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Noise optimization for FET low noise amplifiers (LNAs) are demonstrated through insights gained from analytical formulations derived using noise transformation matrix. The invited paper reviews the status of analytical noise optimization of FET LNAs including single-/dual-band FET LNAs with the lossless/lossy input match networks and broadband FET LNAs with the lossless input networks.

This paper presents an analysis of the sensitivity function and complementary sensitivity function for stock consistency process models using Particle Swarm Optimization-(PSO) based conventional Proportional-Integral (PI) and Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controllers. The analysis of these functions is required to test the effect of disturbances, noise, and variation in process dynamics on the process output, i.e., to check the robustness of the controllers. The PI controller has been designed using a fuzzy login-based PSO algorithm. The objective is to determine the optimal controller tuning parameters using a proposed algorithm such that the effect of process variations and disturbances is minimum on the process output. The peak values of sensitivity and complementary sensitivity functions have been obtained through MATLAB along with the closed-loop bandwidth of the proposed control system. Also, the time taken by proposed controllers to suppress the effect of disturbance and noise has also been evaluated. The comparison has been done between PSO–PI and PID controllers on the basis of the above-mentioned criterion. From the comparative analysis, it has been observed that the PSO–PI controller exhibits better robustness as compared to the PSO–PID controller.

This paper gives a review on the various modulation techniques that have been used to eliminate lower-order harmonics in multilevel inverters. The output voltage with high quality can be achieved using multilevel inverters. The selection is based on switching losses, power losses, noise, etc. Many authors proposed different modulation techniques such as sine triangular, selective harmonic selection (SHE), model predictive control techniques, space-vector-based modulation techniques. This paper presents a detailed review of existing harmonic elimination methods as well as concludes with the best method.

BACKGROUND Noise exposures are associated with a host of adverse health effects, yet these exposures remain inadequately characterized in many industrial operations, including paper mills. We assessed noise at four paper mills using three measures: (i) personal noise dosimetry, (ii) area noise measurements, and (iii) questionnaire items addressing several different aspects of perceived noise exposure. METHODS We assessed exposures to noise characterized using the three measures and compared the relationships between them. We also estimated the validity of each of the three measures using a novel application of the Method of Triads, which does not appear to have been used previously in the occupational health literature. RESULTS We collected 209 valid dosimetry measurements and collected perceived noise exposure survey items from 170 workers, along with 100 area measurements. We identified exposures in excess of 85 dBA at all mills. The dosimetry and area noise measurements assigned to individual subjects generally showed good agreement, but for some operations within mill, large differences between the two measures were observed, and a substantial fraction of paired measures differed by >5 dB. Perceived noise exposures varied greatly between the mills, particularly for an item related to difficulty speaking in noise. One perceived noise exposure item related to difficulty hearing due to noise showed strong and significant correlations with both dosimetry and area measurements. The Method of Triads analysis showed that dosimetry measures had the highest estimated validity coefficient (0.70), and that the best performing perceived exposure measure had validity that exceeded that of area measurements (0.48 versus 0.40, respectively). CONCLUSIONS Workers in Swedish pulp mills have the potential for exposures to high levels of noise. Our results suggest that, while dosimetry remains the preferred approach to exposure assessment, perceived noise exposures can be used to evaluate potential exposures to noise in epidemiological studies.

Superposition and entanglement, the quintessential characteristics of quantum physics, have been shown to provide communication, computation, and sensing capabilities that go beyond what classical physics will permit. It is natural, therefore, to explore their application to radar, despite the fact that decoherence—caused by the loss and noise encountered in radar sensing—destroys these fragile quantum properties. This paper tells the story of “quantum illumination”, an entanglement-based approach to quantum radar, from its inception to its current understanding. Remarkably, despite loss and noise that destroys its initial entanglement, quantum illumination does offer a target-detection performance improvement over a classical radar of the same transmitted energy. A realistic assessment of that improvement’s utility, however, shows that its value is severely limited. Nevertheless, the fact that entanglement can be of value on an entanglement-breaking channel—the meta-lesson of the quantum illumination story—should spur continued research on quantum radar.

Damage detection and localization in civil engineering constructions using dynamic analysis has become an important topic in recent years. This paper presents a methodology based on non-destructive detection, localization and quantification of multiple damages in simple and continuous beams, and a more complex structure, namely two-dimensional frame structure. The proposed methodology makes used of Firefly Algorithm and Genetic Algorithm as optimization tools and the Coordinate Modal Assurance Criterion as an objective function. The results show that the proposed combination of Coordinate Modal Assurance Criterion and Firefly Algorithm or Genetic Algorithm can be easily used to identify multiple local structural damages in complex structures. However, the convergence rate becomes slower for the case of multiple damages compared to the case of single damage. The effect of noise on the algorithm is further investigated. It is found that the proposed technique is able to detect the damage location and its severity with high accuracy in the presence of noise, although the convergence rate became slower than in the case when no noise is present. It is also found that the convergence rate of Firefly Algorithm is much faster than that of Genetic Algorithm.

Bu çalışmada, gürültünün insan sağlığı üzerinde oluşturduğu olumsuz etkilerin en aza indirilmesi amacıyla halen kullanılan gürültü izolasyon malzemelerine alternatif olabilecek yeni bir izolasyon malzemesinin oluşturulması amaçlanmıştır. Çalışma gerçekleştirilirken, gündelik yaşantımızda yoğun kullanımlar sonucu oluşan atık niteliği kazanmış kağıtların çevre ve insan sağlığına zararının en aza indirilmesi ve ekonomiye katkı sağlaması esasları dikkate alınmıştır. Bu amaçla, strafor (EPS), atık kâğıt ve pomza taşı tozu kullanılarak altı farklı modifikasyonda izolasyon panelleri üretilmiştir. Üretilen bu panellerde ses geçiş kaybı analizleri 100 – 2.000 Hz frekans aralığında gerçekleştirilmiştir. Sonuç olarak üretilen panel ile 1.000 Hz. frekansta 15,8 desibel gürültü azaltımı sağlanmıştır. Böylece ülkemizde yılda 2 milyon tondan fazla çıkan ancak sadece %50'sini geri dönüştürebildiğimiz atık kâğıdın, izolasyon panelleri için ham madde olarak kullanılabilir olduğu belirlenmiştir. In this study, it was aimed to produce a new isolation material which could be an alternative to the currently used noise isolation materials in order to minimize the negative effects of noise on human health. For this purpose, six different modified insulation panels were produced using styrofoam (EPS), waste paper and pumice powder. In these panels produced, the sound transmission loss analyses were carried out at a frequency range of 100 – 2.000 Hz. As a result, it was determined that the material has the isolation ability up to 15,8 decibels at 1.000 Hz frequency. Thus, it is understood that the waste paper which can be recycked by only 50% of our country, which is more than 2 million tons per year, can be used as raw material for the insulation panels.

Noise is one of the problems that often occur in urban areas due to the traffic condition. Noise in a building design depends on the choice of materials as sound absorbers. The type of sound dampening material that already exists is a porous material, a resonator, and a panel. The material often used as an absorber is porous materials, because it is relatively cheaper and lighter, especially to reduce the noise in the narrow spaces such as housing and offices. Various substitutes are made from cheap materials, such as the use of recycled materials of egg tray paper with the size of 40 x 40 centimeters. This is a quantitative research that will measure the place of egg tray paper in reducing noise, using a Sound Level Meter. The use of the egg tray paper is able to show an adequate acoustic quality as noise absorbers, with the average value of NR 22-26 dB.

The difference between conventional replicator dynamics and pairwise (PW) nonlinear Fermi dynamics can be discerned by studying the evolutionary dynamics of the interactions between the symmetric cyclic structure in the rock–paper–scissors game and inter- and intraspecific competitions. Often, conventional replicator models presume that the payoff difference among species is a linear function (a linear benefit). This study introduces a PW contrast under the properties of the well-known Fermi rule, where species play against one another in pairs. To model a PW nonlinear evolutionary environment (a nonlinear benefit) within this framework, both analytical and numerical approaches are applied. It is determined that the dynamics of the linear and nonlinear benefits can present the same stability conditions at equilibrium. Moreover, it is also demonstrated that, even in an identical equilibrium condition for both dynamics, the numerical result run by a deterministic approach presents a faster stability state for nonlinear benefit dynamics. This study also suggests that introducing mutation as demographic noise can effectively disrupt the phase regions and show the different relationships between linear and nonlinear dynamics. The symmetric bidirectional mutation among all the species reduced to the stable limit cycle by an arbitrary small mutation rate is also explored. Due to the environmental noise, however, linear and nonlinear exhibit the same steady state. Nevertheless, non-linearity illustrates more stable and faster stability situations. Our result suggests that environmental and demographic noise on the evolutionary dynamic framework can serve as a mechanism for supporting PW nonlinear dynamics in multi-species games.

Higher noise level in heavy industries is harmful for workers. It causes ill effects like hearing loss, tired, weakness, higher blood pressure on health of industrial workers. Therefore, to improve the environment of the workplace and reduce unwanted noise in industries it is very important to find out effective and harmless noise control methods. The research work was conducted to investigate use of natural materials for industrial noise reduction to give effective solution for existing industrial noise problem .specimens having size of 75 mm (dia.) and 12.5mm, 25mm (thick.) were cast. Noise reduction coefficients of prepared specimens were calculated by using an experimental set-up. Experimental set-up consisted Noise level meter, function generator, speaker. Noise reduction capacity of materials was calculated by using Noise reduction coefficient (NRC). Effectiveness of natural materials for industrial noise reduction is discussed in this paper.

There is growing interest in the concepts of listening effort and fatigue associated with hearing loss. However, the theoretical underpinnings and clinical meaning of these concepts are unclear. This lack of clarity reflects both the relative immaturity of the field and the fact that research studies investigating listening effort and fatigue have used a variety of methodologies including self-report, behavioural, and physiological measures.This discussion paper provides working definitions for listening effort and listening-related fatigue. Using these definitions as a framework, methodologies to assess these constructs are reviewed.Although each technique attempts to characterize the same construct (i.e. the clinical presentation of listening effort and fatigue), different assumptions are often made about the nature of these phenomena and their behavioural and physiological manifestations.We suggest that researchers consider these assumptions when interpreting their data and, where possible, make predictions based on current theoretical knowledge to add to our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of listening effort and listening-related fatigue.Following recent interest in the cognitive involvement in hearing, the British Society of Audiology (BSA) established a Special Interest Group on Cognition in Hearing in May 2013. In an exploratory group meeting, the ambiguity surrounding listening effort and fatigue was discussed. To address this problem, the group decided to develop a 'white paper' on listening effort and fatigue. This is a discussion document followed by an international set of commentaries from leading researchers in the field. An approach was made to the editor of the International Journal of Audiology who agreed to this suggestion. This paper, and the associated commentaries that follow, are the result.

Multi-sensor object detection and tracking on a highway scene with radar measurements is presented. The estimation algorithm is the random finite set based Bernoulli filter, working in the Bayesian framework. The recursion for calculating the Bayes estimation is implemented as a particle filter. A method is presented for calculating the likelihoods, suitable for particle filtering performed with moving sensors, assuming additive Gaussian measurement noise. In our approach, for calculating the posterior estimate of the object state, the measurement likelihoods are computed in the state space, instead of the measurement space, by mapping each measurement to the global coordinate system. The map consists of a nonlinear and an affine part. While the affine transformation trivially preserves the Gaussian nature, the nonlinear is well-proven to be approximated as affine too. This approach allows the particles to be drawn directly from the state space, hence the evaluation of the measurement model is not needed, which saves computational power.

Background: While hearing aids for a contralateral routing of signals (CROS-HA) and bone conduction devices have been the traditional treatment for single-sided deafness (SSD) and asymmetric hearing loss (AHL), in recent years, cochlear implants (CIs) have increasingly become a viable treatment choice, particularly in countries where regulatory approval and reimbursement schemes are in place. Part of the reason for this shift is that the CI is the only device capable of restoring bilateral input to the auditory system and hence of possibly reinstating binaural hearing. Although several studies have independently shown that the CI is a safe and effective treatment for SSD and AHL, clinical outcome measures in those studies and across CI centers vary greatly. Only with a consistent use of defined and agreed-upon outcome measures across centers can high-level evidence be generated to assess the safety and efficacy of CIs and alternative treatments in recipients with SSD and AHL. Methods: This paper presents a comparative study design and minimum outcome measures for the assessment of current treatment options in patients with SSD/AHL. The protocol was developed, discussed, and eventually agreed upon by expert panels that convened at the 2015 APSCI conference in Beijing, China, and at the CI 2016 conference in Toronto, Canada. Results: A longitudinal study design comparing CROS-HA, BCD, and CI treatments is proposed. The recommended outcome measures include (1) speech in noise testing, using the same set of 3 spatial configurations to compare binaural benefits such as summation, squelch, and head shadow across devices; (2) localization testing, using stimuli that rove in both level and spectral content; (3) questionnaires to collect quality of life measures and the frequency of device use; and (4) questionnaires for assessing the impact of tinnitus before and after treatment, if applicable. Conclusion: A protocol for the assessment of treatment options and outcomes in recipients with SSD and AHL is presented. The proposed set of minimum outcome measures aims at harmonizing assessment methods across centers and thus at generating a growing body of high-level evidence for those treatment options.

This paper shows how a standard proportional-integral-plus controller, based on a non-minimal state space (NMSS) design, can be extended to reduce the effects of measurement noise and so yield smoother control inputs for automated drug delivery control applications. Use of a NMSS model for state variable feedback control design, in which all the states are based on the directly measured input and output variables, removes the need for state estimation. Nonetheless, a stochastic NMSS form, with a Kalman filter, can optionally be introduced to reduce the effect of measurement noise and so yield smoother control inputs. In this case, the Kalman filter attenuates measurement noise but does not address state disturbances. In this article, we propose a modification to the stochastic NMSS control system to enable the elimination of such state disturbances. This involves further extending the non–minimal state vector to include additional terms based on the innovations. We compare the deterministic, stochastic and extended stochastic NMSS controllers via a simulation of the control of anaesthesia using propofol.

Emerging non-volatile memory (NVM) technologies are being aggressively explored to replace and/or assist conventional CMOS technology. Although NVMs can cut down leakage power, achieve low footprint and allow compute capability along with storage, they suffer from new sources of variability. We review the noise sources associated with NVMs and describe resilience enhancement techniques for both memory and computing. We also present security applications where noise and variability is desirable.

Purpose: In developing new products, reducing performance variation is important for competitiveness factors such as quality, cost, and delivery. This paper aims at evaluating three performance variations; measurement, performance evaluation, and manufacturing variations, and then improving product and process design, focused on paper helicopter making case study. Methods: For measurement system analysis, gage R&R (repeatability and reproducibility), linearity, stability are evaluated. Since gage R&R are not satisfactory, the measurement system is improved by adopting voice memos application of iPhone and providing standard measurement procedure. To evaluate performance varia- tion, product deterioration and environment factor (wind speed) is considered. Since the existing design is sensitive to these noise factors, a new product design is developed, which is proven to be robust to the noise factors. Finally, manufacturing variations are evaluated with five factors which can cause variation in flight time. To reduce the impact of three significant factors, three improvement methods are applied. Results: Three performance variations are evaluated and robust paper helicopter design is presented. Conclusion: To reduce measurement and process variations, improved measurement method and paper heli- copter making procedure are proposed. A new product design is also presented which is robust to deterioration

In controlling uncertain processes, it is decisive to utilize information provided by measurements in order to estimate parameters and states. Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC) is a popular method to implement feedback control and deal with uncertainties. Conventional NMPC or nominal control, however, sometimes does not provide enough information for system estimation, leading to unsatisfactory performance. Dual control attempts to strike a balance between the two goals of enhancing system estimation and optimizing the nominal objective function. In this paper, we analyze the performance of these strategies through the interplay between the performance control task and the information gain task in connection with Optimal Experimental Design. Examples illustrate the conflict and agreement between the two tasks and explain why in some cases nominal control performs well. It is also observed that measurement noise provides excitation helping to improve the quality of estimates.

This article presents a review of current aircraft noises. Noise is a fascinating area of research combining statistics, applied mathematics, and engineering. Aircraft noises are an impact of enormous financial, environmental, and technological issue. Aircraft noise remains the key inhibitor of the growth of air transportation and remains an acute environmental problem that requires advanced solutions. To advance our understanding of the sound source mechanisms, it should be noted that predominant noise sources of aircraft engines are from the exhaust (referred to as the jet) and fan (including the stator). The noise generated in these two areas during takeoff and landing has a strong influence on the communities around the airports. One of the most important sources of aircraft noises in modern jet aircraft is the turbulence that occurs in the shear layers around the engine’s exhaust. But this is not just an academic issue also jet noise is highly relevant to the aviation industry and on a wider scale, has been related to economic, social, and subsequently political. To deal with this problem, aircraft manufacturers and public establishments are engaged in research on technical and theoretical approaches for noise reduction concepts that should be applied to new aircraft. This review paper discusses a selection of enabling technologies and their implications on acoustics and noise and gives a perspective on future trends and new directions in aeroacoustics required to address the challenges.

International audience; We present a phenomenological model for the real-time simulation of paper tearing and sound. The model uses as input rotations of the hand along with the index and thumb of left and right hands to drive the position and orientation of two regions of a sheet of paper. The motion of the hands produces a cone shaped deformation of the paper and guides the formation and growth of the tear. We create a model for the direction of the tear based on empirical observation, and add detail to the tear with a directed noise model. Furthermore, we present a procedural sound synthesis method to produce tearing sounds during interaction. We show a variety of paper tearing examples and discuss applications and limitations.

In this work we have studied a stochastic predator-prey model where the prey grows logistically in the absence of predator. All parameters but carrying capacity have been perturbed with telephone noise. The prey’s growth rate and the predator’s death rate have also been perturbed with white noises. Both of these noises have been proved extremely useful to model rapidly fluctuating phenomena Dimentberg (1988). The conditions under which extinction of predator and prey populations occur have been established. We also give sufficient conditions for positive recurrence and the existence of an ergodic stationary distribution of the positive solution, red which in stochastic predator-prey systems means that the predator and prey populations can be persistent, that is to say, the predator and prey populations can be sustain a quantity that is neither too much nor too little. In our analysis, it is found that the environmental noise plays an important role in extinction as well as coexistence of prey and predator populations. It is shown in numerical simulation that larger white noise intensity will lead to the extinction of the population, while telephone noise may delay or reduce the risk of species extinction.

As the number of cores grow in HPC systems, so does the effect of system noise on applications running on these systems. With the knowledge that future large-scale parallel computer systems, including exascale systems, will operate under an overall power bound, we claim to have found a solution that can counter the effects of noise. We present two methods that estimate the effects of noise on an application and then optimally redistributes power among nodes, such that the effects of noise are "hidden".

Application of image frequency filtering to elimination of the noise in scanned photographs caused by the embossing of the photographic paper is considered.

Jai-Hyun Byun ․Yong Tae Kim․Min Ji LeeDepartment of Industrial and Systems Engineering and Engineering Research Institute Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, 660-701Robust design method developed by Genichi Taguchi has been very popular since the 1980s and there have been many academic and applied research works on this topic. However, college students and engineers in companies have had difficulty in understanding the method. This paper presents a procedure to implement the robust design method by an easy-to-execute paper helicopter experiment. A crossed array was adopted, which consists of a resolution IV fractional factorial design with 6 control factors and a factorial design with 3 noise factors. Three performance measures were analyzed; signal-to-noise ratio, mean, and standard deviation of the falling time of the paper helicopter that is to be maximized. Control-noise interaction plots are also given to evaluate the degree of the sensitivity of each level of the control factors to the noise factors. The procedure presented in this paper can be helpful to those who want to have basic knowledge in the robust design method.

Speech recognition in noisy environments is one of the long-standing research themes but remains a very important challenge nowadays. Therefore, there is much research into all techniques and approaches to improve the performance of speech recognition systems, even in poor conditions. This paper presents a comparative study under various conditions based on two architectures (GMM-HMM and DNN-HMM), the Hybrid GMM-HMM models using the CMU Sphinx tools and the Hybrid DNN-HMM using the KALDI toolkit in noise environment. In this study, we compare the Hybrid GMM-HMM models and the Hybrid DNN-HMM models to evaluate the performance of the proposed system. The novelty of this paper is to test if the presented tools could be, with good accuracy, recognize the Arabic speech principally in noisy environment. In addition, we adopted the noisy training theory in this paper based on GMM-HMM and DNN-HMM model. We use the public Arabic Speech Corpus for Isolated Words (20 words), three noise levels, and three noise types. The implementation of our system consists of two phases: Features extraction using Mel-frequency Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC) and the classification phase will use separately the previous two models. In order to test the performance of these methods a simulation will presented for different SNR and for different district type of noise.

A modified paper clock timescale weighted after removing the linearized frequency drift of each cesium clock in TL's 12-cesium-clock ensemble is used to be the mid-term prediction reference before the next coming BIPM Circular T announcement. After removing the frequency drift pattern according to Circular T announcements, the noise type of each cesium clock in ensemble is dominated by white noise when the average time was less than about 100 days. To achieve approximately equal weighting and rational upper limit, an inversely exponential weighting procedure is also used to weight each cesium clock according to the inversely exponential function of their Allan variance; for our 12-cesium-clock ensemble, a 4 years test shows the phase error of the paper clock time scale is less than 10 ns in 45 days prediction.

The strapping machine for Paper Bills typically was designed to reduce labor intensity and enhance production automation level. The machines structure and working principle were described. There are three work posts in this equipment, they work continuously. This approach makes it very easy to split up a complex transformation into a series of simple transformations arranged in a loop line. The machine includes currency count/counterfeit distinguishing system, conveying system and strapping system. In the same time, the machine control system that adopts the PLC programmable controller can simplify the control system, and its reliability strengthens further. Practices show that the strapping machine has the advantages of simple structure, high efficiency, low cost and small vibrating noise.

A simple wind speed measurement device, a paper anemometer, is fabricated based on the theory of standing waves. In providing the working profile of the paper anemometer, an experimental device is established, which consists of an anemometer sensor, a sound sensor, a microphone, paper strips, a paper cup, and sonic acquisition software. It shows that the sound wave detected in the paper cup has a larger amplitude and the noise is depressed, though the frequency of the sound is twice that detected directly from the strip. From the experiments, we find that the frequency of the sonic wave does not change with wind speed; however, its amplitude increases with wind speed. To predict the wind speed, a correlation is established from the sound wave amplitude.

In this paper, a practical multiple input multiple output Dirty paper coding (MIMO-DPC) scheme is designed to cancel the effect of additive interference that is known perfectly to the transmitter. The proposed system uses a trio of encoders — a LDPC code, a vector quantizer implemented as a convolutional decoder and an Orthogonal space time block code (STBC) to achieve temporal coding gain, interference cancelation and spatial diversity, respectively. First, we derive the equivalent noise seen by the receiver using an equivalent lattice based dirty paper code. Then the optimal value of the power inflation factor, which is one of the key system parameters used to minimize the equivalent noise seen by the receiver is derived. Furthermore, we analytically prove that the equivalent noise seen by the receiver tends to 0 for large number of receive antennas. Performance results in the case of various number of receiver antennas are presented and show that significant reduction in bit error probabilities can be obtained over a system that uses no interference cancelation.

The article deals with Monte Carlo modeling of uncoated printing paper surface based on light reflectance from the surface and on subsurface scattering. The paper surface was simulated using randomly oriented microfacets characterized by a specific parameter, critical azimuthal angle ϑc. Determination of the value of ϑc was based on the idea that the standard deviation of the light reflected from a paper surface is not equal to zero, and can be recognized as noise. Noise, i.e. standard deviation of the reflectance measured on actual paper samples, was used for calculating ϑc and, consequently, for obtaining theoretical surface models. The results show a satisfactory agreement with the real paper surfaces and indicate that ϑc can be one of the important parameters in future simulations of this kind.

Surface roughness is one of the most important attributes of paper and its measurement is normally used in quality control applications. Currently, measurement of surface roughness is done by using air leakage, optical, or subjective methods. In this article, an acoustical method for the determination of surface roughness of papers is described. The method is applied off-line and uses the friction noise recorded when a small brush slide over the surface of the paper. The analysis is done consider the friction noise ranging from 300 Hz to 10 kHz. Considering that friction noise is associated to surface roughness, a signal analysis algorithm was developed to take advantage of this fact. The algorithm consists of a frequency-domain feature extraction routine and an artificial neural network that represents the variation of the spectral features in a roughness scale. The results show that an affordable and efficient friction noise based system can be used for measuring surface roughness of tissue papers and other soft surfaces as an alternative to other methods.

In order to perform good kinetic experiments, not only the experimental conditions have to be optimized, but the evaluation procedure as well. The focus of this work is the in-depth comparison of different approaches and algorithms to determine kinetic rate constants for biomolecular interaction analysis (BIA). The different algorithms are applied not only to flawless simulated data, but also to real-world measurements. We compare five mathematical approaches for the evaluation of binding curves following pseudo-first-order kinetics with different noise levels. In addition, reflectometric interference spectroscopy (RIfS) measurements of two antibodies are evaluated to determine their binding kinetics. The advantages and disadvantages of the individual approach will be investigated and discussed in detail. In summary, we will raise awareness on how to evaluate and judge results from BIA by using different approaches rather than having to rely on “black box” closed (commercial) software packages. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00216-021-03623-x.

The amplitude of motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) elicited by transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the motor cortex is influenced by multiple factors. TMS delivery is accompanied by an abrupt clicking noise which can induce a startle response. This study investigated how masking/attenuating the sound produced by the TMS system discharging influences MEP amplitudes. In addition, the effects of increasing the time between consecutive stimuli and of making participants aware of the time at which they would be stimulated were studied. MEPs were recorded from the Flexor Carpi Radialis (FCR) muscle at rest by stimulation at motor threshold (MT), 120% MT and 140% MT intensity. Participants (N = 23) received stimulation under normal (NORMAL) conditions and while: wearing sound-attenuating earmuffs (EAR); listening to white noise (NOISE); the interval between stimuli were prolonged (LONG); stimulation timing was presented on a screen (READY). The results showed that masking (p = 0.020) and attenuating (p = 0.004) the incoming sound significantly reduced the amplitude of MEPs recorded across the intensities of stimulation. Increasing the interval between pulses had no effect on the recorded traces if a jitter was introduced (p = 1), but making participants aware of stimulation timing decreased MEP amplitudes (p = 0.049). These findings suggest that the sound produced by TMS at discharging increases MEP amplitudes and that MEP amplitudes are influenced by stimulus expectation. These confounding factors need to be considered when using TMS to assess corticospinal excitability.

Anthropogenic noise is a pervasive environmental feature across both urban and non-urban habitats and presents a novel challenge especially for acoustically communicating species. While it is known that some species adjust acoustic signals to communicate more effectively in noisy habitats, we know very little about how the receivers of these signals might be impacted by anthropogenic noise. Here, we investigated female and male Litoria fallax frogs’ ability to distinguish between high- and low-quality acoustic signals during the presence of background traffic noise and without. We performed a controlled behavioural experiment whereby frogs were presented with simultaneously broadcasted attractive and unattractive calls from opposing directions, once with background traffic noise and once without. We found that females in particular chose the unattractive call significantly more often (and males significantly less often) when noise was being broadcast. This indicates that anthropogenic noise potentially affects receiver responses to acoustic signals, even when calls are not acoustically masked, with potential consequences for maladaptive mating behaviours and population outcomes. Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10211-021-00378-7.

Journal of synchrotron radiation 28(1), 131 - 145 (2021). doi:10.1107/S1600577520013958, In this paper the back-side-illuminated Percival 2-Megapixel (P2M) detector is presented, along with its characterization by means of optical and X-ray photons. For the first time, the response of the system to soft X-rays (250 eV to 1 keV) is presented. The main performance parameters of the first detector are measured, assessing the capabilities in terms of noise, dynamic range and single-photon discrimination capability. Present limitations and coming improvements are discussed., Published by Wiley-Blackwell, [S.l.]

Purpose This study (a) examined the effect of different levels of background noise on speech intelligibility and perceived listening effort in speakers with impaired and intact speech following treatment for head and neck cancer (HNC) and (b) determined the relative contribution of speech intelligibility, speaker group, and background noise to a measure of perceived listening effort. Method Ten speakers diagnosed with nasal, oral, or oropharyngeal HNC provided audio recordings of six sentences from the Sentence Intelligibility Test. All speakers were 100% intelligible in quiet: Five speakers with HNC exhibited mild speech imprecisions (speech impairment group), and five speakers with HNC demonstrated intact speech (HNC control group). Speech recordings were presented to 30 inexperienced listeners, who transcribed the sentences and rated perceived listening effort in quiet and two levels (+7 and +5 dB SNR) of background noise. Results Significant Group × Noise interactions were found for speech intelligibility and perceived listening effort. While no differences in speech intelligibility were found between the speaker groups in quiet, the results showed that, as the signal-to-noise ratio decreased, speakers with intact speech (HNC control) performed significantly better (greater intelligibility, less perceived listening effort) than those with speech imprecisions in the two noise conditions. Perceived listening effort was also shown to be associated with decreased speech intelligibility, imprecise speech, and increased background noise. Conclusions Speakers with HNC who are 100% intelligible in quiet but who exhibit some degree of imprecise speech are particularly vulnerable to the effects of increased background noise in comparison to those with intact speech. Results have implications for speech evaluations, counseling, and rehabilitation.