Perturbation-free measurement of the harmonics-to-noise ratio in voice signals using pitch synchronous harmonic analysis.

The measurement of the harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR) in speech signals gives an indication of the aperiodicity of the speech waveform. This may be due to the presence of jitter, shimmer, additive noise, waveshape change, or some unknown combination of these factors. In order to estimate the HNR as a measure of the additive noise component only, the contaminating effects of the other contributory components must first be removed. A pitch synchronous harmonic analysis is proposed to overcome this problem. The procedure takes advantage of the time scale compression-frequency expansion property of the Fourier series in order to eliminate jitter and shimmer. Successive spectra are added by harmonic number as opposed to frequency location, and perturbation is removed due to the fact that the relative heights of the harmonic components remain the same for scaled signals. The technique is examined on synthetically generated voice signals. A discussion of the results is given in terms of human voice signals, characterization of jitter, vocal tract filtering effects, perturbation mechanisms, nonlinear dynamics, and the possibility of developing the method for use with inverse filtering strategies.     

Oligonucleotide-directed assembly of materials: defined oligomers.

A nano-architectural system that has high variability while maintaining component specificity is described. Tetraphenylcyclobutadiene(cyclopentadienyl)cobalt complexes and phenyleneethynylene trimers were synthesized and subsequently modified with oligonucleotides utilizing standard phosphoramidite chemistry. The resulting oligonucleotide modified organics (OMOs) were characterized by UV-vis spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, and phosphate analysis. Hybridization of these OMOs resulted in a series of self-assembled oligomeric hybrids of varying length and topology. These hybrids were characterized by melting temperature, polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and fluorescence spectroscopy. This model system demonstrates the power of DNA to self-assemble modules of interest-independent of the module itself.     

Zur Bestimmung und Trennung des Titans

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

A synthesis of crambescidin 359

A potentially biomimetic synthesis of the guanidine-containing marine natural product crambescidin 359 via a double Michael addition of guanidine to a suitably functionalised bis-enone is reported.     

Type I Toeplitz algebras

The class of Toeplitz algebras associated to ordered groups is important in the analysis of Toeplitz operators on the generalised Hardy spaces defined by such groups. The conditions under which these Toeplitz algebras are Type I C^*-algebras are investigated.     

Experimental snap-through boundaries for acoustically excited,thermally buckled plates

This paper presents some recent experimental results on the dynamic snap-through behavior of a clamped, rectangular plate subject to thermal loading and intense acoustic excitation. The likelihood of snap-through oscillations is characterized in terms of boundaries separating regions of snap-through and no snap-through in the parameter space. Two scenarios are considered. First, using tonal inputs, the regions of snap-through are mapped in the sound pressure level—input frequency domain ((SPL, ) plane). Second, random acoustic inputs are used, and the effect of varying the overall sound pressure level and frequency bandwidth are investigated ((SPL, ) plane). Several nonlinear characteristics are evident and discussed.