Sharif Digital Repository

In this paper, a semi-blind multiplicative watermarking approach for audio and speech signals has been presented. At the receiver end, the optimal maximum likelihood (ML) detector aided by the archived information for Gaussian and Laplacian signals in noisy environment is designed and implemented. The performance of the proposed scheme is analytically calculated and verified by simulation. Then, we adapt the proposed scheme to speech and audio signals. To improve robustness, the algorithm is applied to low frequency components of the host signal. Besides, the power of the watermark is controlled elegantly to have inaudibility using perceptual evaluation of audio quality (PEAQ) and perceptual... 

A High Tc RF-SQUID Based magnetocardiography system is developed for operating in a passively unshielded environment, in which active shielding is implemented to compensate field noises for the low to midrange frequency range. The main part of the implemented active shield configuration is a feedback control system designed for environmental noise cancelation in particular that of the power lines. This control system includes two layers of inner and outer compensation coils with respect to the liquid Nitrogen Dewar as parts of the designed active shield. The inner coils are surrounding the HTS SQUIDs which are placed in axial gradiometric configuration inside the dewar. The outer coils are... 

In this paper, a semi-blind multiplicative watermarking approach for audio and speech signals has been presented. At the receiver end, the optimal Maximum Likelihood (ML) detector aided by the channel side information for Gaussian and Laplacian signals in noisy environment is designed and implemented. The performance of the proposed scheme is analytically calculated and verified by simulation. Then, we adapt the proposed scheme to speech and audio signals. To improve robustness, the algorithm is applied to low frequency components of the host signal. Besides, the power of the watermark is controlled elegantly to have inaudibility using Perceptual Evaluation of Audio Quality (PEAQ) and... 

Due to the widespread use of pesticides and their harmful effects on humans and wildlife, monitoring their residual amounts in crops is critically essential but still challenging regarding the development of high-throughput approaches. Herein, a colorimetric sensor array has been proposed for discrimination and identification of triazole fungicides using monometallic and bimetallic silver and gold nanoparticles. Aggregation-induced behavior of AgNPs, AuNPs, and Au-AgNPs in the presence of four triazole fungicides produced a fingerprint response pattern for each analyte. Innovative changes to the metal composition of nanoparticles leads to the production of entirely distinct response patterns... 

Due to the widespread use of pesticides and their harmful effects on humans and wildlife, monitoring their residual amounts in crops is critically essential but still challenging regarding the development of high-throughput approaches. Herein, a colorimetric sensor array has been proposed for discrimination and identification of triazole fungicides using monometallic and bimetallic silver and gold nanoparticles. Aggregation-induced behavior of AgNPs, AuNPs, and Au-AgNPs in the presence of four triazole fungicides produced a fingerprint response pattern for each analyte. Innovative changes to the metal composition of nanoparticles leads to the production of entirely distinct response patterns... 

An X-band core chip is designed and fabricated in 0.18-μm CMOS technology, which can significantly reduce the monolithic microwave integrated circuit count required for realizing an active beam-former T/R module. The core chip consists of two RX/TX paths, each of which includes a 6-b phase shifter, a 6-b attenuator, along with two input and output amplifiers. A new architecture for realizing such a core chip system and a low loss circuit for 5.625° phase shift block are proposed. The overall rms phase and gain errors are better than 2° and 0.25 dB, respectively, in both RX/TX paths. The gain of each path is around 12 dB, while the output 1-dB compression point is higher than 10 dBm over the... 

Acute T cell-mediated rejection (TCMR)is a major complication after renal transplantation. TCMR diagnosis is very challenging and currently depends on invasive renal biopsy and nonspecific markers such as serum creatinine. A noninvasive metabolomics panel could allow early diagnosis and improved accuracy and specificity. We report, in this study, on urine metabolome changes in renal transplant recipients diagnosed with TCMR, with a view to future metabolomics-based diagnostics in transplant medicine. We performed urine metabolomic analyses in three study groups: (1) 7 kidney transplant recipients with acute TCMR, (2) 15 kidney transplant recipients without rejection but with impaired kidney... 

In this paper, a two-dimensional, two-phase, non-isothermal model is presented to predict the electrochemical, mass transfer and heat transfer behaviors in a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC). Governing equations including the momentum, continuity, heat transfer, proton and electron transport, species transport for water, methanol, and all the gas species (carbon dioxide, methanol vapor, water vapor, oxygen, and nitrogen) and the auxiliary equations are coupled to studying the various phenomena in DMFC. The modeling results agree well with the four different experimental data in an extensive range of operation conditions. A parametric study is also performed to examine the effects of the cell... 

In this paper, a two-dimensional, two-phase, isothermal model is presented to investigate the water transport characteristic and water distribution in a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) with emphasis on exploring the water distribution in different layers of DMFC. The liquid-gas two-phase mass transport in the porous anode and cathode is formulated based on multi-fluid model in porous media and water and methanol crossover through the membrane are considered with the effect of diffusion, electro-osmotic drag, and convection. The modeling results agree well with the three different experimental data in an extensive range of operation conditions. A parametric study is also performed to examine... 

Nonlinearity characteristics, such as backlash, in various mechanisms, limit the performance of feedback systems by causing delays, undesired oscillations and inaccuracy. Backlash influence analysis and modeling is necessary to design a precision controller for this nonlinearity. Backlash between meshing gears in an electromechanical system is modeled by the use of differential equations and a nonlinear spring-damper. According to this model, the paper shows that oscillations and delays cannot be compensated by a state feedback controller. Therefore, an adaptive algorithm is designed, based on different regions of the system angular position error. Since this controller needs an estimation... 

Nonporous and mesoporous silica-coated magnetite cluster nanocomposites particles were fabricated with various silica structures in order to develop a desired carrier for the lipase immobilization and subsequent biodiesel production. Lipase from Pseudomonas cepacia was covalently bound to the amino-functionalized particles using glutaraldehyde as a coupling agent. The hybrid systems that were obtained exhibited high stability and easy recovery regardless of the silica structure, following the application of an external magnetic field. The immobilized lipases were then used as the recoverable biocatalyst in a transesterification reaction to convert the soybean oil to biodiesel with methanol.... 

We developed a modified straightforward method for the fabrication of uniformly sized silica-coated magnetite clusters core/shell type nanocomposite particles. Proposed simple one-step processing method permits quick production of materials in high yield. The structural, surface, and magnetic characteristics of the nanocomposite particles were investigated by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR). The sphere-shaped particles almost have the average diameter of 120 nm, with a magnetic cluster core of 80 ± 15 nm, and a silica shell of 25 ± 10 nm... 

In this article a new scheme is proposed to use mean supervector in text-prompted speaker verification system. In this scheme, for each month name a subsystem is constructed and a final score based on passphrase is computed by the combination of the scores of these subsystems. Results from the telephony dataset of Persian month names show that the proposed method significantly reduces EER in comparison with the-State-of-the-art State-GMM-MAP method. Furthermore, it is shown that based on training set and testing set we can use 12 models per speaker instead of 220. Therefore, this scheme reduces EER and computational burden. In addition, the use of HMM instead of GMM as words' model improves... 

Design techniques to enhance bandwidth and linearity of broadband multistage low-noise amplifiers (LNAs) are presented. A feedback amplifier circuit is proposed to compensate for transistor gain roll-off with frequency in other amplifier stages and extend overall bandwidth. Moreover, a transistor width tapering in a multistage LNA is applied to improve linearity. These techniques are adopted in a three-stage monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) LNA implemented in a 0.1-μm GaAs pHEMT process. The LNA features 18-43 GHz bandwidth, 21.6 dB average gain, and 1.8-2.7 noise figure (NF). It exhibits output 1-dB compression point of 11.5 dBm at 30 GHz and consumes 70 mA bias current from a...