This book provides a comprehensive overview of the recent advancement in the field of automatic speech recognition with a focus on deep learning models including deep neural networks and many of their variants. This is the first automatic speech recognition book dedicated to the deep learning approach. In addition to the rigorous mathematical treatment of the subject, the book also presents insights and theoretical foundation of a series of highly successful deep learning models.

This book provides an expert introduction to audio forensics, an essential specialty in modern forensic science, equipping readers with the fundamental background necessary to understand and participate in this exciting and important field of study. Modern audio forensic analysis combines skills in digital signal processing, the physics of sound propagation, acoustical phonetics, audio engineering, and many other fields. Scientists and engineers who work in the field of audio forensics are called upon to address issues of authenticity, quality enhancement, and signal interpretation for audio evidence that is important to a criminal law enforcement investigation, an accident investigation board, or an official civil inquiry. Expertise in audio forensics has never been more important. In addition to routine recordings from emergency call centers and police radio dispatchers, inexpensive portable audio/video recording systems are now in widespread use. Forensic evidence from the scene of a civil or criminal incident increasingly involves dashboard recorders in police cars, vest-pocket personal recorders worn by law enforcement officers, smart phone recordings from bystanders, and security surveillance systems in public areas and businesses. Utilizing new research findings and both historical and contemporary casework examples, this book blends audio forensic theory and practice in an informative and readable manner suitable for any scientifically-literate reader. Extensive examples, supplementary material, and authoritative references are also included for those who are interested in delving deeper into the field.

Capturing, recording and broadcasting the voice is often difficult. Many factors must be taken into account and achieving a true representation is much more complex than one might think. The capture devices such as the position of the singer(s) or narrator(s), the acoustics, atmosphere and equipment are just some of the physical aspects that need to be mastered. Then there is the passage through the analog or digital channel, which disrupts the audio signal, as well as the processes that are often required to enrich, improve or even transform the vocal timbre and tessitura. While in the past these processes were purely material, today digital technologies and software produce surprising results that every professional in recording and broadcasting should know how to master. Recording and Voice Processing 1 addresses some general theoretical concepts. A history of recording and the physiology of the vocal apparatus are detailed in order to give the reader an understanding of the fundamental aspects of the subject. This volume also includes an advanced study of microphones, addressing their characteristics and typologies. The acoustic environment and its treatment are also considered in terms of the location of the sound capture - whether in a home studio, recording studio, live or natural environment - in order to achieve a satisfactory sound recording.

This book presents articles from the World Conference on Acoustic Emission 2019 (WCAE-2019) held at Guangdong, China. The latest research and applications of acoustic emission (AE) are explored, with a particular emphasis on detecting and processing AE signals, the development of AE instrument and testing standards, AE of materials, engineering structures and systems, including the processing of collected data and analytical techniques. Numerous case studies are also included. It brings together leading academicians and professionals in the field to foster collaboration and to enhance research in this important area, with wide ranging applications.

This book presents theoretical and experimental investigations of mechanical behavior of solids under shock loading and highlights a multi-scale exchange process of energy and momentum between meso and macroscopic hierarchy. It also widely covers experimental approaches for the multi-scale response of solids to impacts including uniaxial strain conditions and high-velocity penetration processes. The content comprises two parts. The first part overviews modeling and theory of dynamically deformed solids from the multi-scale point of view. The second part describes experimental characterization of shock-induced solids and experimental probing of mesostructured and mesoscale dynamic processes in solids. The theory presented in the first part is then verified as it is compared with i) experiments of shock loading into different kinds of solids and ii) probed microstructure of post-shocked specimens by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and optical microscopy. The text is written on the basis of author's lectures at universities and thus is concisely described for postgraduate students. It is also useful for researchers who work on the theory of multi-scale mechanics of solids and engineers who work on testing materials under dynamic loading.

As magnetic stripe cards are being replaced by chip cards that offer consumers and businesses greater protection against fraud, a new standard for this debit/credit card technology is being introduced by Europay, MasterCard, and Visa (EMV). This cutting-edge, new book provides professionals with a comprehensive overview of the EMV chip solution and explains why more and more important industry players will be adopting this technology.

The book offers a better understanding of the security problems associated with magnetic stripe cards, and presents the business case for migrating to this new chip technology. Moreover, it shows professionals how to design a multi-application EMV chip card layout, and explains important implementation details for EMV chip cards and terminals. This first-of-its-kind resource also discusses the organizational and management issues in connection with the EMV chip migration and the use of EMV chip cards in e-commerce and m-commerce transactions.

This book contains selected and expanded contributions presented at the 15th Conference on Acoustics and Vibration of Mechanical Structures held in Timisoara, Romania, May 30-31, 2019. The conference focused on a broad range of topics related to acoustics and vibration, such as analytical approaches to nonlinear noise and vibration problems, environmental and occupational noise, structural vibration, biomechanics and bioacoustics, as well as experimental approaches to vibration problems in industrial processes. The different contributions also address the analytical, numerical and experimental techniques applicable to analyze linear and non-linear noise and vibration problems (including strong nonlinearity) and they are primarily intended to emphasize the actual trends and state-of-the-art developments in the above mentioned topics. The book is meant for academics, researchers and professionals, as well as PhD students concerned with various fields of acoustics and vibration of mechanical structures.

This book introduces acoustic wave theories using a reader-friendly matrix-based linear algebra approach. It will enable the reader to take advantage of software tools such as MATLAB (commercial codes) and OCTAVE (open-source codes) to gain better and deeper understanding of the underlying physics quickly. In this aspect, this text can be regarded as a practical introduction of the acoustic wave theories in an easy-to-follow linear algebra format using matrix manipulations instead of an abstract approach relying on tensor manipulations. The book also uses case studies to demonstrate how the fundamentals on acoustic waves discussed throughout the book are applied in device designs and analyses such that the connections and interdependences between the underlying sciences and the observed behavior and performances can be better appreciated by the reader. To achieve this, all problems for illustrations, examples, case studies, and device analyses are developed and solved based on the mathematical foundations laid out in the book.

As an applied science, Enology is a collection of knowledge from the fundamental sciences including chemistry, biochemistry, microbiology, bioengineering, psychophysics, cognitive psychology, etc., and nourished by empirical observations. The approach used in the Handbook of Enology is thus the same. It aims to provide practitioners, winemakers, technicians and enology students with foundational knowledge and the most recent research results. This knowledge can be used to contribute to a better definition of the quality of grapes and wine, a greater understanding of chemical and microbiological parameters, with the aim of ensuring satisfactory fermentations and predicting the evolution of wines, and better mastery of wine stabilization processes. As a result, the purpose of this publication is to guide readers in their thought processes with a view to preserving and optimizing the identity and taste of wine and its aging potential. This third English edition of The Handbook of Enology, is an enhanced translation from the 7th French 2017 edition, and is published as a two-volume set describing aspects of winemaking using a detailed, scientific approach. The authors, who are highly-respected enologists, examine winemaking processes, theorizing what constitutes a perfect technique and the proper combination of components necessary to produce a quality vintage. They also illustrate methodologies of common problems, revealing the mechanism behind the disorder, thus enabling a diagnosis and solution. Volume 2: The Chemistry of Wine and Stabilization and Treatments looks at the wine itself in two parts. Part One analyzes the chemical makeup of wine, including organic acids, alcoholic, volatile and phenolic compounds, carbohydrates, and aromas. Part Two describes the procedures necessary to achieve a perfect wine: the clarification processes of fining, filtering and centrifuging, stabilization, and aging. Coverage includes: Wine chemistry; Organic acids; Alcohols and other volatile products; Carbohydrates; Dry extract and mineral matter; Nitrogen substances; Phenolic compounds; The aroma of grape varieties; The chemical nature, origin and consequences of the main organoleptic defects; Stabilization and treatment of wines; The chemical nature, origin and consequences of the main organoleptic defects; The concept of clarity and colloidal phenomena; Clarification and stabilization treatments; Clarification of wines by filtration and centrifugation; The stabilization of wines by physical processes; The aging of wines in vats and in barrels and aging phenomena. The target audience includes advanced viticulture and enology students, professors and researchers, and practicing grape growers and vintners.

This book presents recent research works related to salt attack and corrosion in concrete structures, durability and service life in concrete, non-destructive techniques applied to reinforced concrete structures and acoustic performance of buildings. It identifies anomalies that affect the acoustic performance and the concrete structures, namely anomalies associated to salt attack and corrosion that affects the durability and service life of the buildings, in order to be eliminated in future projects. Offering a systematic review of the current state of knowledge, the book serves as a valuable resource for scientists, students, practitioners, and lecturers in various scientific and engineering disciplines, including civil and materials engineering, as well as and other interested parties.

This book addresses the analysis of musical sounds from the viewpoint of someone at the intersection between physicists, engineers, piano technicians, and musicians. The study is structured into three parts. The reader is introduced to a variety of waves and a variety of ways of presenting, visualizing, and analyzing them in the first part. A tutorial on the tools used throughout the book accompanies this introduction. The mathematics behind the tools is left to the appendices. Part Two provides a graphical survey of the classical areas of acoustics that pertain to musical instruments: vibrating strings, bars, membranes, and plates. Part Three is devoted almost exclusively to the piano. Several two- and three-dimensional graphical tools are introduced to study various characteristics of pianos: individual notes and interactions among them, the missing fundamental, inharmonicity, tuning visualization, the different distribution of harmonic power for the various zones of the piano keyboard, and potential uses for quality control. These techniques are also briefly applied to other musical instruments studied in earlier parts of the book. For physicists and engineers there are appendices to cover the mathematics lurking beneath the numerous graphs and a brief introduction to Matlab (R) which was used to generate these graphs. A website accompanying the book (https://sites.google.com/site/analysisofsoundsandvibrations/) contains: - Matlab (R) scripts - mp3 files of sounds - references to YouTube videos - and up-to-date results of recent studies

- Constitutes the first textbook the field, written specifically in relation to sound design - Contributors are world-leading researchers in their fields and come from a variety of countries and institutions. - Marries the theoretical with the practical, by offering concrete examples and case studies throughout

The book investigates the role of artificial input delay in approximating unknown system dynamics, referred to as time-delayed control (TDC), and provides novel solutions to current design issues in TDC. Its central focus is on designing adaptive-switching gain-based robust control (ARC) for a class of Euler-Lagrange (EL) systems with minimal or no knowledge of the system dynamics parameters. The newly proposed TDC-based ARC tackles the commonly observed over- and under-estimation issues in switching gain. The consideration of EL systems lends a practical perspective on the proposed methods, and each chapter is supplemented by relevant experimental data. The book offers a unique resource for researchers in the areas of ARC and TDC alike, and covers the state of the art, new algorithms, and future directions.

- Constitutes the first textbook the field, written specifically in relation to sound design - Contributors are world-leading researchers in their fields and come from a variety of countries and institutions. - Marries the theoretical with the practical, by offering concrete examples and case studies throughout

The work presented in this book focuses on modeling audiovisual quality as perceived by the users of IP-based solutions for video communication like videotelephony. It also extends the current framework for the parametric prediction of audiovisual call quality. The book addresses several aspects related to the quality perception of entire video calls, namely, the quality estimation of the single audio and video modalities in an interactive context, the audiovisual quality integration of these modalities and the temporal pooling of short sample-based quality scores to account for the perceptual quality impact of time-varying degradations.

This book presents methods and algorithms to improve noise immunity of the navigation systems of civil aviation aircraft, operating on the basis of satellite radio navigation systems, as well as improving the quality of the transmission of navigation information by selecting a rational communication resource. The book provides for its productive perception both by specialists involved in the development and operation of radio electronic equipment, responsible for navigation and communication support of civil aviation aircraft, as well as by graduate students or senior students, since this book examines in detail the promising fields of development of these tools taking into account the need to comply with all requirements for noise immunity.

This is the essential book reference for amplifier designers. Douglas Self covers all the design issues of noise, distortion, power supply rejection, protection, reliability, and layout. He describes advanced forms of compensation that give dramatically lower distortion. This edition is much expanded, and packed with new information. It is a must-have for audio power amplifier professionals and audiophiles, amateur constructors and anyone with intellectual curiosity about the struggle towards technical excellence. New to the sixth edition: The characteristics of the audio signal The principles of distortion Feedback intermodulation distortion Non-switching output stages VAS distortion explained Push-pull VAS configurations Output-inclusive compensation In addition, five amplifier design examples that illustrate important design principles are examined and measured in detail. These can be straightforwardly adapted to specific requirements. This new edition also includes a wealth of material on the XD crossover-displacement principle (invented by the author and in use by Cambridge Audio), four-stage amplifier architectures, error correction, current-mirrors, power transistors with internal sensing diodes, amplifier bridging, input-stage-common-mode distortion, amplifier stability, output stages with gain, inrush current suppression, DC servo design, thermal protection, cooling fan control, advanced line input stages, testing and safety, infrared remote control, signal activation, 12V trigger control, the history of solid-state amplifiers and much more. Simple procedures for heatsinking and power supply design are given.

This textbook provides graduate and advanced undergraduate students with a comprehensive introduction to the application of basic principles and concepts for physical and engineering acoustics. Many of the chapters are independent, and all build from introductory to more sophisticated material. Written by a well-known textbook author with 39 years of experience performing research, teaching, and mentoring in the field, it is specially designed to provide maximum support for learning. Derivations are rigorous and logical, with thorough explanations of operations that are not obvious. Many of the derivations and examples have not previously appeared in print. Important concepts are discussed for their physical implications and implementation. Many of the 56 examples are mini case studies that address systems students will find to be interesting and motivating for continued study. The example solutions address both the significance of the example and the reasoning underlying the formulation. Tasks that require computational work are fully explained. This volume contains 168 homework exercises, accompanied by a detailed solutions manual for instructors. Building on the foundation provided in Volume I: Fundamentals, this text offers a knowledge base that will enable the reader to begin undertaking research and to work in the core areas of acoustics.

Quasibrittle (or brittle heterogeneous) materials are becoming increasingly important for modern engineering. They include concretes, rocks, fiber composites, tough ceramics, sea ice, bone, wood, stiff soils, rigid foams, glass, dental and biomaterials, as well as all brittle materials on the micro or nano scale. Their salient feature is that the fracture process zone size is non-negligible compared to the structural dimensions. This causes intricate energetic and statistical size effects and leads to size-dependent probability distribution of strength, transitional between Gaussian and Weibullian. The ensuing difficult challenges for safe design are vanquished in this book, which features a rigorous theory with detailed derivations yet no superfluous mathematical sophistication; extensive experimental verifications; and realistic approximations for design. A wide range of subjects is covered, including probabilistic fracture kinetics at nanoscale, multiscale transition, statistics of structural strength and lifetime, size effect, reliability indices, safety factors, and ramification to gate dielectrics breakdown.

This book presents computational methods for extracting the useful information from audio signals, collecting the state of the art in the field of sound event and scene analysis. The authors cover the entire procedure for developing such methods, ranging from data acquisition and labeling, through the design of taxonomies used in the systems, to signal processing methods for feature extraction and machine learning methods for sound recognition. The book also covers advanced techniques for dealing with environmental variation and multiple overlapping sound sources, and taking advantage of multiple microphones or other modalities. The book gives examples of usage scenarios in large media databases, acoustic monitoring, bioacoustics, and context-aware devices. Graphical illustrations of sound signals and their spectrographic representations are presented, as well as block diagrams and pseudocode of algorithms.

For readers with no background in acoustics Takes a unique problem based learning approach, reinforcing basic material with progressively complex example problems with solutions. Carefully up-dates and extended from the first edition Solutions to these additional problems available to instructors on request. Suits practising engineers with no acoustics background addressing noise problems in the workplace.

For readers with no background in acoustics Takes a unique problem based learning approach, reinforcing basic material with progressively complex example problems with solutions. Carefully up-dates and extended from the first edition Solutions to these additional problems available to instructors on request. Suits practising engineers with no acoustics background addressing noise problems in the workplace.

Shallow water acoustics (SWA), the study of how low and medium frequency sound propagates and scatters on the continental shelves of the worlds oceans, has both technical interest and a large number of practical applications. Technically, shallow water poses an interesting medium for the study of acoustic scattering, inverse theory, and propagation physics in a complicated oceanic waveguide. Practically, shallow water acoustics has interest for geophysical exploration, marine mammal studies, and naval applications. Additionally, one notes the very interdisciplinary nature of shallow water acoustics, including acoustical physics, physical oceanography, marine geology, and marine biology. In this specialized volume the authors, all of whom have extensive at-sea experience in US and Russian research efforts, have tried to summarize the main experimental, theoretical, and computational results in shallow water acoustics, with an emphasis on providing physical insight into the topics presented.

Considerable amount of effort has been devoted, over the recent years, towards the development of electronic skin (e-skin) for many application domains such as prosthetics, robotics, and industrial automation. Electronic Skin: Sensors and Systems focuses on the main components constituting the e-skin system. The e-skin system is based on: i) sensing materials composing the tactile sensor array, ii) the front end electronics for data acquisition and signal conditioning, iii) the embedded processing unit performing tactile data decoding, and iv) the communication interface in charge of transmitting the sensors data for further computing. Technical topics discussed in the book include: * Tactile sensing material; * Electronic Skin systems; * Embedded computing and tactile data decoding; * Communication systems for tactile data transmission; * Relevant applications of e-skin system; The book takes into account not only sensing materials but it also provides a thorough assessment of the current state of the art at system level. The book addresses embedded electronics and tactile data processing and decoding, techniques for low power embedded computing, and the communication interface. Electronic Skin: Sensors and Systems is ideal for researchers, Ph.D. students, academic staff and Masters/research students in sensors/sensing systems, embedded systems, data processing and decoding, and communication systems.