Spectral enhancement of Polish vowels to improve their identification by hearing impaired listeners

Abnormalities in the cochlear function usually cause broadening of the auditory filters which reduces the speech intelligibility. An attempt to apply a spectral enhancement algorithm has been undertaken to improve the identification of Polish vowels by subjects with cochlear-based hearing-impairment. The identification scores of natural (unprocessed) vowels and spectrally enhanced (processed) vowels has been measured for hearing-impaired subjects. It has been found that spectral enhancement improves vowel scores by about 10% for those subjects, however, a wide variation in individual performance among subjects has been observed. The overall vowels identification scores obtained were 85% for natural vowels and 96% for spectrally enhanced vowels.     

A New Cohomology Theory of Orbifold

Based on the orbifold string theory model in physics, we construct a new cohomology ring for any almost complex orbifold. The key theorem is the associativity of this new ring. Some examples are computed.Both authors partially supported by the National Science Foundation     

Steady-state analytical solutions for the lattice boltzmann equation

A general class of analytical solutions of the lattice Boltzmann equation is derived for two-dimensional, steady-state unidirectional flows. A subset of the solutions that verifies the corresponding Navier-Stokes equations is given. It is pointed out that this class includes, e.g., the Couette and the Poiseuille flow but not, e.g., the basic Kolmogorov flow. For steady-state non-unidirectional flows, first and second order solutions of the lattice Boltzmann equation are derived. Practical consequences of the analysis are mentioned. Differences between the technique applied here and those used in some earlier works are emphasized.     

Commuting Rank 2 Differential Operators Corresponding to a Curve of Genus 2

We construct commuting rank 2 formally self-adjoint ordinary differential operators corresponding to a curve of genus 2.     

Dynamical and Topological Methods in the Theory of Geodesically Equivalent Metrics

We suggest a new, more global, approach to the study of geodesically equivalent metrics which is based on application of the theory of integrable geodesic flows. Bibliography: 17 titles.     

Raman echo under medium excitation by extremely short pulses

A generalization of the Bloembergen-Shen model to Raman active molecules with an arbitrary number of normal modes was suggested. The generalized model was used to study Raman echo signal characteristics when a system of molecules was excited by pulses of widths up to one period of optical oscillations. It was shown that a large number of echo responses on Stokes and anti-Stokes components could arise even under a two-pulse action in a continuous monochromatic pumping field. The number of echo responses depended on the number of molecular normal modes and the geometry of measurements. At small exciting pulse “areas,” the echo responses whose Stokes and anti-Stokes components corresponded to normal vibrational modes of a molecule had the highest intensity, whereas the components formed by normal mode combinations were strongly suppressed.     

Groups in which every non-abelian subgroup is permutable

A subgroupH of a groupG is said to bepermutable ifHX=XH for every subgroupX ofG. In this paper the structure of groups in which every subgroup either is abelian or permutable is investigated. This work was done while the last author was visiting the University of Napoli Federico II. He thanks the “Dipartimento di Matematica e Applicazioni” for its financial support.