The Taste-Masking Mechanism of Chitosan at the Molecular Level on Bitter Drugs of Alkaloids and Flavonoid Glycosides from Traditional Chinese Medicine

Taste masking of traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs) containing multiple bitter components remains an important challenge. In this study, berberine (BER) in alkaloids and phillyrin (PHI) in flavonoid glycosides, which are common bitter components in traditional Chinese medicines, were selected as model drugs. Chitosan (CS) was used to mask their unfriendly taste. Firstly, from the molecular level, we explained the taste-masking mechanism of CS on those two bitter components in detail. Based on those taste-masking mechanisms, the bitter taste of a mixture of BER and PHI was easily masked by CS in this work. The physicochemical characterization results showed the taste-masking compounds formed by CS with BER (named as BER/CS) and PHI (named as PHI/CS) were uneven in appearance. The drug binding efficiency of BER/CS and PHI/CS was 50.15 ± 2.63% and 67.10 ± 2.52%, respectively. The results of DSC, XRD, FTIR and molecular simulation further indicated that CS mainly masks the bitter taste by disturbing the binding site of bitter drugs and bitter receptors in the oral cavity via forming hydrogen bonds between its hydroxyl or amine groups and the nucleophilic groups of BER and PHI. The taste-masking evaluation results by the electronic tongue test confirmed the excellent taste-masking effects on alkaloids, flavonoid glycosides or a mixture of the two kinds of bitter components. The in vitro release as well as in vivo pharmacokinetic results suggested that the taste-masked compounds in this work could achieve rapid drug release in the gastric acid environment and did not influence the in vivo pharmacokinetic results of the drug. The taste-masking method in this work may have potential for the taste masking of traditional Chinese medicine compounds containing multiple bitter components.     

QuatJND: A Robust Quaternion JND Model for Color Image Watermarking

Robust quantization watermarking with perceptual JND model has made a great success for image copyright protection. Generally, either restores each color channel separately or processes the vector representation from three color channels with the traditional monochromatic model. And it cannot make full use of the high correlation among RGB channels. In this paper, we proposed a robust quaternion JND Model for color image watermarking (QuatJND). In contrast to the existing perceptual JND models, the advantage of QuatJND is that it can integrate quaternion representation domain and colorfulness simultaneously, and QuatJND incorporates the pattern guided contrast masking effect in quaternion domain. On the other hand, in order to efficiently utilize the color information, we further develop a robust quantization watermarking framework using the color properties of the quaternion DCT coefficients in QuatJND. And the quantization steps of each quaternion DCT block in the scheme are optimal. Experimental results show that our method has a good performance in term of robustness with better visual quality.     

联合精确比值掩蔽与深度神经网络的单通道语音增强方法

针对目前有监督语音增强忽略了纯净语音、噪声与带噪语音之间的幅度谱相似性对增强效果影响等问题,提出了一种联合精确比值掩蔽(ARM)与深度神经网络(DNN)的语音增强方法。该方法利用纯净语音与带噪语音、噪声与带噪语音的幅度谱归一化互相关系数,设计了一种基于时频域理想比值掩蔽的精确比值掩蔽作为目标掩蔽;然后以纯净语音和噪声幅度谱为训练目标的DNN为基线,通过该DNN的输出来估计目标掩蔽,并对基线DNN和目标掩蔽进行联合优化,增强语音由目标掩蔽从带噪语音中估计得到;此外,考虑到纯净语音与噪声的区分性信息,采用一种区分性训练函数代替均方误差(MSE)函数作为基线DNN的目标函数,以使网络输出更加准确。实验表明,区分性训练函数提升了基线DNN以及整个联合优化网络的增强效果;在匹配噪声和不匹配噪声下,相比于其它常见DNN方法,本文方法取得了更高的平均客观语音质量评估(PESQ)和短时客观可懂度(STOI),增强后的语音保留了更多语音成分,同时对噪声的抑制效果更加明显。     

基于空间视觉掩蔽效应的图像数字水印频域技术

首先分析了人眼视觉系统的特性,提出了一种利用人眼视觉掩蔽效应,以获得较好鲁棒性和不为人眼所感知的数字水印方法。实验结果表明,这一方法具有较好的特性。最后结合实验给出了对彩色图像进行数字水印处理的方法。     

基于听觉特性的电子耳蜗语音编码策略

为了改善电子耳蜗语音编码策略的性能,提出了一种基于听觉特性的编码策略.策略中的带通滤波及包络检测阶段采用Gammatone滤波器模型和Meddis内毛细胞模型;在通道选择阶段引入心理声学的掩蔽效应模型,从M个通道中选出N个通道,在相应的通道产生脉冲刺激信号.用MATLAB对提出的策略进行仿真研究,实现了22选8的编码策略.结果表明,所提编码策略在稳定性和鲁棒性方面优于CIS和ACE编码策略.     

言语知觉中的感觉运动整合机制

 大脑如何感知和理解言语是心理学和脑科学研究的重要问题之一。近年来,言语产出相关的皮层言语运动系统（SMS）通常被认为以代偿调节方式参与有噪音干扰和/或信息缺失情况下的言语知觉中。本研究采用功能性核磁共振成像（fMRI）技术考查在噪音干扰下的音节辨识任务中的感觉运动整合机制。研究1发现,SMS的参与程度随语音辨识难度增加而增加、在噪音干扰下比听皮层具有更高的音位特异性编码和表征能力,并且在难度适中时对听皮层编码代偿作用最大。研究2发现,听力正常的老年人在噪音干扰下存在音节辨识困难,且比年轻人更加依赖SMS的活动增加以及较少受到老化和噪音影响的言语运动表征以代偿听觉加工能力的下降。本研究不仅加深了对言语知觉中跨通道感觉运动信息整合机制及其毕生发展机制的认识,还为帮助听力受损或正常的老年人设计和开展言语交流康复训练方案提供了新的视角和启发。     

基于雄蝉生物发声机理的蝉鸣声数字化建模研究

目前临床治疗耳鸣的常用方法是耳鸣掩蔽疗法.国内外传统的耳鸣治疗仪普遍存在耳鸣匹配声源不足以及匹配效果差的缺陷.针对该问题,本文基于雄蝉的生物发声机理,通过分析研究其发声过程,从信号处理的角度提出一种模拟雄蝉发声的模型,用以合成最常见的耳鸣声源——蝉鸣声.实验表明,该模型取得了较好的效果,丰富了蝉鸣声匹配声源,具有一定的医用参考价值.     

Significance of Auditory and Kinesthetic Feedback to Singers'' Pitch Control

An accurate control of fundamental frequency (F0) is required from singers. This control relies on auditory and kinesthetic feedback. However, a loud accompaniment may mask the auditory feedback, leaving the singers to rely on kinesthetic feedback. The object of the present study was to estimate the significance of auditory and kinesthetic feedback to pitch control in 28 students beginning a professional solo singing education. The singers sang an ascending and descending triad pattern covering their entire pitch range with and without masking noise in legato and staccato and in a slow and a fast tempo. F0 was measured by means of a computer program. The interval sizes between adjacent tones were determined and their departures from equally tempered tuning were calculated. The deviations from this tuning were used as a measure of the accuracy of intonation. Statistical analysis showed a significant effect of masking that amounted to a mean impairment of pitch accuracy by 14 cent across all subjects. Furthermore, significant effects were found of tempo as well as of the staccato/legato conditions. The results indicate that auditory feedback contributes significantly to singers' control of pitch.     

MPEG心理声学模型研究及其Matlab实现

MPEG音频标准提供了两个心理声学模型,这是人耳掩蔽效应在音频压缩中成功应用的典范.对心理声学模型中应用到的心理声学理论进行了阐述,在Matlab环境下对MPEG心理声学模型1进行了仿真,针对给定的音频样本对仿真结果进行了简单的分析,同时也指出了声学模型1、2的差别.仿真结果和理论分析的一致性表明了仿真模型的可行性,为心理声学模型的改进和应用指明了方向.     

Complexometric Determination of Mercury(II) Using 2-Mercaptopropionylglycine as a Selective Masking Reagent

 A selective complexometric method for the determination of mercury(II) in the presence of associated metal ions is reported, based on the selective masking ability of 2-mercaptopropionylglycine (MPGH₂) towards mercury. Mercury, along with other associated metal ions, is first complexed with excess of EDTA and the surplus EDTA is back titrated at pH 5–6 (hexamine buffer) with standard zinc sulfate solution using xylenol orange as indicator. An aqueous 1% solution of MPGH₂ is then added to displace EDTA selectively from the Hg-EDTA complex and the released EDTA is titrated with the same standard zinc sulfate solution. Reproducible and accurate results are obtained for 4–85 mg of mercury with a relative error of ≤ 0.26% and coefficient of variation not exceeding 0.42%. The interferences of various cations and anions are studied. The method is used for the analysis of mercury in its complexes and alloy samples. Received August 30, 2000. Revision January 15, 2001.