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.     

Mechanical properties of metallic ribbons investigated by depth sensing indentation technique

The paper presents mechanical properties of two kinds of Co-based and one Fe-based metallic ribbons by the depth sensing indentation (DSI) technique. Investigations were carried out on two kinds ternary alloy Co₇₇Si_11,5B_11,5 and Fe₇₈Si₁₃B₉ and multicomponent Co₆₈Fe₄Mo₁Si_13,5B_13,5, which are so-called “zero-magnetostriction” materials. Metallic ribbons were investigated in amorphous state and partially crystallized state after annealing in 400°C in argon atmosphere. Heating of ribbons obtained by melt spinning technique was performed to check its effect on changes of mechanical properties.     

Mössbauer studies of interactions between titanium atoms dissolved in iron

The room temperature ⁵⁷Fe Mössbauer spectra for binary iron-based solid solutions Fe_1???x Ti _x , with x in the range 0.010 ≤?x?≤ 0.045, were analysed in terms of binding energy E _b between two Ti atoms in the Fe-Ti system. The extrapolated values of E _b for x?= 0 were used for computation of enthalpy of solution of titanium in iron. The results were compared with that resulting from the Miedema’s model of alloys as well as those derived from the heat of formation of the system, obtained with both calorimetric measurements and theoretical calculations. The comparison shows that our Mössbauer spectroscopy findings are in a quite good agreement with all the other results mentioned above.     

Thermal,Raman and dielectric study of 0.5K0.5Bi0.5TiO3–0.5PbTiO3 ceramics

The 0.5K_0.5Bi_0.5TiO₃–0.5PbTiO₃ ceramics were prepared by following a standard solid-state method. The Raman, thermal and dielectric properties of these ceramics were investigated. The X-ray measurements showed that samples have single perovskite-type structure with tetragonal symmetry. Dielectric study revealed that the dielectric behaviour of the investigated ceramics is rather of normal ferroelectrics with large thermal hysteresis. The transition temperature observed by means of differential scanning calorimetry measurements is in good agreement with that obtained from dielectric study.     

C-terminal processing of yeast Spt7 occurs in the absence of functional SAGA complex

Background  

Spt7 is an integral component of the multi-subunit SAGA complex that is required for the expression of ~10% of yeast genes. Two forms of Spt7 have been identified, the second of which is truncated at its C-terminus and found in the SAGA-like (SLIK) complex.     

Laser photolysis of 2-phenylheptamethyltrisilane

Two transient absorptions have been detected in the 266 nm laser photolysis of 2-phenylheptamethyltrisilane in cyclohexane solution at room temperature, and their time evolution was recorded in the presence and absence of air and added trapping agents. The shorter-lived 440 nm transient (t1/2 < 20μs) is tentatively assigned to the silylene :SiMePh and the more persistent 380 nm transient to the disilene MePhSiSiMePh. The reactivity of this silylene is much lower than had been expected.     

Automorphisms of endomorphism semigroups of reflexive digraphs

A reflexive digraph is a pair (X, ρ), where X is an arbitrary set and ρ is a reflexive binary relation on X. Let End (X, ρ) be the semigroup of endomorphisms of (X, ρ). We determine the group of automorphisms of End (X, ρ) for: digraphs containing an edge not contained in a cycle, digraphs consisting of arbitrary unions of cycles such that cycles of length ≥2 are pairwise disjoint, and some circulant digraphs (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Polyelectrolyte-compression forces between spherical DNA brushes

Optical tweezers are employed to measure the forces of interaction within a single pair of DNA-grafted colloids, dependent on the molecular weight of the DNA chains, and the concentration and valence of the surrounding ionic medium. The resulting forces are short range and set in as the surface-to-surface distance between the colloidal cores reaches the value of the brush height. The measured force-distance relation is analyzed by means of a theoretical treatment that quantitatively describes the effects of compression of the chains on the surface of the opposite-lying colloid. Quantitative agreement with the experiment is obtained for all parameter combinations.     

Dielectric,thermal and Raman spectroscopy studies of lead-free (Na0.5Bi0.5)1−xSrxTiO3 (x = 0, 0.04 and 0.06) ceramics

ABSTRACT

Lead-free (Na_0.5Bi_0.5)_1?xSr_xTiO₃ (x = 0, 0.04 and 0.06) ceramics with relative densities above 97% were prepared by solid-state synthesis process. Their dielectric, thermal and Raman properties were studied. X-ray diffraction analysis shows perovskite structure with rhombohedral symmetry at room temperature. Sr doping of Na_0.5Bi_0.5TiO₃ (NBT) results in an increase of the dielectric permittivity, diffusing of the permittivity maximum and its shift toward lower temperatures. The temperature of the rhombohedral–tetragonal phase transition indicated by the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) peak and relaxational dielectric anomaly near the depolarization temperature are also shifted toward lower temperatures. The observed increase and broadening of the permittivity maximum, enhancement of the dielectric relaxation near the depolarization temperature, broadening of the DSC anomaly related to the rhombohedral–tetragonal phase transition and broadening of the Raman bands with increasing Sr content are attributed to the increase of the degree of cationic disorder and evident enhancement of the relaxor-like features in NBT–xST. This enhancement could play a positive role in the improvement of the piezoelectric performance of NBT-based ceramics.