Search results for: COCOA EXTRACTS
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Origin of bitumen fractions in the Jurassic-early Cretaceous Vaca Muerta Formation in Argentina: insights from organic petrography and geochemical techniques
PublicationThis paper investigates chemical functional groups of the two extracted bitumen fractions in shales of the Jurassic to early Cretaceous Vaca Muerta Formation of the Neuquén Basin in Argentina, South America. The results indicate that Bitumen I is strongly aliphatic and appears to be genetically related to fluorescent amorphous organic matter. In contrast, Bitumen II consists of highly condensed, aromatic hydrocarbons, and has some...
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Bisphenols and their derivatives in baby diaper samples.
PublicationMany common products contain and leach hazardous chemicals, including endocrine-disrupting chemicals such as bisphenols that are harmful to human health. For toddlers, this dangerousness is higher because of their not fully developed detoxification system. Due to this, bisphenols content in products such as baby diapers, should be monitored. Baby diapers not only remain in close contact with the skin, but are also used from the...
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Essential Oils, Silver Nanoparticles and Propolis as Alternative Agents Against Fluconazole Resistant Candida albicans, Candida glabrata and Candida krusei Clinical Isolates
PublicationDevelopment of effective and safe therapeutic treatment of fungal infections remains one of the major challenge for modern medicine. The aim of presented investigation was to analyze the in vitro antifungal activity of selected essential oils, ethanolic extracts of propolis and silver nanoparticles dropped on TiO2 against azole-resistant C. albicans (n = 20), C. glabrata (n = 14) and C. krusei (n = 10) clinical isolates. Among...
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A novel analytical approach in the assessment of unprocessed Kaffir lime peel and pulp as potential raw materials for cosmetic applications
PublicationVolatile fraction of fruits is a rich source of bioactive and aroma compounds, which can be used in the cosmetics industry after meeting relevant criteria. This is particularly evident in citrus fruits, especially in Citrus hystrix, in which the headspace consists mainly of terpenes. Due to the insufficient sensitivity of analytical methods, essential oils are used in investigations in contrast to fresh fruits. Therefore, a novel...
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Green energy extraction for sustainable development: A novel MPPT technique for hybrid PV-TEG system
PublicationThe Photovoltaic (PV) module converts only a small portion of irradiance into electrical energy. Most of the solar energy is wasted as heat, resulting in a rise in PV cell temperature and a decrease in solar cell efficiency. One way to harvest this freely available solar thermal energy and improve PV cell efficiency is by integrating PV systems with thermoelectric generators (TEG). This cogeneration approach of the hybrid PV-TEG...
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Influence of steam cooking on pro-health properties of Small and Large variety of Momordica charantia
PublicationSteam cooking is one of the most common preparations of Momordicacharantia dishes. This method improved the tastiness of the fruits but at the same time, some changes occurred in the volatile and non-volatile parts of their food matrices. In this study, for the first time these properties were correlated with the found substances affecting the bioactivity of this fruit. Two varieties of Momordicacharantia were analysed and compared....
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Improvement of glass break acoustic signal detection via application of wavelet packet decomposition
PublicationThe main subject of the authors' research are non-contact methods of glass break detection based on analysis of the acoustic signal generated during the event. This problem has essential meaning for modern cost- effective alarm systems, particularly those installed into big buildings. The main difficulties of the matter are: transient character of the signal, great number of similar sounds (false signals, mainly accidental glass...
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Communication: Inside the water wheel: Intrinsic differences between hydrated tetraphenylphosphonium and tetraphenylborate ions
PublicationTetraphenylphosphonium tetraphenylborate (TPTB) is a common reference electrolyte in physical chemistry of solutions allowing for a convenient partitioning of thermodynamic properties into single-ion contributions. Here, we compute on the basis of ab initio molecular dynamics simulations the infrared (IR) spectra for hydrated constituent ions of the TPTB assumption. Using spectral decomposition techniques, we extract important...
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Human Feedback and Knowledge Discovery: Towards Cognitive Systems Optimization
PublicationCurrent computer vision systems, especially those using machine learning techniques are data-hungry and frequently only perform well when dealing with patterns they have seen before. As an alternative, cognitive systems have become a focus of attention for applications that involve complex visual scenes, and in which conditions may vary. In theory, cognitive applications uses current machine learning algorithms, such as deep learning,...
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Deep neural networks for human pose estimation from a very low resolution depth image
PublicationThe work presented in the paper is dedicated to determining and evaluating the most efficient neural network architecture applied as a multiple regression network localizing human body joints in 3D space based on a single low resolution depth image. The main challenge was to deal with a noisy and coarse representation of the human body, as observed by a depth sensor from a large distance, and to achieve high localization precision....
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Electricity generation from rapeseed straw hydrolysates using microbial fuel cells
PublicationRapeseed straw is an attractive fuel material for microbial fuel cells (MFCs) due to its high content of carbohydrates (more than 60% carbohydrates). This study has demonstrated that reducing sugars can be efficiently extracted from raw rapeseed straw by combination of hydrothermal pretreatment and enzymatic hydrolysis followed by utilization as a fuel in two-chamber MFCs for electrical power generation. The most efficient method...
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Color-based Detection of Bleeding in Endoscopic Images
PublicationIn this paper a color descriptor designed for bleeding detection in endoscopic images is proposed. The development of the algorithm was carried out on a representative training set of 36 images of bleeding and 25 clear images. Another 38 bleeding and 26 normal images were used in the final stage as a test set. All of the considered images were extracted from separate endoscopic examinations. The experiments include color distribution...
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Alternative Methods of Preparation of Soluble Keratin from Chicken Feathers
PublicationHuge amount of keratinous waste, especially birds’ feathers, demands more value-added application instead of dumping. The present work reports the results of experiments aimed at preparing soluble keratin useful for novel bioproduct formation. The effect of thermo-chemical treatments with various reducing agents, i.e. 2-mercaptoethanol, dithiothreitol, sodium m-bisulphite, and sodium bisulphite, as well as sodium hydroxide, on...
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Information content of systems as a physical principle
PublicationTo explain the conceptual gap between classical and quantum and other, hypothetical descriptions of the world, several principles have been proposed. So far, all these principles have not explicitly included the uncertainty relation. Here we introduce an information content principle ( ICP ) which represents a constrained uncertainty principle. The principle, by taking into account the encoding and decoding properties of a single physical...
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An improved scalable method of isolating asphaltenes
PublicationA new, improved and scalable procedure of asphaltene fraction isolation is presented and compared to standard test methods. The new procedure uses 1:40 feedstock to solvent (n-heptane) ratio (g/mL), filtration through a cellulosic thimble and extensive washing in a Soxhlet type extractor. The group type composition and purity of the asphaltene fractions have been examined using thin-layer chromatography with flame-ionization detection....
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Entrepreneurship Vulnerability to Business Cycle. A New Methodology for Identification Pro-cyclical and Counter-cyclical Patterns of Entrepreneurial Activity
PublicationIn literature, there is ongoing discussion whether entrepreneurial activity, approximated by, for instance, changes in self-employment, tends to behave pro-cyclically, counter-cyclically or rather is a-cyclical. Thus far, both theoretical and empirical evidence, where various multiple methodological approaches are used, does not provide clear answer to the latter; while widely offered explanations are scattered and lack robustness....
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seafloor characterisation combined approach using multibeam sonar echo signal processing and image analysis
PublicationThe authors propose the approach to seafloor characterisation which relies on the combined, concurrent use of two different techniques: (i) multibeam sonar image analysis and (ii) multibeam seabed echoes processing. The first technique is based on constructing the grey-level sonar images of the seabed extracted from the echoes received in the consecutive soundings. Then, the set of parameters describing the local region of sonar...
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Properties of Different Varieties of Durian
PublicationDurian (Durio zibethinus Murr.), like many other exotic, tropical, and conventional fruits, is important in the prevention of different diseases. In this study, the characterization of the main bioactive compounds of the most popular cultivars of durian and their properties are described. The changes in the quality indices of the antioxidant status were determined by CUPRAC, ABTS, FRAP, DPPH, and ORAC assays. The profiling of phytochemicals...
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Personal Brand Authenticity and Social Media: The Top 5 Football Players’ Case
Publicationhe authenticity is a key factor which attracts the interest of young consumers in the more and more dominant virtual world full of “fake news”,“fake images”, and “fake impressions”. The celebrity authenticity is also important when it comes to gain the positive attitude of the audience and the success in the long term. The unique talent is crucial for all stars. According to football stars, the authenticity of their personal brands...
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Overcoming gender bias in the digital economy. Empirical evidence for European countries
PublicationThis study aims to contribute to understanding the gender biases that emerge in the digital technology-related field. More specifically we concentrate on examining whether gender gaps are diminishing or are persistent in terms of women’s enrollment in technology-related programs at the tertiary level of education and for female STEM graduates. Next, this evidence is confronted with gender biases in the labor market regarding changing...
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Harnessing digital technologies for poverty reduction. Evidence for low-income and lower-middle income countries
PublicationThis paper contributes to understanding the relationship between ICT deployment and poverty alleviation in developing countries. It assess the digital technologies contribution to poverty reduction, through different channels of impact, like education, labor market, income and ICTtrade related activities. Using the sample of 40 developing countries between 1990 and 2019, it relies on macro data extracted from the World Bank Development...
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Tensor Decomposition for Imagined Speech Discrimination in EEG
PublicationMost of the researches in Electroencephalogram(EEG)-based Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) are focused on the use of motor imagery. As an attempt to improve the control of these interfaces, the use of language instead of movement has been recently explored, in the form of imagined speech. This work aims for the discrimination of imagined words in electroencephalogram signals. For this purpose, the analysis of multiple variables...
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MP3vec: A Reusable Machine-Constructed Feature Representation for Protein Sequences
Publication—Machine Learning (ML) methods have been used with varying degrees of success on protein prediction tasks, with two inherent limitations. First, prediction performance often depends upon the features extracted from the proteins. Second, experimental data may be insufficient to construct reliable ML models. Here we introduce MP3vec, a transferable representation for protein sequences that is designed to be used specifically for sequence-to-sequence...
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Do online reviews reveal mobile application usability and user experience? The case of WhatsApp
PublicationThe variety of hardware devices and the diversity of their users imposes new requirements and expectations on designers and developers of mobile applications (apps). While the Internet has enabled new forms of communication platform, online stores provide the ability to review apps. These informal online app reviews have become a viral form of electronic wordof-mouth (eWOM), covering a plethora of issues. In our study, we set ourselves...
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Waste tire rubber as low-cost and environmentally-friendly modifier in thermoset polymers – a review
PublicationNowadays, waste tire rubber (WTR) management is a growing and serious problem. Therefore, research works focused on the development of cost-effective and environmentally-friendly methods of WTR recycling are fully justified. Incorporation of WTR into polymer matrices and composite materials attracts much attention, because this approach allows sustainable development of industrially applicable waste tires recycling technologies....
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C2 NIWA Community-Segmentation Criteria and Building Brand Associations on the Example of a Selected Target Group
PublicationEvery organization which offers products or services wishes to communicate with their customers in the most effective way. This kind of communication is based on proper selection of target groups, which are extracted in the process of market segmentation. That is way it is very important to ask the question to whom the message is to be directed and what kind of message we want to give. This article describes the selection criteria...
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On the geometrically nonlinear vibration of a piezo-flexomagnetic nanotube
PublicationIn order to describe the behavior of thin elements used in MEMS and NEMS, it is essential to study a nonlinear free vibration of nanotubes under complicated external fields such as magnetic environment. In this regard, the magnetic force applied to the conductive nanotube with piezo-flexomagnetic elastic wall is considered. By the inclusion of Euler-Bernoulli beam and using Hamilton’s principle, the equations governing the system...
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Stress Detection of Children with Autism using Physiological Signals in Kaspar Robot-Based Intervention Studies
PublicationThis study aims to develop a stress detection system using the blood volume pulse (BVP) signals of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) during robot-based interven- tion. This study presents the heart rate variability (HRV) analysis method to detect the stress, where HRV features are extracted from raw BVP signals recorded from an E4 wristband during interaction studies with the social robot Kaspar. Low frequency power...
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INVESTIGATION OF THE LOMBARD EFFECT BASED ON A MACHINE LEARNING APPROACH
PublicationThe Lombard effect is an involuntary increase in the speaker’s pitch, intensity, and duration in the presence of noise. It makes it possible to communicate in noisy environments more effectively. This study aims to investigate an efficient method for detecting the Lombard effect in uttered speech. The influence of interfering noise, room type, and the gender of the person on the detection process is examined. First, acoustic parameters...
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Bimodal Emotion Recognition Based on Vocal and Facial Features
PublicationEmotion recognition is a crucial aspect of human communication, with applications in fields such as psychology, education, and healthcare. Identifying emotions accurately is challenging, as people use a variety of signals to express and perceive emotions. In this study, we address the problem of multimodal emotion recognition using both audio and video signals, to develop a robust and reliable system that can recognize emotions...
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MODELOWANIE TURBINY WIATROWEJ Z DWOMA PRZECIWBIEŻNIE OBRACAJĄCYMI SIĘ WIRNIKAMI
PublicationW artykule przedstawiono sposoby modelowania dwuwirnikowej turbiny wiatrowej z wykorzystaniem technik Obliczeniowej Mechaniki Płynów. Omówiono uproszczone metody modelowania Actuator Disc i Actuator Line Method oraz aspekty związane z dokładnym odwzorowaniem turbiny na siatce obliczeniowej. Zaprezentowano przykładowe wyniki obliczeń turbiny dwuwirnikowej złożonej z wirników NREL o mocy nominalnej 5 MW każdy. Do wykonania badań...
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Hypertension and atrial fibrillation
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Technical and economic conditions of supplying residential consumers with heat from nuclear power plant
PublicationThe reduction of CO2 emission requires technological shift towards carbon-free options. Cogeneration of electricity and heat based on coal and natural gas will experience generation cost increase, if the costs of emissions are imposed on the plant operators. Therefore, nuclear and renewable options should be considered. In this paper, we present the concept of electricity and heat supply system with nuclear condensing turbine adapted...
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Modeling the impact of discretizing rotor angular position on computation of field-oriented current components in high speed electric drives
PublicationModern drives consist of alternating current electric motors, and the field-oriented control (FOC) of such motors enables fast, precise, and robust regulation of a drive's mechanical variables such as torque, speed, and position. The control algorithm, implemented in a microprocessor, requires feedback from motor currents, and the quality of this feedback is essential to a drive's control properties. Motor phase currents are sampled...
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Application of a commercially available derivatization instrument and commonly used reagents to HPLC on-line determination of antioxidants
PublicationThis study demonstrates the potential of a commercially available derivatization instrument coupled with HPLC for separation and on-line determination of antioxidants detected with widely used screening reagents - DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl), ABTS (2,2'-azino-bis(3-ethylbenzthiazoline-6-sulphonic acid) or FCR (Folin-Ciocalteu's phenol reagent ). As the result of optimization, key parameters of the analytical procedure,...
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Optimization of hybrid parallel application execution in heterogeneous high performance computing systems considering execution time and power consumption
PublicationMany important computational problems require utilization of high performance computing (HPC) systems that consist of multi-level structures combining higher and higher numbers of devices with various characteristics. Utilizing full power of such systems requires programming parallel applications that are hybrid in two meanings: they can utilize parallelism on multiple levels at the same time and combine together programming interfaces...
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Ionogel sorbent coatings for determining organophosphorus and pyrethroid insecticides in water and fresh juice samples by headspace-solid phase microextraction
PublicationThe sol–gel method yielded three different ionogel sorbent coatings that were obtained based on a silica material containing ionic liquids (ILs) immobilized in its pores. Two ILs, triethylsulfonium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl) imide [Set3][TFSI] and 1-butyl-1-methylpiperidinium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide [C4C1Pip][TFSI], as well as their equimolar mixture [Set3/C4C1Pip], were used to obtain ionogel fibers. The developed...
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An Instantaneous Engine Speed Estimation Method Using Multiple Matching Synchrosqueezing Transform
PublicationInstantaneous rotational speed measurement of the engine is crucial in routine inspection and maintenance of an automobile engine. Since the contact measurement of rotational speed is not always available, the vibration measurement has been used for noncontact rotational speed estimation methods. Unfortunately, the accuracy of the noncontact estimation methods by analyzing engine vibration frequency is not satisfactory due to the...
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Metabolic Profiles of New Unsymmetrical Bisacridine Antitumor Agents in Electrochemical and Enzymatic Noncellular Systems and in Tumor Cells
PublicationNew unsymmetrical bisacridines (UAs) demonstrated high activity not only against a set of tumor cell lines but also against human tumor xenografts in nude mice. Representative UA compounds, named C-2028, C-2045 and C-2053, were characterized in respect to their physicochemical properties and the following studies aimed to elucidate the role of metabolic transformations in UAs action. We demonstrated with phase I and phase II enzymes...
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Audio Feature Analysis for Precise Vocalic Segments Classification in English
PublicationAn approach to identifying the most meaningful Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients representing selected allophones and vocalic segments for their classification is presented in the paper. For this purpose, experiments were carried out using algorithms such as Principal Component Analysis, Feature Importance, and Recursive Parameter Elimination. The data used were recordings made within the ALOFON corpus containing audio signal...
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The influence of magnetic particle incorporation on bisphenol A removal by β-cyclodextrin-derived sorbent
PublicationA novel, biomass-derived hybrid sorbent Ban-CD-EPI-Fe was successfully synthesized in a coprecipitation method, in which β-cyclodextrin copolymerized with banana peel extract and epichlorohydrin was grafted onto an iron oxide surface. The composition, presence of functional groups, morphology, thermal stability, and magnetic properties of the obtained material were characterized by Powder X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), X-Ray Photoelectron...
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Development of a new green analytical methodology for the determination of phthalates in single-use babies diapers using ultrasound-assisted extraction and polypropylene porous membrane
PublicationA green extraction strategy was developed and utilized for the extraction and determination of phthalates. The extraction is based on ultrasound-assisted extraction and a polypropylene porous membrane. The Box-Behnken model was performed to optimize the extraction condition. The optimal extraction conditions are 5.5 mL of ethyl acetate, 10 min of extraction time and 55 C for extraction temperature. The developed green extraction...
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Valorization of waste cabbage leaves by postharvest photochemical treatments monitored with a non-destructive fluorescence-based sensor
PublicationThe biosynthesis of polyphenolic compounds in cabbage waste, outer green leaves of white head cabbage (Brassica oleracea L. var. capitata subvar. alba), was stimulated by postharvest irradiation with UVB lamps or sunlight. Both treatments boosted the content of kaempferol and quercetin glycosides, especially in the basal leaf zone, as determined by the HPLC analysis of leaf extracts and by a non-destructive optical sensor. The...
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Evaluation of a Novel Approach to Virtual Bass Synthesis Strategy
PublicationThe aim of this paper is to present a novel approach to the Virtual Bass Synthesis (VBS) strategy applied to portable computers. The developed algorithms involve intelligent, rule-based settings of bass synthesis parameters with regard to music genre of an audio excerpt and the type of a portable device in use. The Smart VBS algorithm performs the synthesis based on a nonlinear device (NLD) with artificial controlling synthesis...
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ECONOMIC GROWTH AND FEMALE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION – VERIFYING THE U-FEMINIZATION HYPOTHESIS. NEW EVIDENCE FOR 162 COUNTRIES OVER THE PERIOD 1990-2012.
PublicationThe paper contributes by providing new insights into relationship between female labor force and economic growth in 162 world countries over the period 1990-2012. It is anticipated uncovering U-shaped relationship between female labor force participation and economic growth. The analysis is run in two different perspectives – first the relationship is examined for sample encompassing 162 countries; and second – the evidence is...
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Revitalization of Sopot - The Seaside Spa Town in Poland
PublicationSopot is a Polish seaside resort. In the past - as early as at the beginning of the 20th century - this town was famous for the healing opportunities they created: good conditions for resting and recreation. This town was places where everyone with enough selfesteem was willing to be seen. Since the post-war reconstruction until 1989 (establishment of local governments in Poland), not much has happened in Polish cities in terms...
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Smart Virtual Bass Synthesis Algorithm Based on Music Genre Classification
PublicationThe aim of this paper is to present a novel approach to the Virtual Bass Synthesis (VBS) algorithms applied to portable computers. The proposed algorithm employed automatic music genre recognition to determine the optimum parameters for the synthesis of additional frequencies. The synthesis was carried out using the non-linear device (NLD) and phase vocoder (PV) methods depending on the music excerpt genre. Classification of musical...
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Using angular dependence of multibeam echo features in seabed classification
PublicationThe new approach to seabed classification based on processing multibeam sonar echoes is presented. The multibeam sonars, besides their well verified and widely used applications like high resolution bathymetry measurements or underwater object imaging, are also the promising tool in seafloor identification and classification, having several advantages over conventional single beam echosounders. The proposed seabed classification...
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Interlaboratory Test to Characterize the Cyclic Behavior of Bituminous Interlayers: An Overview of Testing Equipment and Protocols
PublicationThe performance assessment of multi-layered pavements strongly depends on the mechanical behavior of the interface between bituminous layers. So far, comprehensive studies have been carried out mainly using quasi-static laboratory tests focusing on the interlayer shear strength at failure. However, it is generally recognized that cyclic shear testing will lead to the determination of parameters which are more closely linked to...
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Quasi-Global Optimization of Antenna Structures Using Principal Components and Affine Subspace-Spanned Surrogates
PublicationParametric optimization is a mandatory step in the design of contemporary antenna structures. Conceptual development can only provide rough initial designs that have to be further tuned, often extensively. Given the topological complexity of modern antennas, the design closure necessarily involves full-wave electromagnetic (EM) simulations and—in many cases—global search procedures. Both factors make antenna optimization a computationally...