Search

This report summarize and compares with each other various methods for computing the symmetrical Zolotarev Polynomial of the first kind and its spectrum. Suitable criteria are suggested for the comparison. The best numerical stability shows the method employing Chebyshev polynomial recurrence. In case of the polynomial spectrum computation the best method is the one using the difference backward recursion introduced by M. Vlcek. Both methods are able to generate the polynomial of high degree up to, at least, 2000, using 32-bit IEEE floating point arithmetics.

The high dependency of the Brain Computer Interface (BCI) system performance on the BCI user is a well-known issue of many BCI devices. This contribution presents a new way to overcome this problem using a synergy between a BCI device and an EEG-based biometric algorithm. Using the biometric algorithm, the BCI device automatically identifies its current user and adapts parameters of the classification process and of the BCI protocol to maximize the BCI performance. In addition to this we present an algorithm for EEG-based identification designed to be resistant to variations in EEG recordings between sessions, which is also demonstrated by an experiment with an EEG database containing two sessions recorded one year apart. Further, our algorithm is designed to be compatible with our movement-related BCI device and the evaluation of the algorithm performance took place under conditions of a standard BCI experiment. Estimation of the mu rhythm fundamental frequency using the Frequency Zooming AR modeling is used for EEG feature extraction followed by a classifier based on the regularized Mahalanobis distance. An average subject identification score of 96 % is achieved.

In this paper we investigate the invariance of the null distribution of the multiple coherence (MC) to the statistics of the examined signals. We show that when the MC is computed between a group of signals x_i[n], i=1,...,K and a signal y[n], the null distribution of the MC is independent of the distribution of x_i[n] and y[n] if at a given frequency the joint distribution of the spectra of the segments of x_i[n] and y[n] is rotationally symmetric with respect to the rotation of the spectra of the segments of x_i[n] or y[n]. The significance of this result lies in the improvement of the multiple coherence analysis. Hitherto, the null distribution of the MC was known only for signals with the multivariate Gaussian distribution; therefore, an MC estimate could be evaluated for its statistical significance only in this limited case. With the results presented in this paper, it will be possible to evaluate the statistical significance of MC estimates for much wider class of signals.

The aim of this paper is to describe the implementation of a two-channel filter bank (FB) using the switched capacitor (SC) technique considering real properties of operational amplifiers (OpAmps). The design procedure is presented and key recommendations for the implementation are given. The implementation procedure describes the design of two-channel filter bank using an IIR Cauer filter, conversion of IIR into the SC filters and the final implementation of the SC filters. The whole design and an SC circuit implementation is performed by a PraCAn package in Maple. To verify the whole filter bank, resulting real property circuit structures are completely simulated by WinSpice and ELDO simulators. The results confirm that perfect reconstruction conditions can be almost accepted for the filter bank implemented by the SC circuits. The phase response of the SC filter bank is not strictly linear due to the IIR filters. However, the final ripple of a magnitude frequency response in the passband is almost constant, app. 0.5 dB for a real circuit analysis.

Chronic, intractable pain of lower back and lower extremity might develop as the result of unsuccessful surgery of back. This state called failed-back surgery syndrome (FBSS) cannot be effectively treated by pharmacotherapy. Electric stimulation of the dorsal spinal cord is applied to relieve the pain. According to the medical hypothesis, oscillatory activity, which might be related to the analgesic effects, may occur in the cortex during the stimulation. To confirm the presence of the SCS induced oscillations, a new method of detection was designed for this purpose. The analysis of EEG data was performed using power spectral density, confidence intervals, visualization and group statistic for its verification. Parameters of the method were experimentally optimized to maximize its reliability. During ongoing SCS, statistically significant changes were detected and localized at the stimulation frequency and/or its subharmonic or upper harmonic over central midline electrodes in eight patients.

This paper suggests a method based on coherence analysis and scalp mapping of coherence suitable for more accurate localization of cortical oscillations induced by electric stimulation of the dorsal spinal cord (SCS), which were previously detected using spectral analysis. While power spectral density shows the increase of power during SCS only at small number of electrodes, coherence extends this area and sharpens its boundary simultaneously. Parameters of the method were experimentally optimized to maximize its reliability. SCS is applied to suppress chronic, intractable pain by patients, whom pharmacotherapy does not relieve. In our study, the pain developed in lower back and lower extremity as the result of unsuccessful vertebral discotomy, which is called failed-back surgery syndrome (FBSS). Our method replicated the results of previous analysis using PSD and extended them with more accurate localization of the area influenced by SCS.

Sensor arrays are often used for a signal separation from noises using the information about the direction of arrival. The aim of this paper is to analyze Frost's beamformer with respect to the speech preprocessing for the hearing impaired people. The frequency response of the system including the background noise attenuation are derived as functions of the direction of arrival. The derivation supposes a uniform linear array of sensors and plane waves. It is shown that the number of possible configurations can be decreased by using some symmetries. The impact of the used algorithm constraint on the frequency response and subsequently on the directional noise suppression is derived analytically.

Echo cancellation system used in mobile communications is analyzed. Convergence behavior and misadjustment of several LMS algorithms are compared. The misadjustment means errors in filter weight estimation. The resulting echo suppression for discussed algorithms with simulated as well as rela speech signals is evaluated. The optional echo cancellation configuration is suggested.

This paper presents new Czech language two-channel (stereo) speech database recorded in car environment. The created database was designed for experiments with speech enhancement for communication purposes and for the study and the design of a robust speech recognition systems. Tools for automated phoneme labelling based on Baum-Welch re-estimation were realised. The noise analysis of the car background environment was done.