Archives-January 2013

Voice morphing means the transition of one speech signal into another. Like image morphing, speech morphing aims to preserve the shared characteristics of the starting and final signals, while generating a smooth transition between them. Speech morphing is analogous to image morphing. In image morphing the in-between images all show one face smoothly changing its shape and texture until it turns into the target face. It is this feature that a speech morph should possess. One speech signal should smoothly change into another, keeping the shared characteristics of the starting and ending signals but smoothly changing the other properties. The major properties of concern as far as a speech signal is concerned are its pitch and envelope information. These two reside in a convolved form in a speech signal. Hence some efficient method for extracting each of these is necessary. We have adopted an uncomplicated approach namely cepstral analysis to do the same. Pitch and formant information in each signal is extracted using the cepstral approach. Necessary processing to obtain the morphed speech signal include methods like Cross fading of envelope information, Dynamic Time Warping to match the major signal features (pitch) and Signal Re-estimation to convert the morphed speech signal back into the acoustic waveform.

The study was designed to investigate the perceptions of university teachers for feasibility of problem based learning at university level. Being a descriptive study a questionnaire was used as a tool to acquire perceptions of university teachers regarding feasibility of problem based learning at university level. A purposive sample of 23 university teachers from two departments i.e. Education & Mass communication at university was selected including some senior faculty members. Participants were with different qualifications which ranged from masters to MS/PhDs. Data was analyzed through descriptive statistics and by calculating a t-test to determine the difference of perceptions among university teachers in view of their gender. Results indicated a strong perception of university teachers about effectiveness of problem based learning on student. It was also found that university teachers were having strong perceptions about initiation of problem based learning at university level. There was no significant difference about perceptions of teachers in view of their gender. Necessary changes in curriculum, assessment procedures, training of staff, administrative needs and raising of financial resources were recommended for initiation of problem based learning at university campus.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the effect of variable suction and radiative heat transfer on unsteady magnetohydrodynamic free convective couette flow of a viscous incompressible electrically conducting fluid in the slip flow regime in presence of variable suction and radiative heat source. The governing equations of the flow field are solved employing perturbation technique and the expressions for the velocity, temperature, skin friction and the rate of heat transfer i.e. the heat flux in terms of Nusselts number Nu are obtained. The effects of the pertinent parameters such as magnetic parameter M, permeability parameter Kp, Grashof number for heat transfer Gr, radiation parameter F, suction parameters ?????; slip flow parameters h1, h2; Prandtl number Pr etc. on the flow field have been studied and the results are presented graphically and discussed quantitatively. The problem has some relevance in geophysical, astrophysical and cosmical studies.

The early history of entrepreneurship in India reflects from the culture, customs and tradition of the Indian people. Entrepreneurship has its heredity in the occupational pursuits opted by the individual under the caste system in India. Entrepreneurship plays an important role in the economic growth and development of the nation. It is a purposeful activity which includes an initiation, promotion and distribution of wealth and service. An entrepreneur is a critical factor in economic development and an integral part of the socioeconomic transformation. The entrepreneurial career can not be developed over night. It is a risk taking activity and challenging task, needs utmost devotion, total commitment and greater sincerity with fullest involvement for his/ her personal growth and personality. Further if such activities are taken up by women, they need to put double the effort compared to men. A survey of women entrepreneurs owning different micro enterprises is initiated to understand motivational factors behind their entry into entrepreneurship. The study also focuses on the problems and challenges that emerge in women entrepreneurship. Entry of women in this male dominated field gives them a real empowerment in terms of economic independence and decision role.

Environmental contamination by textile dye effluents is of greater concern nowadays. The use of biological process for its elimination is a convenient way to get rid of it. This study sought to explore the potential use of bacterial isolates from textile dye contaminated soil in the degradation of the dyes. Different optimizing parameters such as pH, temperature and concentration have been worked out to find out the effective degradation. The work involved isolation of isolates (S1,S2 and S3) for the degradation of three different dyes (Black B1, BlueNE2RL, and Red BS11) at different parameters such as pH (pH6, pH7 and pH8), Temperature ( Room temperature and Incubation temperature) and Concentration (5mg/l and 10mg/l). The results show varying degree of degradation under various optimizing conditions. The optimal conditions for the effective degradation for all three dyes were found to be at neutral pH and slightly acidic pH, at incubation temperature and at concentration of 5mg/l. Thus this study demonstrates means of developing a management strategy based on the biodegradation process for the effective removal of persistent textile dye.

OFDM systems are widely used in both wired and wireless communication systems. Fast Fourier Transform is one of the key processing in the implementation of OFDM systems such as wireless broadband, and ultra wideband systems. In most researches, the implementation of Fast Fourier Transform is focused on reducing the difficulties in multipliers, memory unit and control circuits involved in the FFT process. Modification in the architecture for pipelined FFT processor is proposed, to reduce the register size required for FFT processor. In OFDM, this FFT process is used at the receiver side of the system. The single-path delay-feedback architecture is used to exploit the spatial regularity in signal flow graph of the algorithm.

Hydrodistilled flowers (500g) of Ageratum conyzoides yielded 0.25% v/w of essential oil. Characterization of the oil using GC, GC-MS revealed the predominance of demothoxyageratochromene. Other principal constituents were; ?-caryophyllene (19.5%), ?-cubebene (5.2%), germacrene D (3.9%), ?-caryophyllene (2.9%) and trans-?-farnesene (2.4%).

This research was carried out from April 2012 to late August 2012 in Kakan Region as a recreational area around Yasuj (the capital of the Kohgiloye - Boyer Ahmad Province), I. R. Iran. The method used in this study was based on radius point counts. In the study area, 29 terrestrial bird species were identified. According to the “Margalef Index”, the most biodiversity richness was observed in June (3.259) and the least richness in August (3.250). According to “Menhink Index”, the most richness was seen in June (0.395) and the least in August (0.390).According to “Simpson Index”, the max. biodiversity richness was in August (0.928) and the min. biodiversity was June and April (0.925). According to “Shanon-viner Index” the max. biodiversity richness was observed in August (4.250) and the min. biodiversity in June (4.205). According to “Simpson Index” the most uniformity was in August (0.477) and the least uniformity was in June and April (0.460). The diversity of species uniformity indices indicate a high habitat quality around “Kakan” area and status of good conditions for birds which should be considered in the management issues. The suggestions proposed in this article can be effective in improving the conditions for birds in the region.

The study examined the effect of parental conflict and divorce/separation on children’s attitude towards marriage in Nigeria. Three hundred and six undergraduate students of Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko in Ondo State, Nigeria were randomly selected and used for the study. Participants’ age ranges between 19 and 27 years with a mean age of 22.03 years. Three hypotheses were tested and results of analysis of data showed that parental conflict and divorce significantly affects children’s attitude towards marriage [t (304) = 13.96, p <.05]. It was also revealed that there was a significant effect of sex on attitude of undergraduate students from divorced families towards marriage [t (124) = 7.95, p<.05]. Results also indicated that children who attributed parental conflict and divorce to inability of parents to give up personal freedom were significantly different on their attitude towards marriage from those who attributed parental conflict and divorce to a lack of mutual trust, poor communication, and discontentment [F (4,270) = 13.25, p<.05]. Results were discussed in light of available literature and recommendations were made.

Edge truncated slot Aperture microstrip patch antenna for dual frequency operation is investigated in this paper. A simple microstrip edge fed has been used to feed the antenna and a quarter wave length transformers is used for impedance matching. The size of the antenna is reduced by 25.4% when compare to conventional square patch antenna. Design concepts with feeding methods are given along with simulated results. The antenna is showing a gain of 5.9db and a return loss of less than -10dB with VSWR<2 at both resonating frequencies.