Low distortion speech enhancement

An innovative approach to speech enhancement is illustrated which minimises distortion to the underlying speech during the noise-reduction process. The key to this approach lies in the identification of whether the additive noise for a particular frequency component is constructive or destructive. Once this can be identified both multiplicative and subtractive filters can be derived using the minimum mean-square error criterion. The optimal combination of the proposed multiplicative and subtractive filter is also shown     

An integral equation model for critical heat flux at subcooled and low quality flow boiling

A new theoretical model of critical heat flux (CHF) is developed for the flow boiling condition from bubble-detached to low quality range. The CHF condition is postulated to occur when the superheated liquid layer on the heated wall, which is formed under the bubbly layer from the point of the onset of significant void generation, is depleted due to the evaporation along the heated length. The model shows a very promising agreement with the uniformly heated round tube data for both water and refrigerants by simply applying well-known constitutive relationships without any tuning constant for the CHF data. The significance of the proposed model in unifying the existing models is also discussed.     

White organic light-emitting diodes using a quantum dot as a color changing material

White organic light-emitting diodes (WOLEDs) were fabricated by using a blue emitting layer combined with quantum dot (QD) based color converting materials. Orange emitting QD was used as a color converting material and effective color conversion was realized. A white color coordinate of (0.32, 0.41) was obtained with a current efficiency of 8.3 cd/A at 1000 cd/m².     

Development of the finite element method of body fit nodalization for mixed convection analysis in rod bundles

In the reactor rod bundle analysis, mixed convection phenomena are very important after the reactor shutdown. In this paper, the finite element method based on the body fit nodalization are developed to analyze the mixed convection phenomena in a complex geometry. The velocity distribution and the temperature distribution in the reactor rod bundles are obtained using the above two methods. To validate the developed methods, a comparison of the present results with the analytic solutions for a concentric tube is taken. The results show that the mixed convection in a complex geometry can be treated very well with these two methods, and that the finite element method with the body fit nodalization is more efficient than the finite difference method with the body-fitted coordinate system.     

Interference Cancellation for High-Frequency Surface Wave Radar

The performance of high-frequency surface wave radar (HFSWR) is known to suffer from external environmental interference and noise, such as cochannel radio-frequency interference from other radiating source, ionospheric clutter, lightning impulsive noise, etc. This paper experimentally evaluates the interference cancellation performance of various adaptive beamforming schemes with respect to the aforementioned three types of interferences in an attempt to find the most promising adaptive cancellation scheme in practical HFSWR environment.     

Origin of bistability in polyfluorene-based organic bistable devices

This study examined the origin of bistability in polyfluorene (PFO)-based organic bistable memory devices (OBDs) by changing the bulk properties of PFO and metal electrodes. Two different PFOs with and without internal trap sites and two Al and Au electrodes were used. Bistability was induced in all devices when Al was deposited on PFO. On the other hand, bistable switching was observed only in the PFO device with internal trap sites when Au was deposited on PFO. Therefore, both the formation of internal trap sites and an organic–metal interface are essential for bistability in PFO-based OBDs.     

MASS BALANCE APPROACH TO FORMULATE A380.0 ELECTRICAL CONDUIT FITTINGS FROM RECYCLED ALUMINUM ALLOY SCRAPS

This paper describes calculations using the mass balance method on aluminum alloy scraps, including soft drink cans, aluminum engine components, low alloy aluminum materials, and aluminum computer disks, to formulate A380.0 casting alloy. All recycled aluminum alloys from the same source were considered to be identical. Six approaches of mixing by weight percent, with the aid of an X-ray fluorescence technique, were successfully completed. A380.0 electrical conduit fittings were produced using the die casting technique. Mechanical tests including compression, impact, tensile, and suspended load indicated that die cast recycled aluminum alloy conduit fittings under classification 4 (heavy load condition) satisfied the requirements as stated in BSEN 50086-1: 1993.     

Multi-category micro-milling tool wear monitoring with continuous hidden Markov models

In-process monitoring of tool conditions is important in micro-machining due to the high precision requirement and high tool wear rate. Tool condition monitoring in micro-machining poses new challenges compared to conventional machining. In this paper, a multi-category classification approach is proposed for tool flank wear state identification in micro-milling. Continuous Hidden Markov models (HMMs) are adapted for modeling of the tool wear process in micro-milling, and estimation of the tool wear state given the cutting force features. For a noise-robust approach, the HMM outputs are connected via a medium filter to minimize the tool state before entry into the next state due to high noise level. A detailed study on the selection of HMM structures for tool condition monitoring (TCM) is presented. Case studies on the tool state estimation in the micro-milling of pure copper and steel demonstrate the effectiveness and potential of these methods.