This study examined whether differences in reverberation time (RT) between typical sound field test rooms used in audiology clinics have an effect on speech recognition in multi-talker environments. Separate groups of participants listened to target speech sentences presented simultaneously with 0-to-3 competing sentences through four spatially-separated loudspeakers in two sound field test rooms having RT = 0:6 sec (Site 1: N = 16) and RT = 0:4 sec (Site 2: N = 12). Speech recognition scores (SRSs) for the Synchronized Sentence Set (S3) test and subjective estimates of perceived task difficulty were recorded. Obtained results indicate that the change in room RT from 0.4 to 0.6 sec did not significantly influence SRSs in quiet or in the presence of one competing sentence. However, this small change in RT affected SRSs when 2 and 3 competing sentences were present, resulting in mean SRSs that were about 8-10% better in the room with RT = 0:4 sec. Perceived task difficulty ratings increased as the complexity of the task increased, with average ratings similar across test sites for each level of sentence competition. These results suggest that site-specific normative data must be collected for sound field rooms if clinicians would like to use two or more directional speech maskers during routine sound field testing.
This paper describes a new and efficient method for quantifying and detection of the source of distortion caused by a single customer in a case when many other customers exist in a power grid. It is based on measuring distortion power, a component of apparent power that only exists with a nonlinear load. Different definitions for distortion power calculation are investigated. All these definitions show without doubt that the proposed method is feasible. Moreover, this method allows to develop fair and reliable billing schemes for controlling harmonic pollution. Measurement and simulation results confirm the effectiveness and applicability of the method. The proposed solution is suitable for software/hardware upgrade of existing electronic power-meters.
Modern supercritical power plants operate at very high temperatures and pressures. Thus the construction elements are subjected to both high thermal and mechanical loads. As a result high stresses in those components are created. In order to operate safely, it is important to monitor stresses, especially during start-up and shut-down processes. The maximum stresses in the construction elements should not exceed the allowable stresses that are defined according to boiler regulations. It is important to find optimum operating parameters, that can assure safe heating and cooling processes. The optimum parameters define temperature and pressure histories that can keep the highest stresses within allowable limit and reduce operation time as much as possible. In this paper a new numerical method for determining optimum working fluid parameters is presented. In this method, properties of steel can be assumed as constant or temperature dependent. The constant value is taken usually at the average temperature of the operation cycle. For both cases optimal parameters are determined. Based on these parameters start-up operations for both cases are conducted. During entire processes stresses in the heated element are monitored. The results obtained are compared with German boiler regulations - Technische Regeln fur Dampfkessel 301.
In this Paper, a parametric study on pipes buried in soil was performed illustrating the results of blast loading. Effects of various parameters such as the physical properties of water, oil, gas, air, soil, pipes, and TNT have been investigated. The arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) method was employed using LS-DYNA software. The maximum pressure in a buried pipe explosive was observed at an angle of about 0° to 45° and the minimum pressure occurred at an angle of about 45° to 90°. Therefore, all figures in this study illustrate that fluid pressure levels in buried pipes can help in their stabilization. In generally, by increasing the 1.23 times of liquid density under the explosion, the pressure levels in the soil decreased by 1.3 percent. The gas pressure has been increasing more than oil and water pipes 39.73 and 40.52 percent, respectively.
As a result of the necessity to improve energy properties of prefabricated buildings, their thermo-modernizations are performed. In the paper various approaches to the modelling of prefabricated load bearing walls before and after thermo-modernization are presented. Simple one layer models with extra mass from ceilings and equivalent stiffness as well as multilayer ones are taken into consideration using the finite element method software. Values of the natural frequencies of the wall horizontal vibrations calculated using the various models, are compared. It was proved that even the very simple model with equivalent stiffness allows to compute natural vibration frequencies of wall with acceptable accuracy for engineering practice.
Properties of a snow cover in the vicinity of Arctowski Station, King George Island (West Antarctica) were studied in 1991. Variations of snow quality and physical transformations were analysed against changes of atmospheric parameters, basing on water equivalent index and repeatable examination of snow pits. Essential dependence of snow cover distribution and snow structure from local climatic features and terrain morphology was found. Thawing occurs in the whole mass of snow, with its contribution of both liquid and gas water phases.
The Water Framework Directive (WFD), whose basic aim was to create a legal back-ground for water bodies’ protection, undoubtedly affects all economic sectors. Being a specific and distinctly different water user, agriculture will have the greatest share in the implementation of WFD out of all sectors of national economy. This results from its special character (60% of the country area used by agriculture), large volume of water consumed by evapotranspiration, diffuse pollution etc. Implementation of WFD will call for undertaking of many activities to restrict an unfavourable im-pact of agriculture on water resources and water related ecosystems. It is assumed that agriculture should also protect water resources. Accomplishment of this task imposes significant changes in the land use of river basins. Water management can be an essential factor deciding about the sustainable development of rural areas and biological diversity of agricultural landscape. Actions undertaken so far to implement the WFD are mainly limited to the protection of water quality from agricultural pol-lution. It is also necessary to undertake implementation of other aims of WFD. This refers especially to the provision of good hydromorphological status of water bodies, protection of water related eco-systems and effective water use.