Efficient blind dereverberation and echo cancellation based on independent component analysis for actual acoustic signals

This letter presents a new algorithm for blind dereverberation and echo cancellation based on independent component analysis (ICA) for actual acoustic signals. We focus on frequency domain ICA (FD-ICA) because its computational cost and speed of learning convergence are sufficiently reasonable for practical applications such as hands-free speech recognition. In applying conventional FD-ICA as a preprocessing of automatic speech recognition in noisy environments, one of the most critical problems is how to cope with reverberations. To extract a clean signal from the reverberant observation, we model the separation process in the short-time Fourier transform domain and apply the multiple input/output inverse-filtering theorem (MINT) to the FD-ICA separation model. A naive implementation of this method is computationally expensive, because its time complexity is the second order of reverberation time. Therefore, the main issue in dereverberation is to reduce the high computational cost of ICA. In this letter, we reduce the computational complexity to the linear order of the reverberation time by using two techniques: (1) a separation model based on the independence of delayed observed signals with MINT and (2) spatial sphering for preprocessing. Experiments show that the computational cost grows in proportion to the linear order of the reverberation time and that our method improves the word correctness of automatic speech recognition by 10 to 20 points in a RT??= 670 ms reverberant environment.     

A high‐performance sorting algorithm for multicore single‐instruction multiple‐data processors

Many sorting algorithms have been studied in the past, but there are only a few algorithms that can effectively exploit both single‐instruction multiple‐data (SIMD) instructions and thread‐level parallelism. In this paper, we propose a new high‐performance sorting algorithm, called aligned‐access sort (AA‐sort), that exploits both the SIMD instructions and thread‐level parallelism available on today's multicore processors. Our algorithm consists of two phases, an in‐core sorting phase and an out‐of‐core merging phase. The in‐core sorting phase uses our new sorting algorithm that extends combsort to exploit SIMD instructions. The out‐of‐core algorithm is based on mergesort with our novel vectorized merging algorithm. Both phases can take advantage of SIMD instructions. The key to high performance is eliminating unaligned memory accesses that would reduce the effectiveness of SIMD instructions in both phases. We implemented and evaluated the AA‐sort on PowerPC 970MP and Cell Broadband Engine platforms. In summary, a sequential version of the AA‐sort using SIMD instructions outperformed IBM's optimized sequential sorting library by 1.8 times and bitonic mergesort using SIMD instructions by 3.3 times on PowerPC 970MP when sorting 32 million random 32‐bit integers. Also, a parallel version of AA‐sort demonstrated better scalability with increasing numbers of cores than a parallel version of bitonic mergesort on both platforms. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Linear-Time Algorithm for Star-Shaped Drawings of Planar Graphs with the Minimum Number of Concave Corners

A star-shaped drawing of a graph is a straight-line drawing such that each inner facial cycle is drawn as a star-shaped polygon, and the outer facial cycle is drawn as a convex polygon. In this paper, we consider the problem of finding a star-shaped drawing of a biconnected planar graph with the minimum number of concave corners. We first show new structural properties of planar graphs to derive a lower bound on the number of concave corners. Based on the lower bound, we prove that the problem can be solved in linear time by presenting a linear-time algorithm for finding a best plane embedding of a biconnected planar graph with the minimum number of concave corners. This is in spite of the fact that a biconnected planar graph may have an exponential number of different plane embeddings.     

Capability and limitation of max- and sum-type construction of Lyapunov functions for networks of iISS systems

This paper addresses the problem of verifying stability of networks whose subsystems admit dissipation inequalities of integral input-to-state stability (iISS). We focus on two ways of constructing a Lyapunov function satisfying a dissipation inequality of a given network. Their difference from one another is elucidated from the viewpoint of formulation, relation, fundamental limitation and capability. One is referred to as the max-type construction resulting in a Lipschitz continuous Lyapunov function. The other is the sum-type construction resulting in a continuously differentiable Lyapunov function. This paper presents geometrical conditions under which the Lyapunov construction is possible for a network comprising $n\ge 2$ subsystems. Although the sum-type construction for general $n>2$ has not yet been reduced to a readily computable condition, we obtain a simple condition of iISS small gain in the case of $n=2$. It is demonstrated that the max-type construction fails to offer a Lyapunov function if the network contains subsystems which are not input-to-state stable (ISS).     

Numerical study on the effect of heat loss upon the critical marangoni number in a half-zone liquid bridge

In a half-zone (HZ) liquid bridge, flow exhibits a transition from a two-dimensional steady to a three-dimensional oscillatory flow if the Marangoni number Ma exceeds a critical value Ma_c, or ΔT>ΔT_c. In case of high Prandtle number fluids, the Mac obtained in the numerical simulations deviated significantly from the ones by the experiments. One of the causes of the difference is due to the heat loss over the free surface. Most of past researches neglected effects of the heat loss through an interface of the liquid bridge. Recently several experimental and analytical works reported that the critical condition is significantly affected by the heat loss. The present study aims to include the effects of the heat loss upon the Ma_c. As the result, the calculated Ma_c agrees well with the experiment for a high Pr fluid.     

Microstructure and yield strength of UDIMET 720LI alloyed with Co-16.9 Wt Pct Ti

We proposed a new method for developing Ni-base turbine disc alloy for application at temperatures above 700 °C by mixing a Ni-base superalloy U720LI with a two-phase alloy Co-16.9 wt pct Ti in various contents. The microstructure and phase stability of the alloys were analyzed using an optical microscope, a scanning electron microscope, energy-dispersive spectroscopy, and an X-ray diffractometer. The yield strength was studied by compression tests at temperatures ranging from 25 °C to 1200 °C. The results show that all the alloys had a dendritic structure. Ni₃Ti (η) phase was formed in the interdendritic region in the alloys with the addition of Co-16.9 wt pct Ti, and its volume fraction increased with the increase in the addition of Co-16.9 wt pct Ti. The results of exposure at 750 °C show that the addition of Co-16.9 wt pct Ti to U720LI had a great effect on suppressing the formation of σ phase due to the reduced Cr content in the γ matrix. Compared to U720LI, the alloys with the addition of Co-16.9 wt pct Ti possessed higher yield strength. The solid-solution strengthening of γ and γ′ and higher volume fraction of γ′ were assumed to cause this strength increase.     

Study on Magnetic Responsibility of Rare Earth Ferrite／Polyacrylamide Magnetic Microsphere

Magneticpolymermicrospherecanbeseparatedquicklyundermagneticfieldandithasgotwideappli cationinmanyfields ,suchascellseparationetc .Themicrospheremustpossesshighmagneticresponsibili ty ,sothatmagneticseparationisquickandconve nient.Themagneticresponsibilit…     

Shaped silicon-crystal wafers obtained by plastic deformation and their application to silicon-crystal lenses.

Plastic deformation is an unlikely process by which to mould pristine silicon wafers into three-dimensional shapes owing to the inevitable detrimental impact that the resulting mechanically induced defects would have on their electrical properties. However, if one were to find a way of doing so without substantial degradation of these properties, a range of new applications might be opened up. Here we report on the successful plastic deformation of silicon crystal wafers for the preparation of wafers with various shapes. A silicon wafer was set between dies and pressed at high temperatures. One application of shaped wafers is as well-shaped concave silicon crystal lenses or mirrors. The lattice plane of such a crystal lens has a curvature exactly along the surface. A concave spheroidal X-ray lens, in the form of two-dimensional Johann and Johansson's monochromators, is proposed for an X-ray optical component system. We propose and demonstrate a new solar cell system with the concave silicon crystal mirror used as both a solar cell and a focused mirror. This system can make use of the reflected photons from solar cells.     

Three dimensional virtual crack closure-integral method (VCCM) with skewed and non-symmetric mesh arrangement at the crack front

In this paper, an extension of virtual crack closure-integral method (VCCM) for three dimensional linear fracture mechanics analysis using hexahedron finite elements is presented. In conventional three dimensional VCCM, there are some inherent requirements on the finite element model. They are (i) the faces of finite elements across the crack front have the same areas and (ii) they must be arranged symmetrically across the crack front. In present study, we developed a three dimensional VCCM without such requirements by considering work required to open one element face area whose shape is arbitrary. Though we assume the use of an ordinary 20 node serendipity element, present approach can be applied to other types of hexahedron elements.     

Complete Mining of Frequent Patterns from Graphs: Mining Graph Data

Basket Analysis, which is a standard method for data mining, derives frequent itemsets from database. However, its mining ability is limited to transaction data consisting of items. In reality, there are many applications where data are described in a more structural way, e.g. chemical compounds and Web browsing history. There are a few approaches that can discover characteristic patterns from graph-structured data in the field of machine learning. However, almost all of them are not suitable for such applications that require a complete search for all frequent subgraph patterns in the data. In this paper, we propose a novel principle and its algorithm that derive the characteristic patterns which frequently appear in graph-structured data. Our algorithm can derive all frequent induced subgraphs from both directed and undirected graph structured data having loops (including self-loops) with labeled or unlabeled nodes and links. Its performance is evaluated through the applications to Web browsing pattern analysis and chemical carcinogenesis analysis.