of the importance of these industries to the small rural economies, the government agencies have closed them due to the lack of development on cleaner devices. This work aims to analyze the thermal behavior of an innovative vertical axial rotary kiln for pottery production, and the energy efficiency varying operation mode. The kiln operated during seven hours needed three hours for stabilizing sintering temperature at 800°C. The mean temperatures of the loading, drying, sintering and cooling stage were 204°C, 223°C, 809°C and 321°C respectively. The convection and radiation heat losses were 15 % whereas the flue gas heat losses 18 %.During continuous operation, the kiln energy efficiency was about 60 %. This design proven to reach the temperatures required in the firing stage of the pottery production; moreover, a gas fuel was fuelled making the process cleaner and more efficient than coal-fired systems.
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Ponnath, Abhilash; Farris, Hamilton E
2014-01-01
Descending circuitry can modulate auditory processing, biasing sensitivity to particular stimulus parameters and locations. Using awake in vivo single unit recordings, this study tested whether electrical stimulation of the thalamus modulates auditory excitability and relative binaural sensitivity in neurons of the amphibian midbrain. In addition, by using electrical stimuli that were either longer than the acoustic stimuli (i.e., seconds) or presented on a sound-by-sound basis (ms), experiments addressed whether the form of modulation depended on the temporal structure of the electrical stimulus. Following long duration electrical stimulation (3-10 s of 20 Hz square pulses), excitability (spikes/acoustic stimulus) to free-field noise stimuli decreased by 32%, but returned over 600 s. In contrast, sound-by-sound electrical stimulation using a single 2 ms duration electrical pulse 25 ms before each noise stimulus caused faster and varied forms of modulation: modulation lasted sound-by-sound electrical stimulation varied between different acoustic stimuli, including for different male calls, suggesting modulation is specific to certain stimulus attributes. For binaural units, modulation depended on the ear of input, as sound-by-sound electrical stimulation preceding dichotic acoustic stimulation caused asymmetric modulatory effects: sensitivity shifted for sounds at only one ear, or by different relative amounts for both ears. This caused a change in the relative difference in binaural sensitivity. Thus, sound-by-sound electrical stimulation revealed fast and ear-specific (i.e., lateralized) auditory modulation that is potentially suited to shifts in auditory attention during sound segregation in the auditory scene.
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Strori, Dorina; Zaar, Johannes; Cooke, Martin; Mattys, Sven L
2018-01-01
Recent evidence has shown that nonlinguistic sounds co-occurring with spoken words may be retained in memory and affect later retrieval of the words. This sound-specificity effect shares many characteristics with the classic voice-specificity effect. In this study, we argue that the sound-specificity effect is conditional upon the context in which the word and sound coexist. Specifically, we argue that, besides co-occurrence, integrality between words and sounds is a crucial factor in the emergence of the effect. In two recognition-memory experiments, we compared the emergence of voice and sound specificity effects. In Experiment 1 , we examined two conditions where integrality is high. Namely, the classic voice-specificity effect (Exp. 1a) was compared with a condition in which the intensity envelope of a background sound was modulated along the intensity envelope of the accompanying spoken word (Exp. 1b). Results revealed a robust voice-specificity effect and, critically, a comparable sound-specificity effect: A change in the paired sound from exposure to test led to a decrease in word-recognition performance. In the second experiment, we sought to disentangle the contribution of integrality from a mere co-occurrence context effect by removing the intensity modulation. The absence of integrality led to the disappearance of the sound-specificity effect. Taken together, the results suggest that the assimilation of background sounds into memory cannot be reduced to a simple context effect. Rather, it is conditioned by the extent to which words and sounds are perceived as integral as opposed to distinct auditory objects.
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Analysis, Synthesis, and Perception of Musical Sounds The Sound of Music
Beauchamp, James W
2007-01-01
Analysis, Synthesis, and Perception of Musical Sounds contains a detailed treatment of basic methods for analysis and synthesis of musical sounds, including the phase vocoder method, the McAulay-Quatieri frequency-tracking method, the constant-Q transform, and methods for pitch tracking with several examples shown. Various aspects of musical sound spectra such as spectral envelope, spectral centroid, spectral flux, and spectral irregularity are defined and discussed. One chapter is devoted to the control and synthesis of spectral envelopes. Two advanced methods of analysis/synthesis are given: "Sines Plus Transients Plus Noise" and "Spectrotemporal Reassignment" are covered. Methods for timbre morphing are given. The last two chapters discuss the perception of musical sounds based on discrimination and multidimensional scaling timbre models.
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Comprehensive measures of sound exposures in cinemas using smart phones.
Huth, Markus E; Popelka, Gerald R; Blevins, Nikolas H
2014-01-01
Sensorineural hearing loss from sound overexposure has a considerable prevalence. Identification of sound hazards is crucial, as prevention, due to a lack of definitive therapies, is the sole alternative to hearing aids. One subjectively loud, yet little studied, potential sound hazard is movie theaters. This study uses smart phones to evaluate their applicability as a widely available, validated sound pressure level (SPL) meter. Therefore, this study measures sound levels in movie theaters to determine whether sound levels exceed safe occupational noise exposure limits and whether sound levels in movie theaters differ as a function of movie, movie theater, presentation time, and seat location within the theater. Six smart phones with an SPL meter software application were calibrated with a precision SPL meter and validated as an SPL meter. Additionally, three different smart phone generations were measured in comparison to an integrating SPL meter. Two different movies, an action movie and a children's movie, were measured six times each in 10 different venues (n = 117). To maximize representativeness, movies were selected focusing on large release productions with probable high attendance. Movie theaters were selected in the San Francisco, CA, area based on whether they screened both chosen movies and to represent the largest variety of theater proprietors. Measurements were analyzed in regard to differences between theaters, location within the theater, movie, as well as presentation time and day as indirect indicator of film attendance. The smart phone measurements demonstrated high accuracy and reliability. Overall, sound levels in movie theaters do not exceed safe exposure limits by occupational standards. Sound levels vary significantly across theaters and demonstrated statistically significant higher sound levels and exposures in the action movie compared to the children's movie. Sound levels decrease with distance from the screen. However, no influence on
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Surgeons' efficiency change is a major determinant of their productivity change.
Nakata, Yoshinori; Watanabe, Yuichi; Narimatsu, Hiroto; Yoshimura, Tatsuya; Otake, Hiroshi; Sawa, Tomohiro
2016-05-09
Purpose - The sustainability of the Japanese healthcare system is in question because the government has had a huge fiscal debt. Despite an enormous effort to cut the deficit, our healthcare expenditure is increasing every year because of the rapidly aging population. One of the solutions for this problem is to improve the productivity of healthcare. The purpose of this paper is to determine the factors that change surgeons' productivity in one year. Design/methodology/approach - The authors collected data of all surgical procedures performed at Teikyo University Hospital from April 1 through September 30 in 2014 and 2015, and computed the surgeons' Malmquist index (MI), efficiency change (EC) and technical change (TC) using non-radial and non-oriented Malmquist model under the constant returns-to-scale assumptions. The authors then divided the surgeons into two groups; one whose productivity progressed and the other whose productivity regressed. These two groups were compared to identify factors that may influence their MI. Findings - The only significant difference between the two groups was ECs (p productivity change. The best way to improve surgeons' productivity may be to enhance their efficiency regardless of their surgical volume and personal backgrounds.
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Michael Jackson's Sound Stages
Morten Michelsen
2012-01-01
In order to discuss analytically spatial aspects of recorded sound William Moylan’s concept of ‘sound stage’ is developed within a musicological framework as part of a sound paradigm which includes timbre, texture and sound stage. Two Michael Jackson songs (‘The Lady in My Life’ from 1982 and ‘Scream’ from 1995) are used to: a) demonstrate the value of such a conceptualisation, and b) demonstrate that the model has its limits, as record producers in the 1990s began ignoring the conventions of...
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Marcelinus Christwardana
2017-07-01
Full Text Available Physico-stimulant like audible sound is one of the new promising methods for enhancing microalgae growth rate. Here, microalgae Haematococcus pluvialis was cultivated with the addition of audible sound with titles “Blues for Elle” and “Far and Wide.” The objective of this research was to evaluate the effect of audible sound to the growth and productivity of microalgae. The experiment has been conducted by exposing the audible sound for 8 h in 22 days to microalgae cultivation. The result showed that microalgae H. pluvialis treated by the music “Blues for Elle” shows the highest growth rate (0.03 per day, and 58% higher than the one without audible sound. The average number of cells in stationary phase is 0.76 × 104 cells/mL culture and the productivity is 3.467 × 102 cells/mL/day. The pH of microalgae medium slightly decreases because of proton production during photosynthesis process. The kinetic rate constant (kapp is 0.078 per day, reaction half-life (t1/2 is 8.89 days, and catalytic surface (Ksurf is 1.66 × 10−5/day/cm2. In conclusion, this audible sound is very useful to stimulate microalgae growth rate, especially H. pluvialis.
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Investigating the Optimum Efficiency of Acoustoelectric Conversion Plate Devices
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Chien-Chih Chen
2014-04-01
Full Text Available This study aims to develop the acoustoelectric conversion plate in terms of electromagnetic induction law to convert sound energy to electricity, where the developed apparatus is made of three parts, the thin film coil, the spring, and the high-intensity magnetic framework. In process, the thin film coil receives the injecting sound vibration in connection with the spring to cause the reciprocating motion between the coil and the high-intensity magnet, which yields the electromotive force (EMF. In this study, a pearl plate of length 95 mm, width 95 mm, and thickness 1.5 mm adhered with a PET film of thickness 0.08mm is built as the substrate plate due to it has good properties of light and elasticity. In connection with the substrate plate and the electric coil is the thin film coil. Experiments used the speaker with output frequencies of 30~156 Hz and sound power of 0.5 W (sound intensity 0.32 W/m2, sound pressure level 115 dB as the sound source. The sound energy is captured by the acoustoelectric conversion plate for working efficiency and optimization parameters analysis. The studied parameters content of diameter, turns, and width of electric coil as well as distance between high intensity magnet and coil. The results show that diameter 0.11 mm, turns 220, and width 3 mm of the electric coil, in connection with steel spring of diameter 0.2 mm while input sound is 30 Hz, receives the average output voltage of 0.57 V, the average output current of 5.46 mA, the average output power of 3.13 mW, and the sound electric conversion efficiency of 0.63%. This innovation device could be used in highway, near waterfalls, and some high noise factories to capture energy for immediately charging cell-phone to save human life.
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2010-10-01
... can be used to assess the life cycle cost of each good or product, including building energy system... the Government Through Leadership in Environmental Management Systems, dated April 21, 2000. This Executive Order assists with developing an environmental management system. The following sources are...
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Environmentally sound energy efficient strategies: A case study of the power section in India
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Parikh, J; Painuly, J P; Bhattacharya, K
1997-02-01
Coal is a major source of energy in India, providing more than 60% of the commercial energy requirements. Coal is also most polluting fuel in terms of GHG emissions. Considering India`s energy resources, coal may continue to provide a large part of energy requirements in the future too. Coal is mainly used for generating electricity. Therefore, efficient measures for generation, transmission and end use of electricity can help in reducing the environmental pollution, leading to environmentally sound development. The report highlights some such important measures; reduction in auxiliary consumption (i e. the electricity consumed by generating units in the process of generation), reduction in transmission and distribution losses, and application of demand side management (DSM) options for high tension (HT) industries. The study was conducted in two phases. Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB), the largest utility in Maharashtra was chosen for the detailed study in the first phase. For the study of auxiliary consumption, two typical plants of the MSEB were selected. The transmission losses were studied for the MSEB system based on a snap-shot picture of the system. For the DSM part, energy saving potential in HT industries in Maharashtra was explored based on a survey of HT industries. In the second phase of the study, two more plants outside Maharashtra were also studied to get better insight into diverse causes for the different levels of auxiliary consumption and estimate potential savings. All India potential for savings through reduction in auxiliary consumption was also estimated in this phase. (EG) 10 refs.
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Feng Tao
2012-01-01
Full Text Available The growth of China's industry has been seriously depending on energy and environment. This paper attempts to apply the directional distance function and the Luenberger productivity index to measure the environmental efficiency, environmental total factor productivity, and its components at the level of subindustry in China over the period from 1999 to 2009 while considering energy consumption and emission of pollutants. This paper also empirically examines the determinants of efficiency and productivity change. The major findings are as follows. Firstly, the main sources of environmental inefficiency of China's industry are the inefficiency of gross industrial output value, the excessive energy consumption, and pollutant emissions. Secondly, the highest growth rate of environmental total factor productivity among the three industrial categories is manufacturing, followed by mining, and production and supply of electricity, gas, and water. Thirdly, foreign direct investment, capital-labor ratio, ownership structure, energy consumption structure, and environmental regulation have varying degrees of effects on the environmental efficiency and environmental total factor productivity.
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Tao, Feng; Li, Ling; Xia, X H
2012-01-01
The growth of China's industry has been seriously depending on energy and environment. This paper attempts to apply the directional distance function and the Luenberger productivity index to measure the environmental efficiency, environmental total factor productivity, and its components at the level of subindustry in China over the period from 1999 to 2009 while considering energy consumption and emission of pollutants. This paper also empirically examines the determinants of efficiency and productivity change. The major findings are as follows. Firstly, the main sources of environmental inefficiency of China's industry are the inefficiency of gross industrial output value, the excessive energy consumption, and pollutant emissions. Secondly, the highest growth rate of environmental total factor productivity among the three industrial categories is manufacturing, followed by mining, and production and supply of electricity, gas, and water. Thirdly, foreign direct investment, capital-labor ratio, ownership structure, energy consumption structure, and environmental regulation have varying degrees of effects on the environmental efficiency and environmental total factor productivity.
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Tao, Feng; Li, Ling; Xia, X. H.
2012-01-01
The growth of China's industry has been seriously depending on energy and environment. This paper attempts to apply the directional distance function and the Luenberger productivity index to measure the environmental efficiency, environmental total factor productivity, and its components at the level of subindustry in China over the period from 1999 to 2009 while considering energy consumption and emission of pollutants. This paper also empirically examines the determinants of efficiency and productivity change. The major findings are as follows. Firstly, the main sources of environmental inefficiency of China's industry are the inefficiency of gross industrial output value, the excessive energy consumption, and pollutant emissions. Secondly, the highest growth rate of environmental total factor productivity among the three industrial categories is manufacturing, followed by mining, and production and supply of electricity, gas, and water. Thirdly, foreign direct investment, capital-labor ratio, ownership structure, energy consumption structure, and environmental regulation have varying degrees of effects on the environmental efficiency and environmental total factor productivity. PMID:23365517
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Denikin Anton A.
2012-12-01
Full Text Available The article considers the aesthetical and practical possibilities for sounds (sound design in video games and interactive applications. Outlines the key features of the game sound, such as simulation, representativeness, interactivity, immersion, randomization, and audio-visuality. The author defines the basic terminology in study of game audio, as well as identifies significant aesthetic differences between film sounds and sounds in video game projects. It is an attempt to determine the techniques of art analysis for the approaches in study of video games including aesthetics of their sounds. The article offers a range of research methods, considering the video game scoring as a contemporary creative practice.
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Severe Speech Sound Disorders: An Integrated Multimodal Intervention
King, Amie M.; Hengst, Julie A.; DeThorne, Laura S.
2013-01-01
Purpose: This study introduces an integrated multimodal intervention (IMI) and examines its effectiveness for the treatment of persistent and severe speech sound disorders (SSD) in young children. The IMI is an activity-based intervention that focuses simultaneously on increasing the "quantity" of a child's meaningful productions of target words…
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Jiang, Xueliang; Yang, Zhen; Wang, Zhijie; Zhang, Fuqing; You, Feng
2018-01-01
Barium titanate/nitrile butadiene rubber (BT/NBR) and polyurethane (PU) foam were combined to prepare a sound-absorbing material with an alternating multilayered structure. The effects of the cell size of PU foam and the alternating unit number on the sound absorption property of the material were investigated. The results show that the sound absorption efficiency at a low frequency increased when decreasing the cell size of PU foam layer. With the increasing of the alternating unit number, the material shows the sound absorption effect in a wider bandwidth of frequency. The BT/NBR-PU foam composites with alternating multilayered structure have an excellent sound absorption property at low frequency due to the organic combination of airflow resistivity, resonance absorption, and interface dissipation. PMID:29565321
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Xueliang Jiang
2018-03-01
Full Text Available Barium titanate/nitrile butadiene rubber (BT/NBR and polyurethane (PU foam were combined to prepare a sound-absorbing material with an alternating multilayered structure. The effects of the cell size of PU foam and the alternating unit number on the sound absorption property of the material were investigated. The results show that the sound absorption efficiency at a low frequency increased when decreasing the cell size of PU foam layer. With the increasing of the alternating unit number, the material shows the sound absorption effect in a wider bandwidth of frequency. The BT/NBR-PU foam composites with alternating multilayered structure have an excellent sound absorption property at low frequency due to the organic combination of airflow resistivity, resonance absorption, and interface dissipation.
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Jiang, Xueliang; Yang, Zhen; Wang, Zhijie; Zhang, Fuqing; You, Feng; Yao, Chu
2018-03-22
Barium titanate/nitrile butadiene rubber (BT/NBR) and polyurethane (PU) foam were combined to prepare a sound-absorbing material with an alternating multilayered structure. The effects of the cell size of PU foam and the alternating unit number on the sound absorption property of the material were investigated. The results show that the sound absorption efficiency at a low frequency increased when decreasing the cell size of PU foam layer. With the increasing of the alternating unit number, the material shows the sound absorption effect in a wider bandwidth of frequency. The BT/NBR-PU foam composites with alternating multilayered structure have an excellent sound absorption property at low frequency due to the organic combination of airflow resistivity, resonance absorption, and interface dissipation.
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Laser vibrometry measurements of vibration and sound fields of a bowed violin
Gren, Per; Tatar, Kourosh; Granström, Jan; Molin, N.-E.; Jansson, Erik V.
2006-04-01
Laser vibrometry measurements on a bowed violin are performed. A rotating disc apparatus, acting as a violin bow, is developed. It produces a continuous, long, repeatable, multi-frequency sound from the instrument that imitates the real bow-string interaction for a 'very long bow'. What mainly differs is that the back and forward motion of the real bow is replaced by the rotating motion with constant velocity of the disc and constant bowing force (bowing pressure). This procedure is repeatable. It is long lasting and allows laser vibrometry techniques to be used, which measure forced vibrations by bowing at all excited frequencies simultaneously. A chain of interacting parts of the played violin is studied: the string, the bridge and the plates as well as the emitted sound field. A description of the mechanics and the sound production of the bowed violin is given, i.e. the production chain from the bowed string to the produced tone.
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Misceo, Monica; Buonamici, Roberto; Buttol, Patrizia; Naldesi, Luciano; Grimaldi, Filomena; Rinaldi, Caterina
2004-12-01
TESPI (Tool for Environmental Sound Product Innovation) is the prototype of a software tool developed within the framework of the "eLCA" project. The project, (www.elca.enea.it)financed by the European Commission, is realising "On line green tools and services for Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs)". The implementation by SMEs of environmental product innovation (as fostered by the European Integrated Product Policy, IPP) needs specific adaptation to their economic model, their knowledge of production and management processes and their relationships with innovation and the environment. In particular, quality and costs are the main driving forces of innovation in European SMEs, and well known barriers exist to the adoption of an environmental approach in the product design. Starting from these considerations, the TESPI tool has been developed to support the first steps of product design taking into account both the quality and the environment. Two main issues have been considered: (i) classic Quality Function Deployment (QFD) can hardly be proposed to SMEs; (ii) the environmental aspects of the product life cycle need to be integrated with the quality approach. TESPI is a user friendly web-based tool, has a training approach and applies to modular products. Users are guided through the investigation of the quality aspects of their product (customer"s needs and requirements fulfilment) and the identification of the key environmental aspects in the product"s life cycle. A simplified check list allows analyzing the environmental performance of the product. Help is available for a better understanding of the analysis criteria. As a result, the significant aspects for the redesign of the product are identified.
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White Paper on Energy Efficiency Status of Energy-Using Products in China (2011)
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Zhou, Nan [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Romankiewicz, John [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Fridley, David [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
2012-06-01
This White Paper focuses on the areas and products involved in the above tasks, based on the White Paper - Energy Efficiency Status of Energy-Using Products in China (2010), here referred to as “White Paper 2010”, which analyzed the energy efficiency status of 21 typical energy-using products in five sectors: household appliances, office equipment, commercial equipment, industrial equipment, and lighting equipment. Table 1 illustrates the detailed product coverage for this year’s paper, noting the addition of three household appliance items (automatic electric rice cooker, AC electric fan, and household induction cooktop) and one industrial sector item (three-phase distribution transformer).
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Improved production efficiency in cattle to reduce their carbon ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
p2492989
Keywords: Methane, global warming, greenhouse gas, crossbreeding, residual feed intake, feed efficiency. #Corresponding ... improved production per constant unit, crossbreeding and selection for residual feed intake. ... convert such a measure into kg calf produced per kg CO2 equivalent (CH4 can be converted to a CO2.
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Cost-efficiency of animal welfare in broiler production systems
Gocsik, Éva; Brooshooft, Suzanne D.; Jong, de Ingrid C.; Saatkamp, Helmut W.
2016-01-01
Broiler producers operate in a highly competitive and cost-price driven environment. In addition, in recent years the societal pressure to improve animal welfare (AW) in broiler production systems is increasing. Hence, from an economic and decision making point of view, the cost-efficiency of
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Bjørnsten, Thomas
2012-01-01
The article discusses the intricate relationship between sound and signification through notions of noise. The emergence of new fields of sonic artistic practices has generated several questions of how to approach sound as aesthetic form and material. During the past decade an increased attention...... has been paid to, for instance, a category such as ‘sound art’ together with an equally strengthened interest in phenomena and concepts that fall outside the accepted aesthetic procedures and constructions of what we traditionally would term as musical sound – a recurring example being ‘noise’....
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A Relational Database Model and Tools for Environmental Sound Recognition
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Yuksel Arslan
2017-12-01
Full Text Available Environmental sound recognition (ESR has become a hot topic in recent years. ESR is mainly based on machine learning (ML and ML algorithms require first a training database. This database must comprise the sounds to be recognized and other related sounds. An ESR system needs the database during training, testing and in the production stage. In this paper, we present the design and pilot establishment of a database which will assists all researchers who want to establish an ESR system. This database employs relational database model which is not used for this task before. We explain in this paper design and implementation details of the database, data collection and load process. Besides we explain the tools and developed graphical user interface for a desktop application and for the WEB.
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Sound classification of dwellings
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Rasmussen, Birgit
2012-01-01
National schemes for sound classification of dwellings exist in more than ten countries in Europe, typically published as national standards. The schemes define quality classes reflecting different levels of acoustical comfort. Main criteria concern airborne and impact sound insulation between...... dwellings, facade sound insulation and installation noise. The schemes have been developed, implemented and revised gradually since the early 1990s. However, due to lack of coordination between countries, there are significant discrepancies, and new standards and revisions continue to increase the diversity...... is needed, and a European COST Action TU0901 "Integrating and Harmonizing Sound Insulation Aspects in Sustainable Urban Housing Constructions", has been established and runs 2009-2013, one of the main objectives being to prepare a proposal for a European sound classification scheme with a number of quality...
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Sun, Xiuwen; Ji, Lingyu; Han, Feng; Wang, Huifen; Liu, Yang; Chen, Yao; Lou, Zhiyuan; Li, Zhuoyun
2018-01-01
Based on the existing research on sound symbolism and crossmodal correspondence, this study proposed an extended research on cross-modal correspondence between various sound attributes and color properties in a group of non-synesthetes. In Experiment 1, we assessed the associations between each property of sounds and colors. Twenty sounds with five auditory properties (pitch, roughness, sharpness, tempo and discontinuity), each varied in four levels, were used as the sound stimuli. Forty-nine colors with different hues, saturation and brightness were used to match to those sounds. Result revealed that besides pitch and tempo, roughness and sharpness also played roles in sound-color correspondence. Reaction times of sound-hue were a little longer than the reaction times of sound-lightness. In Experiment 2, a speeded target discrimination task was used to assess whether the associations between sound attributes and color properties could invoke natural cross-modal correspondence and improve participants’ cognitive efficiency in cognitive tasks. Several typical sound-color pairings were selected according to the results of Experiment 1. Participants were divided into two groups (congruent and incongruent). In each trial participants had to judge whether the presented color could appropriately be associated with the sound stimuli. Result revealed that participants responded more quickly and accurately in the congruent group than in the incongruent group. It was also found that there was no significant difference in reaction times and error rates between sound-hue and sound-lightness. The results of Experiment 1 and 2 indicate the existence of a robust crossmodal correspondence between multiple attributes of sound and color, which also has strong influence on cognitive tasks. The inconsistency of the reaction times between sound-hue and sound-lightness in Experiment 1 and 2 is probably owing to the difference in experimental protocol, which indicates that the
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Xiuwen Sun
2018-03-01
Full Text Available Based on the existing research on sound symbolism and crossmodal correspondence, this study proposed an extended research on cross-modal correspondence between various sound attributes and color properties in a group of non-synesthetes. In Experiment 1, we assessed the associations between each property of sounds and colors. Twenty sounds with five auditory properties (pitch, roughness, sharpness, tempo and discontinuity, each varied in four levels, were used as the sound stimuli. Forty-nine colors with different hues, saturation and brightness were used to match to those sounds. Result revealed that besides pitch and tempo, roughness and sharpness also played roles in sound-color correspondence. Reaction times of sound-hue were a little longer than the reaction times of sound-lightness. In Experiment 2, a speeded target discrimination task was used to assess whether the associations between sound attributes and color properties could invoke natural cross-modal correspondence and improve participants’ cognitive efficiency in cognitive tasks. Several typical sound-color pairings were selected according to the results of Experiment 1. Participants were divided into two groups (congruent and incongruent. In each trial participants had to judge whether the presented color could appropriately be associated with the sound stimuli. Result revealed that participants responded more quickly and accurately in the congruent group than in the incongruent group. It was also found that there was no significant difference in reaction times and error rates between sound-hue and sound-lightness. The results of Experiment 1 and 2 indicate the existence of a robust crossmodal correspondence between multiple attributes of sound and color, which also has strong influence on cognitive tasks. The inconsistency of the reaction times between sound-hue and sound-lightness in Experiment 1 and 2 is probably owing to the difference in experimental protocol, which indicates
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Office noise: Can headphones and masking sound attenuate distraction by background speech?
Jahncke, Helena; Björkeholm, Patrik; Marsh, John E; Odelius, Johan; Sörqvist, Patrik
2016-11-22
Background speech is one of the most disturbing noise sources at shared workplaces in terms of both annoyance and performance-related disruption. Therefore, it is important to identify techniques that can efficiently protect performance against distraction. It is also important that the techniques are perceived as satisfactory and are subjectively evaluated as effective in their capacity to reduce distraction. The aim of the current study was to compare three methods of attenuating distraction from background speech: masking a background voice with nature sound through headphones, masking a background voice with other voices through headphones and merely wearing headphones (without masking) as a way to attenuate the background sound. Quiet was deployed as a baseline condition. Thirty students participated in an experiment employing a repeated measures design. Performance (serial short-term memory) was impaired by background speech (1 voice), but this impairment was attenuated when the speech was masked - and in particular when it was masked by nature sound. Furthermore, perceived workload was lowest in the quiet condition and significantly higher in all other sound conditions. Notably, the headphones tested as a sound-attenuating device (i.e. without masking) did not protect against the effects of background speech on performance and subjective work load. Nature sound was the only masking condition that worked as a protector of performance, at least in the context of the serial recall task. However, despite the attenuation of distraction by nature sound, perceived workload was still high - suggesting that it is difficult to find a masker that is both effective and perceived as satisfactory.
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Characteristic sounds facilitate visual search.
Iordanescu, Lucica; Guzman-Martinez, Emmanuel; Grabowecky, Marcia; Suzuki, Satoru
2008-06-01
In a natural environment, objects that we look for often make characteristic sounds. A hiding cat may meow, or the keys in the cluttered drawer may jingle when moved. Using a visual search paradigm, we demonstrated that characteristic sounds facilitated visual localization of objects, even when the sounds carried no location information. For example, finding a cat was faster when participants heard a meow sound. In contrast, sounds had no effect when participants searched for names rather than pictures of objects. For example, hearing "meow" did not facilitate localization of the word cat. These results suggest that characteristic sounds cross-modally enhance visual (rather than conceptual) processing of the corresponding objects. Our behavioral demonstration of object-based cross-modal enhancement complements the extensive literature on space-based cross-modal interactions. When looking for your keys next time, you might want to play jingling sounds.
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Phonaesthemes and sound symbolism in Swedish brand names
Abelin, Åsa
2015-01-01
This study examines the prevalence of sound symbolism in Swedish brand names. A general principle of brand name design is that effective names should be distinctive, recognizable, easy to pronounce and meaningful. Much money is invested in designing powerful brand names, where the emotional impact of the names on consumers is also relevant and it is important to avoid negative connotations. Customers prefer brand names, which say something about the product, as this reduces product uncertaint...
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International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Strasser, H.
1988-01-01
Information transmission by means of VDUs, spreading at present rapidly in office work and some branches of the industrial production, is not only an auxiliary means but the essential destination and objective of working activities in specific areas of the media sector. By the progression of the video technique a further concentration of VDT work and the increasing gravity of all advantages and disadvantages is to be expected in the film and TV sectors. The real radiation exposure of the technical staff involved in working with and at monitors and potential risks of hearing by whistling sounds sent out by these apparatuses are analysed and evaluated. Experiences in health hazards by radiation from VDUs in office work had to be adapted adequately to the specific working conditions at work places in film and TV productions. (orig./HP) [de
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Determining the speed of sound in the air by sound wave interference
Silva, Abel A.
2017-07-01
Mechanical waves propagate through material media. Sound is an example of a mechanical wave. In fluids like air, sound waves propagate through successive longitudinal perturbations of compression and decompression. Audible sound frequencies for human ears range from 20 to 20 000 Hz. In this study, the speed of sound v in the air is determined using the identification of maxima of interference from two synchronous waves at frequency f. The values of v were correct to 0 °C. The experimental average value of {\\bar{ν }}\\exp =336 +/- 4 {{m}} {{{s}}}-1 was found. It is 1.5% larger than the reference value. The standard deviation of 4 m s-1 (1.2% of {\\bar{ν }}\\exp ) is an improved value by the use of the concept of the central limit theorem. The proposed procedure to determine the speed of sound in the air aims to be an academic activity for physics classes of scientific and technological courses in college.
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Explorations and analysis of soundscapes have, since Canadian R. Murray Schafer's work during the early 1970's, developed into various established research - and artistic disciplines. The interest in sonic environments is today present within a broad range of contemporary art projects and in arch......Explorations and analysis of soundscapes have, since Canadian R. Murray Schafer's work during the early 1970's, developed into various established research - and artistic disciplines. The interest in sonic environments is today present within a broad range of contemporary art projects...... and in architectural design. Aesthetics, psychoacoustics, perception, and cognition are all present in this expanding field embracing such categories as soundscape composition, sound art, sonic art, sound design, sound studies and auditory culture. Of greatest significance to the overall field is the investigation...
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Shafiro, Valeriy; Sheft, Stanley; Gygi, Brian; Ho, Kim Thien N
2012-06-01
Perceptual training with spectrally degraded environmental sounds results in improved environmental sound identification, with benefits shown to extend to untrained speech perception as well. The present study extended those findings to examine longer-term training effects as well as effects of mere repeated exposure to sounds over time. Participants received two pretests (1 week apart) prior to a week-long environmental sound training regimen, which was followed by two posttest sessions, separated by another week without training. Spectrally degraded stimuli, processed with a four-channel vocoder, consisted of a 160-item environmental sound test, word and sentence tests, and a battery of basic auditory abilities and cognitive tests. Results indicated significant improvements in all speech and environmental sound scores between the initial pretest and the last posttest with performance increments following both exposure and training. For environmental sounds (the stimulus class that was trained), the magnitude of positive change that accompanied training was much greater than that due to exposure alone, with improvement for untrained sounds roughly comparable to the speech benefit from exposure. Additional tests of auditory and cognitive abilities showed that speech and environmental sound performance were differentially correlated with tests of spectral and temporal-fine-structure processing, whereas working memory and executive function were correlated with speech, but not environmental sound perception. These findings indicate generalizability of environmental sound training and provide a basis for implementing environmental sound training programs for cochlear implant (CI) patients.
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Sound Surfing Network (SSN): Mobile Phone-based Sound Spatialization with Audience Collaboration
Park, Saebyul; Ban, Seonghoon; Hong, Dae Ryong; Yeo, Woon Seung
2013-01-01
SSN (Sound Surfing Network) is a performance system that provides a new musicalexperience by incorporating mobile phone-based spatial sound control tocollaborative music performance. SSN enables both the performer and theaudience to manipulate the spatial distribution of sound using the smartphonesof the audience as distributed speaker system. Proposing a new perspective tothe social aspect music appreciation, SSN will provide a new possibility tomobile music performances in the context of in...
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Sound Exposure of Symphony Orchestra Musicians
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Schmidt, Jesper Hvass; Pedersen, Ellen Raben; Juhl, Peter Møller
2011-01-01
dBA and their left ear was exposed 4.6 dB more than the right ear. Percussionists were exposed to high sound peaks >115 dBC but less continuous sound exposure was observed in this group. Musicians were exposed up to LAeq8h of 92 dB and a majority of musicians were exposed to sound levels exceeding......Background: Assessment of sound exposure by noise dosimetry can be challenging especially when measuring the exposure of classical orchestra musicians where sound originate from many different instruments. A new measurement method of bilateral sound exposure of classical musicians was developed...... and used to characterize sound exposure of the left and right ear simultaneously in two different symphony orchestras.Objectives: To measure binaural sound exposure of professional classical musicians and to identify possible exposure risk factors of specific musicians.Methods: Sound exposure was measured...
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Letter-Sound Reading: Teaching Preschool Children Print-to-Sound Processing
Wolf, Gail Marie
2016-01-01
This intervention study investigated the growth of letter sound reading and growth of consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word decoding abilities for a representative sample of 41 US children in preschool settings. Specifically, the study evaluated the effectiveness of a 3-step letter-sound teaching intervention in teaching preschool children to…
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Challenges in biobutanol production: How to improve the efficiency?
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Garcia, Veronica; Paekkilae, Johanna; Muurinen, Esa; Keiski, Riitta L.; Ojamo, Heikki
2011-01-01
There is an increasing interest in the production of chemicals and fuels from renewable resources due to the continuing price increase of fossil resources, the insecurity of the availability of fossil resources in the future, and additionally environmental concerns and legislations. Biobutanol may be produced by the acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation. This paper reviews the biobutanol production bringing up the problems and challenges to overcome. The aim of the paper is to help in finding opportunities to make the process feasible in the near future. The analysis stresses the idea of improving the efficiency of the fermentation stage by altering the up (pretreatment of the raw material) and downstream (product recovery and purification) processes. The paper also explores the biobutanol production from the biorefinery perspective. Finally the review brings up the important role of research in developing and implementing the production of biobutanol by the ABE fermentation. (author)
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Challenges in biobutanol production: How to improve the efficiency?
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Garcia, Veronica; Paekkilae, Johanna; Muurinen, Esa; Keiski, Riitta L. [Mass and Heat Transfer Process Laboratory, Department of Process and Environmental Engineering, POB 4300, FI-90014 University of Oulu, Oulu (Finland); Ojamo, Heikki [Bioprocess Engineering Laboratory, Department of Process and Environmental Engineering, POB 4300, FI-90014 University of Oulu, Oulu (Finland)
2011-02-15
There is an increasing interest in the production of chemicals and fuels from renewable resources due to the continuing price increase of fossil resources, the insecurity of the availability of fossil resources in the future, and additionally environmental concerns and legislations. Biobutanol may be produced by the acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation. This paper reviews the biobutanol production bringing up the problems and challenges to overcome. The aim of the paper is to help in finding opportunities to make the process feasible in the near future. The analysis stresses the idea of improving the efficiency of the fermentation stage by altering the up (pretreatment of the raw material) and downstream (product recovery and purification) processes. The paper also explores the biobutanol production from the biorefinery perspective. Finally the review brings up the important role of research in developing and implementing the production of biobutanol by the ABE fermentation. (author)
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Storage changes in the quality of sound and sprouted flour.
Sur, R; Nagi, H P; Sharma, S; Sekhon, K S
1993-07-01
Sound and sprouted flours (24 and 48 hr) from bread wheat (WL-1562), durum wheat (PBW-34) and triticale (TL-1210) were stored at room temperature (34.8 degrees C) and relative humidity (66.7%) for 0, 45, 90 and 135 days to assess the changes in physico-chemical and baking properties. Protein, gluten, sedimentation value, starch and crude fat decreased during storage in all the samples; however, the decrease was more in sprouted flours. Free amino acids, proteolytic activity, diastatic activity and damaged starch decreased with increase in storage period. Total sugars and free fatty acids increased more rapidly in the flours of sprouted wheats during 135 days of storage. Loaf volume of breads decreased during storage in both sound and sprouted flour but the mean percent decrease in loaf volume was more in stored sound flours. Aging of sprouted flour for 45 days improved the cookie and cake making properties but further storage was of no value for these baked products. Chapati making properties of stored sound and sprouted flour were inferior to that of fresh counterparts.
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Efficient STEP (solar thermal electrochemical photo) production of hydrogen - an economic assessment
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Licht, Stuart [Department of Chemistry, George Washington University, Ashburn, VA 20147 (United States); Solar Institute, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052 (United States); Chitayat, Olivia; Bergmann, Harry; Dick, Andrew; Ayub, Hina [Solar Institute, George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052 (United States); Ghosh, Susanta [Department of Chemistry, George Washington University, Ashburn, VA 20147 (United States); Department of Chemistry, Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan (India)
2010-10-15
A consideration of the economic viability of hydrogen fuel production is important in the STEP (Solar Thermal Electrochemical Photo) production of hydrogen fuel. STEP is an innovative way to decrease costs and increase the efficiency of hydrogen fuel production, which is a synergistic process that can use concentrating photovoltaics (CPV) and solar thermal energy to drive a high temperature, low voltage, electrolysis (water-splitting), resulting in H{sub 2} at decreased energy and higher solar efficiency. This study provides evidence that the STEP system is an economically viable solution for the production of hydrogen. STEP occurs at both higher electrolysis and solar conversion efficiencies than conventional room temperature photovoltaic (PV) generation of hydrogen. This paper probes the economic viability of this process, by comparing four different systems: (1) 10% or (2) 14% flat plate PV driven aqueous alkaline electrolysis H{sub 2} production, (3) 25% CPV driven molten electrolysis H{sub 2} production, and (4) 35% CPV driven solid oxide electrolysis H{sub 2} production. The molten and solid oxide electrolysers are high temperature systems that can make use of light, normally discarded, for heating. This significantly increases system efficiency. Using levelized cost analysis, this study shows significant cost reduction using the STEP system. The total price per kg of hydrogen is shown to decrease from 5.74 to 4.96 to 3.01 to 2.61 with the four alternative systems. The advanced STEP plant requires less than one seventh of the land area of the 10% flat cell plant. To generate the 216 million kg H{sub 2}/year required by 1 million fuel cell vehicles, the 35% CPV driven solid oxide electrolysis requires a plant only 9.6 mi{sup 2} in area. While PV and electrolysis components dominate the cost of conventional PV generated hydrogen, they do not dominate the cost of the STEP-generated hydrogen. The lower cost of STEP hydrogen is driven by residual distribution and
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Economic efficiency of maize production in Yola North Local ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Similarly, the efficiency ratio computed showed that land, seed and fertilizer had MVP/MFC ratio greater than unity implying that the inputs were underutilized and output could be increased by increasing the levels of their utilization. The elasticity of production was greater than 1.00 which implied increasing return to scale.
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Anti-bat tiger moth sounds: Form and function
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Aaron J. CORCORAN, William E. CONNER, Jesse R. BARBER
2010-06-01
Full Text Available The night sky is the venue of an ancient acoustic battle between echolocating bats and their insect prey. Many tiger moths (Lepidoptera: Arctiidae answer the attack calls of bats with a barrage of high frequency clicks. Some moth species use these clicks for acoustic aposematism and mimicry, and others for sonar jamming, however, most of the work on these defensive functions has been done on individual moth species. We here analyze the diversity of structure in tiger moth sounds from 26 species collected at three locations in North and South America. A principal components analysis of the anti-bat tiger moth sounds reveals that they vary markedly along three axes: (1 frequency, (2 duty cycle (sound production per unit time and frequency modulation, and (3 modulation cycle (clicks produced during flexion and relaxation of the sound producing tymbal structure. Tiger moth species appear to cluster into two distinct groups: one with low duty cycle and few clicks per modulation cycle that supports an acoustic aposematism function, and a second with high duty cycle and many clicks per modulation cycle that is consistent with a sonar jamming function. This is the first evidence from a community-level analysis to support multiple functions for tiger moth sounds. We also provide evidence supporting an evolutionary history for the development of these strategies. Furthermore, cross-correlation and spectrogram correlation measurements failed to support a “phantom echo” mechanism underlying sonar jamming, and instead point towards echo interference [Current Zoology 56 (3: 358–369, 2010].
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Reading drift in flow rate sensors caused by steady sound waves
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Maximiano, Celso; Nieble, Marcio D.; Migliavacca, Sylvana C.P.; Silva, Eduardo R.F.
1995-01-01
The use of thermal sensors very common for the measurement of small flows of gases. In this kind of sensor a little tube forming a bypass is heated symmetrically, then the temperature distribution in the tube modifies with the mass flow along it. When a stationary wave appears in the principal tube it causes an oscillation of pressure around the average value. The sensor, located between two points of the principal tube, indicates not only the principal mass flow, but also that one caused by the difference of pressure induced by the sound wave. When the gas flows at low pressures the equipment indicates a value that do not correspond to the real. Tests and essays were realized by generating a sound wave in the principal tube, without mass flow, and the sensor detected flux. In order to solve this problem a wave-damper was constructed, installed and tested in the system and it worked satisfactory eliminating with efficiency the sound wave. (author). 2 refs., 3 figs
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STRUCTURE OF THE MARKET OF INNOVATIVE PRODUCTS: APPROACH TO ASSESSING THE IMPACT ON EFFICIENCY
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Anna Elagina
2015-06-01
Full Text Available The formation of innovation policy innovative economy is impossible without an understanding of the conceptual basis of the efficiency of production of innovative products. In particular, determination of the influence of market structure on the possibility of expanded reproduction of innovative products. The article is devoted to consideration of existing in this field of research and definition of the limits of quantitative assessment of the influence of defects of market structures on efficiency.
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Yang, Dikun; Oldenburg, Douglas W.; Haber, Eldad
2014-03-01
Airborne electromagnetic (AEM) methods are highly efficient tools for assessing the Earth's conductivity structures in a large area at low cost. However, the configuration of AEM measurements, which typically have widely distributed transmitter-receiver pairs, makes the rigorous modelling and interpretation extremely time-consuming in 3-D. Excessive overcomputing can occur when working on a large mesh covering the entire survey area and inverting all soundings in the data set. We propose two improvements. The first is to use a locally optimized mesh for each AEM sounding for the forward modelling and calculation of sensitivity. This dedicated local mesh is small with fine cells near the sounding location and coarse cells far away in accordance with EM diffusion and the geometric decay of the signals. Once the forward problem is solved on the local meshes, the sensitivity for the inversion on the global mesh is available through quick interpolation. Using local meshes for AEM forward modelling avoids unnecessary computing on fine cells on a global mesh that are far away from the sounding location. Since local meshes are highly independent, the forward modelling can be efficiently parallelized over an array of processors. The second improvement is random and dynamic down-sampling of the soundings. Each inversion iteration only uses a random subset of the soundings, and the subset is reselected for every iteration. The number of soundings in the random subset, determined by an adaptive algorithm, is tied to the degree of model regularization. This minimizes the overcomputing caused by working with redundant soundings. Our methods are compared against conventional methods and tested with a synthetic example. We also invert a field data set that was previously considered to be too large to be practically inverted in 3-D. These examples show that our methodology can dramatically reduce the processing time of 3-D inversion to a practical level without losing resolution
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Modelling Hyperboloid Sound Scattering
DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Burry, Jane; Davis, Daniel; Peters, Brady
2011-01-01
The Responsive Acoustic Surfaces workshop project described here sought new understandings about the interaction between geometry and sound in the arena of sound scattering. This paper reports on the challenges associated with modelling, simulating, fabricating and measuring this phenomenon using...... both physical and digital models at three distinct scales. The results suggest hyperboloid geometry, while difficult to fabricate, facilitates sound scattering....
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The influence of ski helmets on sound perception and sound localisation on the ski slope
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Lana Ružić
2015-04-01
Full Text Available Objectives: The aim of the study was to investigate whether a ski helmet interferes with the sound localization and the time of sound perception in the frontal plane. Material and Methods: Twenty-three participants (age 30.7±10.2 were tested on the slope in 2 conditions, with and without wearing the ski helmet, by 6 different spatially distributed sound stimuli per each condition. Each of the subjects had to react when hearing the sound as soon as possible and to signalize the correct side of the sound arrival. Results: The results showed a significant difference in the ability to localize the specific ski sounds; 72.5±15.6% of correct answers without a helmet vs. 61.3±16.2% with a helmet (p < 0.01. However, the performance on this test did not depend on whether they were used to wearing a helmet (p = 0.89. In identifying the timing, at which the sound was firstly perceived, the results were also in favor of the subjects not wearing a helmet. The subjects reported hearing the ski sound clues at 73.4±5.56 m without a helmet vs. 60.29±6.34 m with a helmet (p < 0.001. In that case the results did depend on previously used helmets (p < 0.05, meaning that that regular usage of helmets might help to diminish the attenuation of the sound identification that occurs because of the helmets. Conclusions: Ski helmets might limit the ability of a skier to localize the direction of the sounds of danger and might interfere with the moment, in which the sound is firstly heard.
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Resource Use Efficiency in Part-time Food Crop Production: The ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
Analysis of inefficiency factors reveal the significant inefficiency variables to include; level of education, household size ... Economic efficiency is a product of technical and allocative ... the work of Chava and Aliber (1983) and Chava and Cox ...
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2012-06-21
...-AA00 Eighth Coast Guard District Annual Safety Zones; Sound of Independence; Santa Rosa Sound; Fort... Coast Guard will enforce a Safety Zone for the Sound of Independence event in the Santa Rosa Sound, Fort... during the Sound of Independence. During the enforcement period, entry into, transiting or anchoring in...
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Speed of sound as a function of temperature for ultrasonic propagation in soybean oil
Oliveira, P. A.; Silva, R. M. B.; Morais, G. C.; Alvarenga, A. V.; Costa-Félix, R. P. B.
2016-07-01
Ultrasound has been used for characterization of liquid in several productive sectors and research. This work presents the studied about the behavior of the speed of sound in soybean oil with increasing temperature. The pulse echo technique allowed observing that the speed of sound decreases linearly with increasing temperature in the range 20 to 50 °C at 1 MHz. As result, a characteristic function capable to reproduce the speed of sound behavior in soybean oil, as a function of temperature was established, with the respective measurement uncertainty.
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Opo lidar sounding of trace atmospheric gases in the 3 – 4 μm spectral range
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Romanovskii Oleg A.
2018-01-01
Full Text Available The applicability of a KTA crystal-based laser system with optical parametric oscillators (OPO generation to lidar sounding of the atmosphere in the spectral range 3–4 μm is studied in this work. A technique developed for lidar sounding of trace atmospheric gases (TAG is based on differential absorption lidar (DIAL method and differential optical absorption spectroscopy (DOAS. The DIAL-DOAS technique is tested to estimate its efficiency for lidar sounding of atmospheric trace gases. The numerical simulation performed shows that a KTA-based OPO laser is a promising source of radiation for remote DIAL-DOAS sounding of the TAGs under study along surface tropospheric paths. A possibility of using a PD38-03-PR photodiode for the DIAL gas analysis of the atmosphere is shown.
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Material sound source localization through headphones
Dunai, Larisa; Peris-Fajarnes, Guillermo; Lengua, Ismael Lengua; Montaña, Ignacio Tortajada
2012-09-01
In the present paper a study of sound localization is carried out, considering two different sounds emitted from different hit materials (wood and bongo) as well as a Delta sound. The motivation of this research is to study how humans localize sounds coming from different materials, with the purpose of a future implementation of the acoustic sounds with better localization features in navigation aid systems or training audio-games suited for blind people. Wood and bongo sounds are recorded after hitting two objects made of these materials. Afterwards, they are analysed and processed. On the other hand, the Delta sound (click) is generated by using the Adobe Audition software, considering a frequency of 44.1 kHz. All sounds are analysed and convolved with previously measured non-individual Head-Related Transfer Functions both for an anechoic environment and for an environment with reverberation. The First Choice method is used in this experiment. Subjects are asked to localize the source position of the sound listened through the headphones, by using a graphic user interface. The analyses of the recorded data reveal that no significant differences are obtained either when considering the nature of the sounds (wood, bongo, Delta) or their environmental context (with or without reverberation). The localization accuracies for the anechoic sounds are: wood 90.19%, bongo 92.96% and Delta sound 89.59%, whereas for the sounds with reverberation the results are: wood 90.59%, bongo 92.63% and Delta sound 90.91%. According to these data, we can conclude that even when considering the reverberation effect, the localization accuracy does not significantly increase.
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Marketing the Eco-Efficiency of a Finnish Product in Russia
Sattarova, Asiia
2016-01-01
The purpose of this qualitatitive research was to find the way for a Finnish company to market the eco-efficient characteristics as an advantage of their products and bring the message effectively to their consumers in Russia. The core objective was to create a strategic marketing plan; the goal was to work out an efficient strategy, practical marketing steps and effective solutions. The first theory part focused on the comparison of general eco-awareness in Europe and Russia. The part rev...
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Hybrid waste filler filled bio-polymer foam composites for sound absorbent materials
Rus, Anika Zafiah M.; Azahari, M. Shafiq M.; Kormin, Shaharuddin; Soon, Leong Bong; Zaliran, M. Taufiq; Ahraz Sadrina M. F., L.
2017-09-01
Sound absorption materials are one of the major requirements in many industries with regards to the sound insulation developed should be efficient to reduce sound. This is also important to contribute in economically ways of producing sound absorbing materials which is cheaper and user friendly. Thus, in this research, the sound absorbent properties of bio-polymer foam filled with hybrid fillers of wood dust and waste tire rubber has been investigated. Waste cooking oil from crisp industries was converted into bio-monomer, filled with different proportion ratio of fillers and fabricated into bio-polymer foam composite. Two fabrication methods is applied which is the Close Mold Method (CMM) and Open Mold Method (OMM). A total of four bio-polymer foam composite samples were produce for each method used. The percentage of hybrid fillers; mixture of wood dust and waste tire rubber of 2.5 %, 5.0%, 7.5% and 10% weight to weight ration with bio-monomer. The sound absorption of the bio-polymer foam composites samples were tested by using the impedance tube test according to the ASTM E-1050 and Scanning Electron Microscope to determine the morphology and porosity of the samples. The sound absorption coefficient (α) at different frequency range revealed that the polymer foam of 10.0 % hybrid fillers shows highest α of 0.963. The highest hybrid filler loading contributing to smallest pore sizes but highest interconnected pores. This also revealed that when highly porous material is exposed to incident sound waves, the air molecules at the surface of the material and within the pores of the material are forced to vibrate and loses some of their original energy. This is concluded that the suitability of bio-polymer foam filled with hybrid fillers to be used in acoustic application of automotive components such as dashboards, door panels, cushion and etc.
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Tohyama, Mikio
2015-01-01
What is this sound? What does that sound indicate? These are two questions frequently heard in daily conversation. Sound results from the vibrations of elastic media and in daily life provides informative signals of events happening in the surrounding environment. In interpreting auditory sensations, the human ear seems particularly good at extracting the signal signatures from sound waves. Although exploring auditory processing schemes may be beyond our capabilities, source signature analysis is a very attractive area in which signal-processing schemes can be developed using mathematical expressions. This book is inspired by such processing schemes and is oriented to signature analysis of waveforms. Most of the examples in the book are taken from data of sound and vibrations; however, the methods and theories are mostly formulated using mathematical expressions rather than by acoustical interpretation. This book might therefore be attractive and informative for scientists, engineers, researchers, and graduat...
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Analysis of economic efficiency in cocoa production in Ghana ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
The main purpose of this study was to analyze the economic efficiency of resource utilization in cocoa production of the cocoa farmers in Ghana to provide information for effective application and management of farm inputs on cocoa farms and policy recommendation. A random sample of 300 farmers in the Eastern, Ashanti ...
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Economic efficiency of cocoa production in Ghana | Aneani | Journal ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
The main purpose of this study was to analyze the economic efficiency of resource utilization in cocoa production among cocoa farmers in Ghana to provide information for effective application and management of farm input on cocoa farms. A random sample of 300 farmers was selected in six cocoa growing districts in ...
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A Mulit-State Model for Catalyzing the Home Energy Efficiency Market
Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Blackmon, Glenn
2014-03-25
The RePower Kitsap partnership sought to jump-start the market for energy efficiency upgrades in Kitsap County, an underserved market on Puget Sound in Washington State. The Washington State Department of Commerce partnered with Washington State University (WSU) Energy Program to supplement and extend existing utility incentives offered by Puget Sound Energy (PSE) and Cascade Natural Gas and to offer energy efficiency finance options through the Kitsap Credit Union and Puget Sound Cooperative Credit Union (PSCCU). RePower Kitsap established a coordinated approach with a second Better Buildings Neighborhood Program project serving the two largest cities in the county – Bainbridge Island and Bremerton. These two projects shared both the “RePower” brand and implementation team (Conservation Services Group (CSG) and Earth Advantage).
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A description of externally recorded womb sounds in human subjects during gestation.
Parga, Joanna J; Daland, Robert; Kesavan, Kalpashri; Macey, Paul M; Zeltzer, Lonnie; Harper, Ronald M
2018-01-01
-abdominal space. Compared to commercially-marketed sounds, womb signals were dominated by bowel sounds, were of lower frequency, and showed more variation in intensity. High-fidelity intra-abdominal or womb sounds during pregnancy can be recorded non-invasively. Recordings vary with gestational age, and show a predominance of low frequency noise and bowel sounds which are distinct from popular commercial products. Such recordings may be utilized to determine whether sounds influence preterm infant development in the NICU.
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2010-06-07
... DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy [Docket Number EERE-BT-PET-0024] Energy Efficiency Program for Consumer Products: Commonwealth of Massachusetts Petition for Exemption From Federal Preemption of Massachusetts' Energy Efficiency Standard for Residential Non...
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Mulliniks, J T; Rius, A G; Edwards, M A; Edwards, S R; Hobbs, J D; Nave, R L G
2015-06-01
Despite overall increased production in the last century, it is critical that grazing production systems focus on improving beef and dairy efficiency to meet current and future global food demands. For livestock producers, production efficiency is essential to maintain long-term profitability and sustainability. This continued viability of production systems using pasture- and range-based grazing systems requires more rapid adoption of innovative management practices and selection tools that increase profitability by optimizing grazing management and increasing reproductive performance. Understanding the genetic variation in cow herds will provide the ability to select cows that require less energy for maintenance, which can potentially reduce total energy utilization or energy required for production, consequently improving production efficiency and profitability. In the United States, pasture- and range-based grazing systems vary tremendously across various unique environments that differ in climate, topography, and forage production. This variation in environmental conditions contributes to the challenges of developing or targeting specific genetic components and grazing systems that lead to increased production efficiency. However, across these various environments and grazing management systems, grazable forage remains the least expensive nutrient source to maintain productivity of the cow herd. Beef and dairy cattle can capitalize on their ability to utilize these feed resources that are not usable for other production industries. Therefore, lower-cost alternatives to feeding harvested and stored feedstuffs have the opportunity to provide to livestock producers a sustainable and efficient forage production system. However, increasing production efficiency within a given production environment would vary according to genetic potential (i.e., growth and milk potential), how that genetic potential fits the respective production environment, and how the grazing
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Topal, Taner; Polat, Hüseyin; Güler, Inan
2008-10-01
In this paper, a time-frequency spectral analysis software (Heart Sound Analyzer) for the computer-aided analysis of cardiac sounds has been developed with LabVIEW. Software modules reveal important information for cardiovascular disorders, it can also assist to general physicians to come up with more accurate and reliable diagnosis at early stages. Heart sound analyzer (HSA) software can overcome the deficiency of expert doctors and help them in rural as well as urban clinics and hospitals. HSA has two main blocks: data acquisition and preprocessing, time-frequency spectral analyses. The heart sounds are first acquired using a modified stethoscope which has an electret microphone in it. Then, the signals are analysed using the time-frequency/scale spectral analysis techniques such as STFT, Wigner-Ville distribution and wavelet transforms. HSA modules have been tested with real heart sounds from 35 volunteers and proved to be quite efficient and robust while dealing with a large variety of pathological conditions.
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Mortensen, Peder Duelund; Hornyanszky, Elisabeth Dalholm; Larsen, Jacob Norvig
2013-01-01
Præsentation af projektresultater fra Interreg forskningen Sound Settlements om udvikling af bæredygtighed i det almene boligbyggerier i København, Malmø, Helsingborg og Lund samt europæiske eksempler på best practice......Præsentation af projektresultater fra Interreg forskningen Sound Settlements om udvikling af bæredygtighed i det almene boligbyggerier i København, Malmø, Helsingborg og Lund samt europæiske eksempler på best practice...
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Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Perez-Reyes, Raul [Organismo Supervisor de la Inversion en Energia y Mineria, Osinergmin (Peru); Tovar, Beatriz [Infrastructure and Transport Research Group (EIT), Department of Applied Economics, University of Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain)
2009-06-15
This paper analyzes the evolution of productivity of the electricity distribution companies in Peru, to assess whether reforms have improved the efficiency in this sector. The paper also identifies potential sources of productivity changes, based on market restructuring the electricity sector and changes in property. To do this, we rely on a set of data for 14 distribution companies, for the period 1996-2006. Our analysis suggests that improvements in the efficiency and productivity of electricity distribution in Peru have occurred, and that there is a relationship between the restructuring of distribution sector and the enhancement of productivity. (author)
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International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Perez-Reyes, Raul; Tovar, Beatriz
2009-01-01
This paper analyzes the evolution of productivity of the electricity distribution companies in Peru, to assess whether reforms have improved the efficiency in this sector. The paper also identifies potential sources of productivity changes, based on market restructuring the electricity sector and changes in property. To do this, we rely on a set of data for 14 distribution companies, for the period 1996-2006. Our analysis suggests that improvements in the efficiency and productivity of electricity distribution in Peru have occurred, and that there is a relationship between the restructuring of distribution sector and the enhancement of productivity. (author)
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Sounds of silence: How to animate virtual worlds with sound
Astheimer, Peter
1993-01-01
Sounds are an integral and sometimes annoying part of our daily life. Virtual worlds which imitate natural environments gain a lot of authenticity from fast, high quality visualization combined with sound effects. Sounds help to increase the degree of immersion for human dwellers in imaginary worlds significantly. The virtual reality toolkit of IGD (Institute for Computer Graphics) features a broad range of standard visual and advanced real-time audio components which interpret an object-oriented definition of the scene. The virtual reality system 'Virtual Design' realized with the toolkit enables the designer of virtual worlds to create a true audiovisual environment. Several examples on video demonstrate the usage of the audio features in Virtual Design.
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Benner, M.; Geerts, R.F.R.; Linnemann, A.R.; Jongen, W.M.F.; Folstar, P.; Cnossen, H.J.
2003-01-01
New food products often fail, because they are not designed according to consumers' wishes or not produced efficiently. Frequently, the information required for an effective and efficient product development process is not relayed to the appropriate actor in the chain. This article presents a
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Benner, M.; Geerts, R.F.R.; Linnemann, A.R.; Jongen, W.M.F.; Folstar, P.; Cnossen, H.J.
2003-01-01
New food products often fail, because they are not designed according to consumers' wishes or not produced efficiently. Frequently, the information required for an effective and efficient product development process is not relayed to the appropriate actor in the chain. This article presents a
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Chumak Larysa F.
2017-04-01
Full Text Available The article is aimed at studying the existing approaches to evaluation, as well as analyzing and determining the relevant directions for improving the efficiency of use of the enterprise’s main production assets. The article explores the issues such as development of the theoretical-methodical approaches to evaluating and improving the efficiency of use, finding practical ways and forms to implement innovations and upgrade the main production assets. It has been found that ensuring the efficient use of the main production assets goes along with application of technical, organizational-productive and organizational-administrative activities that are not only related to the technical side of the use, but also require the involvement and training of highly qualified professionals capable of providing with the appropriate productivity a high level of all the types of the work needed. The introduction of modern achievements in the sphere of management automation, production, advanced technologies, and the development of an optimal structure of the main assets would improve the efficiency of use of the main production assets.
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Expanded function allied dental personnel and dental practice productivity and efficiency.
Beazoglou, Tryfon J; Chen, Lei; Lazar, Vickie F; Brown, L Jackson; Ray, Subhash C; Heffley, Dennis R; Berg, Rob; Bailit, Howard L
2012-08-01
This study examined the impact of expanded function allied dental personnel on the productivity and efficiency of general dental practices. Detailed practice financial and clinical data were obtained from a convenience sample of 154 general dental practices in Colorado. In this state, expanded function dental assistants can provide a wide range of reversible dental services/procedures, and dental hygienists can give local anesthesia. The survey identified practices that currently use expanded function allied dental personnel and the specific services/procedures delegated. Practice productivity was measured using patient visits, gross billings, and net income. Practice efficiency was assessed using a multivariate linear program, Data Envelopment Analysis. Sixty-four percent of the practices were found to use expanded function allied dental personnel, and on average they delegated 31.4 percent of delegatable services/procedures. Practices that used expanded function allied dental personnel treated more patients and had higher gross billings and net incomes than those practices that did not; the more services they delegated, the higher was the practice's productivity and efficiency. The effective use of expanded function allied dental personnel has the potential to substantially expand the capacity of general dental practices to treat more patients and to generate higher incomes for dental practices.
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How Pleasant Sounds Promote and Annoying Sounds Impede Health: A Cognitive Approach
Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Tjeerd C. Andringa
2013-04-01
Full Text Available This theoretical paper addresses the cognitive functions via which quiet and in general pleasurable sounds promote and annoying sounds impede health. The article comprises a literature analysis and an interpretation of how the bidirectional influence of appraising the environment and the feelings of the perceiver can be understood in terms of core affect and motivation. This conceptual basis allows the formulation of a detailed cognitive model describing how sonic content, related to indicators of safety and danger, either allows full freedom over mind-states or forces the activation of a vigilance function with associated arousal. The model leads to a number of detailed predictions that can be used to provide existing soundscape approaches with a solid cognitive science foundation that may lead to novel approaches to soundscape design. These will take into account that louder sounds typically contribute to distal situational awareness while subtle environmental sounds provide proximal situational awareness. The role of safety indicators, mediated by proximal situational awareness and subtle sounds, should become more important in future soundscape research.
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Nordahl, Rolf; Turchet, Luca; Serafin, Stefania
2011-09-01
We propose a system that affords real-time sound synthesis of footsteps on different materials. The system is based on microphones, which detect real footstep sounds from subjects, from which the ground reaction force (GRF) is estimated. Such GRF is used to control a sound synthesis engine based on physical models. Two experiments were conducted. In the first experiment, the ability of subjects to recognize the surface they were exposed to was assessed. In the second experiment, the sound synthesis engine was enhanced with environmental sounds. Results show that, in some conditions, adding a soundscape significantly improves the recognition of the simulated environment.
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CERN Bulletin
2010-01-01
Both the atmosphere and we ourselves are hit by hundreds of particles every second and yet nobody has ever heard a sound coming from these processes. Like cosmic rays, particles interacting inside the detectors at the LHC do not make any noise…unless you've decided to use the ‘sonification’ technique, in which case you might even hear the Higgs boson sound like music. Screenshot of the first page of the "LHC sound" site. A group of particle physicists, composers, software developers and artists recently got involved in the ‘LHC sound’ project to make the particles at the LHC produce music. Yes…music! The ‘sonification’ technique converts data into sound. “In this way, if you implement the right software you can get really nice music out of the particle tracks”, says Lily Asquith, a member of the ATLAS collaboration and one of the initiators of the project. The ‘LHC...
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Musical Sound, Instruments, and Equipment
Photinos, Panos
2017-12-01
'Musical Sound, Instruments, and Equipment' offers a basic understanding of sound, musical instruments and music equipment, geared towards a general audience and non-science majors. The book begins with an introduction of the fundamental properties of sound waves, and the perception of the characteristics of sound. The relation between intensity and loudness, and the relation between frequency and pitch are discussed. The basics of propagation of sound waves, and the interaction of sound waves with objects and structures of various sizes are introduced. Standing waves, harmonics and resonance are explained in simple terms, using graphics that provide a visual understanding. The development is focused on musical instruments and acoustics. The construction of musical scales and the frequency relations are reviewed and applied in the description of musical instruments. The frequency spectrum of selected instruments is explored using freely available sound analysis software. Sound amplification and sound recording, including analog and digital approaches, are discussed in two separate chapters. The book concludes with a chapter on acoustics, the physical factors that affect the quality of the music experience, and practical ways to improve the acoustics at home or small recording studios. A brief technical section is provided at the end of each chapter, where the interested reader can find the relevant physics and sample calculations. These quantitative sections can be skipped without affecting the comprehension of the basic material. Questions are provided to test the reader's understanding of the material. Answers are given in the appendix.
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Acoustic behavior of a fibrous bulk material. [Kevlar 29 sound absorber
Hersh, A. S.; Walker, B.
1979-01-01
A semiempirical model is presented describing the acoustic behavior of Kevlar 29, a bulk absorbing material. The model is based on an approximate solution to the one-dimensional equations representing conservation of fluctuating mass, momentum and energy. By treating the material as a momentum sink, theoretical expressions of the material complex propagation constants and characteristic impedance were derived in terms of a single constant. Evaluating the constant at a single frequency for a particular specimen, excellent agreement between prediction and measurement was achieved for a large range of sound frequencies and material porosities and thicknesses. Results show that Kevlar 29 absorbs sound efficiently even at low frequencies. This is explained in terms of a frequency dependent material phase speed.
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04 Yeshi, Düvel & Steyn - Maize production efficiency.....…
African Journals Online (AJOL)
lynette
Differences in production efficiency between male and female farmers can probably be ... The total sample size (153) ultimately consisted of .... of the female respondents and 10 percent of the male respondents were unsure of their age .... 30. 40. 50. 60. 70. 80. Used credit last 3 yrs. Used credit 2 years. Used credit one year.
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Resource Use Efficiency in Rice Production in Jere Local ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
The study was carried-out on resource use efficiency in rice production in Jere Local Government Area of Borno State, Nigeria. Data were obtained using structured questionnaire. Five (5) wards were purposely selected out of the twelve (12) wards to reflect areas where rice is mainly grown. A total of 100 respondents were ...
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Growth, light interception, radiation use efficiency and productivity of ...
African Journals Online (AJOL)
The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of sowing date on growth, light interception, radiation use efficiency and productivity of mungbean cultivars. The experiment comprised four sowing dates at ten days interval, viz. 08, 18, 28 July and 07 August 2006 and two cultivars, viz. Gofa local and MH-97-6.
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Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Lee, Cheol-Hee; Jeong, Mi-Kyung [Division of Advanced Materials Engineering and Institute for Rare Metals, Kongju National University, Cheonan 331-717 (Korea, Republic of); Fatih Kilicaslan, M. [Department of Physics, Faculty of Art and Science, Kastamonu University, Kastamonu (Turkey); Lee, Jong-Hyeon [Graduate School of Green Energy Technology and Department of Nanomaterials Engineering, Chungnam National University, 79 Daehak-ro, Yuseong-gu, Dajeon 305-764 (Korea, Republic of); Hong, Hyun-Seon [Advanced Materials and Processing Center, Institute for Advanced Engineering (IAE), Yongin 449-863 (Korea, Republic of); Hong, Soon-Jik, E-mail: hongsj@kongju.ac.kr [Division of Advanced Materials Engineering and Institute for Rare Metals, Kongju National University, Cheonan 331-717 (Korea, Republic of)
2013-03-15
Highlights: ► In this study, we recovered indium from a waste LCD panel. ► The ITO glass was milled to obtain micron size particles in a HEBM machine. ► Effect of particle size of ITO glass on the amount of dissolved In was investigated. ► In a very short time, a considerable amount of In was recovered. ► Amount of HCl in acid solution was decreased to 40 vol.%. - Abstract: In this study, a method which is environmentally sound, time and energy efficient has been used for recovery of indium from used liquid crystal display (LCD) panels. In this method, indium tin oxide (ITO) glass was crushed to micron size particles in seconds via high energy ball milling (HEBM). The parameters affecting the amount of dissolved indium such as milling time, particle size, effect time of acid solution, amount of HCl in the acid solution were tried to be optimized. The results show that by crushing ITO glass to micron size particles by HEBM, it is possible to extract higher amount of indium at room temperature than that by conventional methods using only conventional shredding machines. In this study, 86% of indium which exists in raw materials was recovered about in a very short time.
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International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Wu Gong-Tao; Lü Yong-Jun; Liu Peng-Fei; Li Yi-Ning; Shi Qing-Fan
2012-01-01
The velocity of sound in soap foams at high gas volume fractions is experimentally studied by using the time difference method. It is found that the sound velocities increase with increasing bubble diameter, and asymptotically approach to the value in air when the diameter is larger than 12.5 mm. We propose a simple theoretical model for the sound propagation in a disordered foam. In this model, the attenuation of a sound wave due to the scattering of the bubble wall is equivalently described as the effect of an additional length. This simplicity reasonably reproduces the sound velocity in foams and the predicted results are in good agreement with the experiments. Further measurements indicate that the increase of frequency markedly slows down the sound velocity, whereas the latter does not display a strong dependence on the solution concentration
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Rasmussen, Birgit
2010-01-01
Sound insulation descriptors, regulatory requirements and classification schemes in Europe represent a high degree of diversity. One implication is very little exchange of experience of housing design and construction details for different levels of sound insulation; another is trade barriers...... for building systems and products. Unfortunately, there is evidence for a development in the "wrong" direction. For example, sound classification schemes for dwellings exist in nine countries. There is no sign on increasing harmonization, rather the contrary, as more countries are preparing proposals with new......, new housing must meet the needs of the people and offer comfort. Also for existing housing, sound insulation aspects should be taken into account, when renovating housing; otherwise the renovation is not “sustainable”. A joint European Action, COST TU0901 "Integrating and Harmonizing Sound Insulation...
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Prokhorov, Sergey
2017-10-01
Building industry in a present day going through the hard times. Machine and mechanism exploitation cost, on a field of construction and installation works, takes a substantial part in total building construction expenses. There is a necessity to elaborate high efficient method, which allows not only to increase production, but also to reduce direct costs during machine fleet exploitation, and to increase its energy efficiency. In order to achieve the goal we plan to use modern methods of work production, hi-tech and energy saving machine tools and technologies, and use of optimal mechanization sets. As the optimization criteria there are exploitation prime cost and set efficiency. During actual task-solving process we made a conclusion, which shows that mechanization works, energy audit with production juxtaposition, prime prices and costs for energy resources allow to make complex machine fleet supply, improve ecological level and increase construction and installation work quality.
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Effects of musical expertise on oscillatory brain activity in response to emotional sounds.
Nolden, Sophie; Rigoulot, Simon; Jolicoeur, Pierre; Armony, Jorge L
2017-08-01
Emotions can be conveyed through a variety of channels in the auditory domain, be it via music, non-linguistic vocalizations, or speech prosody. Moreover, recent studies suggest that expertise in one sound category can impact the processing of emotional sounds in other sound categories as they found that musicians process more efficiently emotional musical and vocal sounds than non-musicians. However, the neural correlates of these modulations, especially their time course, are not very well understood. Consequently, we focused here on how the neural processing of emotional information varies as a function of sound category and expertise of participants. Electroencephalogram (EEG) of 20 non-musicians and 17 musicians was recorded while they listened to vocal (speech and vocalizations) and musical sounds. The amplitude of EEG-oscillatory activity in the theta, alpha, beta, and gamma band was quantified and Independent Component Analysis (ICA) was used to identify underlying components of brain activity in each band. Category differences were found in theta and alpha bands, due to larger responses to music and speech than to vocalizations, and in posterior beta, mainly due to differential processing of speech. In addition, we observed greater activation in frontal theta and alpha for musicians than for non-musicians, as well as an interaction between expertise and emotional content of sounds in frontal alpha. The results reflect musicians' expertise in recognition of emotion-conveying music, which seems to also generalize to emotional expressions conveyed by the human voice, in line with previous accounts of effects of expertise on musical and vocal sounds processing. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
1996-01-01
A sound source comprising a loudspeaker (6) and a hollow coupler (4) with an open inlet which communicates with and is closed by the loudspeaker (6) and an open outlet, said coupler (4) comprising rigid walls which cannot respond to the sound pressures produced by the loudspeaker (6). According...
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International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Beyer, R.T.
1985-01-01
The paper reviews the work carried out on the velocity of sound in liquid alkali metals. The experimental methods to determine the velocity measurements are described. Tables are presented of reported data on the velocity of sound in lithium, sodium, potassium, rubidium and caesium. A formula is given for alkali metals, in which the sound velocity is a function of shear viscosity, atomic mass and atomic volume. (U.K.)
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2012-06-29
... Efficiency Program for Consumer Products: Energy Conservation Standards for Battery Chargers and External Power Supplies AGENCY: Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy. ACTION... Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Building Technologies Program, EE-2J, 1000 Independence Avenue SW...
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2013-02-11
... Efficiency Program for Consumer Products: Energy Conservation Standards for Residential Boilers AGENCY: Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Department of Energy. ACTION: Notice of public meeting.... Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Building Technologies Program, EE-2J...
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Analyzing cost efficient production behavior under economies of scope : A nonparametric methodology
Cherchye, L.J.H.; de Rock, B.; Vermeulen, F.M.P.
2008-01-01
In designing a production model for firms that generate multiple outputs, we take as a starting point that such multioutput production refers to economies of scope, which in turn originate from joint input use and input externalities. We provide a nonparametric characterization of cost-efficient
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Fujii, Ayaka; Wakatsuki, Naoto; Mizutani, Koichi
2016-01-01
A method of suppressing sound radiation to the far field of a near-field acoustic communication system using an evanescent sound field is proposed. The amplitude of the evanescent sound field generated from an infinite vibrating plate attenuates exponentially with increasing a distance from the surface of the vibrating plate. However, a discontinuity of the sound field exists at the edge of the finite vibrating plate in practice, which broadens the wavenumber spectrum. A sound wave radiates over the evanescent sound field because of broadening of the wavenumber spectrum. Therefore, we calculated the optimum distribution of the particle velocity on the vibrating plate to reduce the broadening of the wavenumber spectrum. We focused on a window function that is utilized in the field of signal analysis for reducing the broadening of the frequency spectrum. The optimization calculation is necessary for the design of window function suitable for suppressing sound radiation and securing a spatial area for data communication. In addition, a wide frequency bandwidth is required to increase the data transmission speed. Therefore, we investigated a suitable method for calculating the sound pressure level at the far field to confirm the variation of the distribution of sound pressure level determined on the basis of the window shape and frequency. The distribution of the sound pressure level at a finite distance was in good agreement with that obtained at an infinite far field under the condition generating the evanescent sound field. Consequently, the window function was optimized by the method used to calculate the distribution of the sound pressure level at an infinite far field using the wavenumber spectrum on the vibrating plate. According to the result of comparing the distributions of the sound pressure level in the cases with and without the window function, it was confirmed that the area whose sound pressure level was reduced from the maximum level to -50 dB was
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Structural Materials for Efficient Energy Production Systems
International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Gomez Briceno, D.
2009-01-01
Increasing the efficiency of electric power production systems implies increasing the operating temperature above those of systems currently in operation. The viability of new systems depends completely on the availability of structural materials that withstand the operating conditions specified in the design: adequate features under mechanical stress at high temperatures and compatibility with the medium. In the case of nuclear systems (fission, fusion), an important requirement is their response to irradiation induced damage. In spite of the significant differences that exist in the design of nuclear power plants, fusion reactors, innovative fission systems, supercritical fossil plants, biomass plants, solar concentration thermal plants, etc., all of them have as a common characteristic the use of resistant materials at high temperatures. The qualification of existing materials for the new and more demanding operating conditions and the development of new materials is one of the challenges faced by the electric power production industry. The science of materials and the understanding of the basic processes that take place in structural materials on exposure to the operating conditions of energy production systems are the tools that are available to obtain safe and economically viable solutions. (Authors) 4 refs.
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Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)
Westkaemper, Engelbert; Verl, Alexander (eds.)
2009-07-01
Within the workshop of the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA (Stuttgart, Federal Republic of Germany) at 6th October, 2009, in Stuttgart the following lectures were held: (1) Presentation of Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA (Engelbert Westkaemper); (2) TEEM - Total Energy Efficiency Management - ''With energy management to an energy efficient production'' (Alexander Schloske); (3) DIN EN 16001 Introduction of an energy management system - utilization and advantages for companies (Sylvia Wahren); (4) Analysis of the energy efficiency with power flow - Support and implementation at factory planning and optimization of production (Klaus Erlach); (5) Total Energy Efficiency Management - Approaches at the company Kaercher in injection moulding for example (Axel Leschtar); (6) Modelling the embodied product energy (Shahin Rahimifard); (7) Acquisition of energy data in the production - Technologies and possibilities (Joachim Neher); (8) Active energy management by means of an ''energy control centre'' - Analysis of the real situation and upgrading measures in the production using coating plants as an example (Wolfgang Klein); (9) Visualisation and simulation of energy values in the digital factory (Carmen Constantinescu, Axel Bruns).
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Cheng, Zhaohui; Cai, Miao; Tao, Hongbing; He, Zhifei; Lin, Xiaojun; Lin, Haifeng; Zuo, Yuling
2016-01-01
Objective Township hospitals (THs) are important components of the three-tier rural healthcare system of China. However, the efficiency and productivity of THs have been questioned since the healthcare reform was implemented in 2009. The objective of this study is to analyse the efficiency and productivity changes in THs before and after the reform process. Setting and participants A total of 48 sample THs were selected from the Xiaogan Prefecture in Hubei Province from 2008 to 2014. Outcome measures First, bootstrapping data envelopment analysis (DEA) was performed to estimate the technical efficiency (TE), pure technical efficiency (PTE) and scale efficiency (SE) of the sample THs during the period. Second, the bootstrapping Malmquist productivity index was used to calculate the productivity changes over time. Results The average TE, PTE and SE of the sample THs over the 7-year period were 0.5147, 0.6373 and 0.7080, respectively. The average TE and PTE increased from 2008 to 2012 but declined considerably after 2012. In general, the sample THs experienced a negative shift in productivity from 2008 to 2014. The negative change was 2.14%, which was attributed to a 23.89% decrease in technological changes (TC). The sample THs experienced a positive productivity shift from 2008 to 2012 but experienced deterioration from 2012 to 2014. Conclusions There was considerable space for TE improvement in the sample THs since the average TE was relatively low. From 2008 to 2014, the sample THs experienced a decrease in productivity, and the adverse alteration in TC should be emphasised. In the context of healthcare reform, the factors that influence TE and productivity of THs are complex. Results suggest that numerous quantitative and qualitative studies are necessary to explore the reasons for the changes in TE and productivity. PMID:27836870
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International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Long, Xingle; Zhao, Xicang; Cheng, Faxin
2015-01-01
This paper mainly compares total factor productivity and eco-efficiency in China's cement manufactures from 2005 to 2010. First, we evaluate total factor productivity and eco-efficiency of China's cement manufactures through distance function and directional slack-based measure (DSBM) respectively. Furthermore, we also explore the difference of total factor productivity and eco-efficiency. Last, we investigate the determinants of Malmquist, Mamlquist–Luenberger of China's cement manufactures through random-effect Tobit and bootstrap truncated econometric methods. We find that there are some gaps between Malmquist and Mamlquist–Luenberger of China's cement manufactures. Per labor cement industry value has U-shape relationship with both Malmquist and Malmquist–Luenberger. It is necessary to adopt advanced technology to reduce pollutant emissions. -- Highlights: •Eco-efficiency of cement manufactures is evaluated through slack-based measure. •Eco-efficiency of China's cement manufactures has biases with total factor productivity. •Environmental Kuznets curve is existed for China's cement manufactures
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2010-07-01
... 33 Navigation and Navigable Waters 3 2010-07-01 2010-07-01 false Albemarle Sound, Pamlico Sound... AND RESTRICTED AREA REGULATIONS § 334.410 Albemarle Sound, Pamlico Sound, and adjacent waters, NC; danger zones for naval aircraft operations. (a) Target areas—(1) North Landing River (Currituck Sound...
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Sex-Biased Sound Symbolism in English-Language First Names
Pitcher, Benjamin J.; Mesoudi, Alex; McElligott, Alan G.
2013-01-01
Sexual selection has resulted in sex-based size dimorphism in many mammals, including humans. In Western societies, average to taller stature men and comparatively shorter, slimmer women have higher reproductive success and are typically considered more attractive. This size dimorphism also extends to vocalisations in many species, again including humans, with larger individuals exhibiting lower formant frequencies than smaller individuals. Further, across many languages there are associations between phonemes and the expression of size (e.g. large /a, o/, small /i, e/), consistent with the frequency-size relationship in vocalisations. We suggest that naming preferences are a product of this frequency-size relationship, driving male names to sound larger and female names smaller, through sound symbolism. In a 10-year dataset of the most popular British, Australian and American names we show that male names are significantly more likely to contain larger sounding phonemes (e.g. “Thomas”), while female names are significantly more likely to contain smaller phonemes (e.g. “Emily”). The desire of parents to have comparatively larger, more masculine sons, and smaller, more feminine daughters, and the increased social success that accompanies more sex-stereotyped names, is likely to be driving English-language first names to exploit sound symbolism of size in line with sexual body size dimorphism. PMID:23755148
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Strategies for improving water use efficiency in livestock feed production in rain-fed systems
Kebebe, E.G.; Oosting, S.J.; Haileslassie, A.; Duncan, A.J.; Boer, de I.J.M.
2015-01-01
Livestock production is a major consumer of fresh water, and the influence of livestock production on global fresh water resources is increasing because of the growing demand for livestock products. Increasing water use efficiency of livestock production, therefore, can contribute to the overall
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International Nuclear Information System (INIS)
Han, Yongming; Geng, Zhiqiang; Zhu, Qunxiong; Qu, Yixin
2015-01-01
DEA (data envelopment analysis) has been widely used for the efficiency analysis of industrial production process. However, the conventional DEA model is difficult to analyze the pros and cons of the multi DMUs (decision-making units). The DEACM (DEA cross-model) can distinguish the pros and cons of the effective DMUs, but it is unable to take the effect of the uncertainty data into account. This paper proposes an efficiency analysis method based on FDEACM (fuzzy DEA cross-model) with Fuzzy Data. The proposed method has better objectivity and resolving power for the decision-making. First we obtain the minimum, the median and the maximum values of the multi-criteria ethylene energy consumption data by the data fuzzification. On the basis of the multi-criteria fuzzy data, the benchmark of the effective production situations and the improvement directions of the ineffective of the ethylene plants under different production data configurations are obtained by the FDEACM. The experimental result shows that the proposed method can improve the ethylene production conditions and guide the efficiency of energy utilization during ethylene production process. - Highlights: • This paper proposes an efficiency analysis method based on FDEACM (fuzzy DEA cross-model) with data fuzzification. • The proposed method is more efficient and accurate than other methods. • We obtain an energy efficiency analysis framework and process based on FDEACM in ethylene production industry. • The proposed method is valid and efficient in improvement of energy efficiency in the ethylene plants
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Analyzing Cost Efficient Production Behavior Under Economies of Scope : A Nonparametric Methodology
Cherchye, L.J.H.; de Rock, B.; Vermeulen, F.M.P.
2006-01-01
In designing a production model for firms that generate multiple outputs, we take as a starting point that such multi-output production refers to economies of scope, which in turn originate from joint input use and input externalities. We provide a nonparametric characterization of cost efficient
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Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)
Pin-Chih Wang
2014-09-01
Full Text Available This study is intended to conduct an extended evaluation of sustainability based on the material flow analysis of resource productivity. We first present updated information on the material flow analysis (MFA database in Taiwan. Essential indicators are selected to quantify resource productivity associated with the economy-wide MFA of Taiwan. The study also applies the IPAT (impact-population-affluence-technology master equation to measure trends of material use efficiency in Taiwan and to compare them with those of other Asia-Pacific countries. An extended evaluation of efficiency, in comparison with selected economies by applying data envelopment analysis (DEA, is conducted accordingly. The Malmquist Productivity Index (MPI is thereby adopted to quantify the patterns and the associated changes of efficiency. Observations and summaries can be described as follows. Based on the MFA of the Taiwanese economy, the average growth rates of domestic material input (DMI; 2.83% and domestic material consumption (DMC; 2.13% in the past two decades were both less than that of gross domestic product (GDP; 4.95%. The decoupling of environmental pressures from economic growth can be observed. In terms of the decomposition analysis of the IPAT equation and in comparison with 38 other economies, the material use efficiency of Taiwan did not perform as well as its economic growth. The DEA comparisons of resource productivity show that Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Japan performed the best in 2008. Since the MPI consists of technological change (frontier-shift or innovation and efficiency change (catch-up, the change in efficiency (catch-up of Taiwan has not been accomplished as expected in spite of the increase in its technological efficiency.
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Considerations for higher efficiency and productivity in research activities.
Forero, Diego A; Moore, Jason H
2016-01-01
There are several factors that are known to affect research productivity; some of them imply the need for large financial investments and others are related to work styles. There are some articles that provide suggestions for early career scientists (PhD students and postdocs) but few publications are oriented to professors about scientific leadership. As academic mentoring might be useful at all levels of experience, in this note we suggest several key considerations for higher efficiency and productivity in academic and research activities. More research is needed into the main work style features that differentiate highly productive scientists and research groups, as some of them could be innate and others could be transferable. As funding agencies, universities and research centers invest large amounts of money in order to have a better scientific productivity, a deeper understanding of these factors will be of high academic and societal impact.
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Statistical media design for efficient polyhydroxyalkanoate production in Pseudomonas sp. MNNG-S.
Saranya, V; Rajeswari, V; Abirami, P; Poornimakkani, K; Suguna, P; Shenbagarathai, R
2016-07-03
Polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) is a promising polymer for various biomedical applications. There is a high need to improve the production rate to achieve end use. When a cost-effective production was carried out with cheaper agricultural residues like molasses, traces of toxins were incorporated into the polymer, which makes it unfit for biomedical applications. On the other hand, there is an increase in the popularity of using chemically defined media for the production of compounds with biomedical applications. However, these media do not exhibit favorable characteristics such as efficient utilization at large scale compared to complex media. This article aims to determine the specific nutritional requirement of Pseudomonas sp. MNNG-S for efficient production of polyhydroxyalkanoate. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used in this study to statistically design for PHA production based on the interactive effect of five significant variables (sucrose; potassium dihydrogen phosphate; ammonium sulfate; magnesium sulfate; trace elements). The interactive effects of sucrose with ammonium sulfate, ammonium sulfate with combined potassium phosphate, and trace element with magnesium sulfate were found to be significant (p production more than fourfold (from 0.85 g L(-1) to 4.56 g L(-1)).
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Salomons, Erik M; Lohman, Walter J A; Zhou, Han
2016-01-01
Propagation of sound waves in air can be considered as a special case of fluid dynamics. Consequently, the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) for fluid flow can be used for simulating sound propagation. In this article application of the LBM to sound propagation is illustrated for various cases: free-field propagation, propagation over porous and non-porous ground, propagation over a noise barrier, and propagation in an atmosphere with wind. LBM results are compared with solutions of the equations of acoustics. It is found that the LBM works well for sound waves, but dissipation of sound waves with the LBM is generally much larger than real dissipation of sound waves in air. To circumvent this problem it is proposed here to use the LBM for assessing the excess sound level, i.e. the difference between the sound level and the free-field sound level. The effect of dissipation on the excess sound level is much smaller than the effect on the sound level, so the LBM can be used to estimate the excess sound level for a non-dissipative atmosphere, which is a useful quantity in atmospheric acoustics. To reduce dissipation in an LBM simulation two approaches are considered: i) reduction of the kinematic viscosity and ii) reduction of the lattice spacing.
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Cheng, Zhaohui; Tao, Hongbing; Cai, Miao; Lin, Haifeng; Lin, Xiaojun; Shu, Qin; Zhang, Ru-ning
2015-01-01
Objectives Chinese county hospitals have been excessively enlarging their scale during the healthcare reform since 2009. The purpose of this paper is to examine the technical efficiency and productivity of county hospitals during the reform process, and to determine whether, and how, efficiency is affected by various factors. Setting and participants 114 sample county hospitals were selected from Henan province, China, from 2010 to 2012. Outcome measures Data envelopment analysis was employed to estimate the technical and scale efficiency of sample hospitals. The Malmquist index was used to calculate productivity changes over time. Tobit regression was used to regress against 4 environmental factors and 5 institutional factors that affected the technical efficiency. Results (1) 112 (98.2%), 112 (98.2%) and 104 (91.2%) of the 114 sample hospitals ran inefficiently in 2010, 2011 and 2012, with average technical efficiency of 0.697, 0.748 and 0.790, respectively. (2) On average, during 2010–2012, productivity of sample county hospitals increased by 7.8%, which was produced by the progress in technical efficiency changes and technological changes of 0.9% and 6.8%, respectively. (3) Tobit regression analysis indicated that government subsidy, hospital size with above 618 beds and average length of stay assumed a negative sign with technical efficiency; bed occupancy rate, ratio of beds to nurses and ratio of nurses to physicians assumed a positive sign with technical efficiency. Conclusions There was considerable space for technical efficiency improvement in Henan county hospitals. During 2010–2012, sample hospitals experienced productivity progress; however, the adverse change in pure technical efficiency should be emphasised. Moreover, according to the Tobit results, policy interventions that strictly supervise hospital bed scale, shorten the average length of stay and coordinate the proportion among physicians, nurses and beds, would benefit hospital efficiency
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Crocker, Malcolm J.; Jacobsen, Finn
1998-01-01
This chapter is an overview, intended for readers with no special knowledge about this particular topic. The chapter deals with all aspects of sound intensity and its measurement from the fundamental theoretical background to practical applications of the measurement technique.......This chapter is an overview, intended for readers with no special knowledge about this particular topic. The chapter deals with all aspects of sound intensity and its measurement from the fundamental theoretical background to practical applications of the measurement technique....
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DEFF Research Database (Denmark)
Crocker, M.J.; Jacobsen, Finn
1997-01-01
This chapter is an overview, intended for readers with no special knowledge about this particular topic. The chapter deals with all aspects of sound intensity and its measurement from the fundamental theoretical background to practical applications of the measurement technique.......This chapter is an overview, intended for readers with no special knowledge about this particular topic. The chapter deals with all aspects of sound intensity and its measurement from the fundamental theoretical background to practical applications of the measurement technique....