text:
Phyllidia marindica
(Yonow & Hayward, 1991)
Also known as: Fryeria marindica
|Phyllidia marindica
Comment from Nathalie Yonow on photo #38559I don't see a dorsal anus, and the black markings are too fine for varicosa, so I think marindica.
Comment from Richard Willan on photo #26045This is a large and very typical individual of this species.
Comment from Nathalie Yonow on photo #21139This is marindica, two black lines with rays extending to the margins and of Indian Ocean distribution. (apologies if I have already id-ed this!!)
Comment from Nathalie Yonow on photo #13289marindica, with 2 black lines and rays extending to the margins. Indian Ocean distribution.
Comment from Nathalie Yonow on photo #15862A perfect example!
Comment from Richard Willan on photo #9644This looks like Phyllidia marindica, two longitudinal black lines and three rows of orange-tipped tubercles. And within the geographical area.
Comment from Nathalie Yonow on photo #5757This is Fryeria marindica, with the bluish background, and the black in rays to the margin.
Comment from Richard Willan on photo #2172Comment from Dr. Richard C. Willan regarding Phyllidia varicosa as it is suggested by the photographer: the pustules are not arranged in longitudinal groups, the anus would be ventral, and there would be no stripe on the foot sole – so it is Phyllidia marindica
- Kenya
- Mauritius
- Mauritius (5) Jan, Jun
- Maldives
- Maldives (4) Jan, Feb, Oct, Nov
- Thailand
- Similan Islands (3) Jun, Nov, Dec
- Surin Islands (2) Mar
- Koh Phi Phi (1) Aug
- Khao Lak (1) Apr
- Phuket (1) Aug
- Tanzania
- Zanzibar (3) Feb, Sep
- Sri Lanka
- Negombo (2) Mar, Oct
- Seychelles
- Seychelles (2) May, Nov
- India
- India (2) Feb, Mar
- Lakshadweep (1) Jan
- Andaman & Nicobar Islands (1) Feb
- Philippines
- Malaysia
- Réunion
- Réunion (1) May
- Indonesia
- Raja Ampat (1)
- Lembeh (1) Apr
- North Sulawesi (1) Apr
- Timor-Leste
- Timor-Leste (1) Feb
- Madagascar
- Madagascar (1) Oct
Pictures of Phyllidia marindica
Location: North Sulawesi, Indonesia
Posted 8 years ago
Viewed 1378 times


text:
Welcome to our ICBEM 2017
Welcome to the official website of the 2017 7th International Conference on Biotechnology and Environmental Management (ICBEM 2017) will be held during September 25-27, 2017 in Athens, Greece. ICBEM 2017 is to bring together innovative academics and industrial experts in the field of Biotechnology and Environmental Management to a common forum.
ICBEM 2017 papers will be published in:
International Journal of Bioscience, Biochemistry and Bioinformatics (IJBBB, ISSN: 2010-3638), and will be included in the Engineering & Technology Digital Library, and indexed by WorldCat, Google Scholar,Cross ref, ProQuest.
Journal of Environmental Science and Development (IJESD, ISSN:2010-0264), and be included in the Engineering & Technology Digital Library, and indexed by CAS, WorldCat, Google Scholar, Cross ref, ProQuest , CABI.
Publication Ethics - Penalty against Plagiarism
We firmly believe that ethical conduct is the most essential virtual of any academic. Hence any act of plagiarism is a totally unacceptable academic misconduct and cannot be tolerated.
English is the official language of the conference. We welcome paper submissions. Prospective authors are invited to submit full (and original research) papers (which is NOT submitted or published or under consideration anywhere in other conferences/journal) in electronic (DOC or PDF) format through the easy chair conferences management system website. Any question, please contact email firstname.lastname@example.com » Call for Papers »
CommitteeRead more>>
News Read more>>
January 8, 2017, News! The 2017 conference will be held in Athens, Greece and submission is open. (Click)
September 30, 2016, News! The 2016 conference was sucessfully held in Toronto, Canada. (Click)
August 25, 2016, News! The 2016 conference program is available now. (Click)
January 25, 2016, News! The
2016 conference will be held in Toronto, Canada and the submission is open
now. (Click)
September 20, 2015, News! The 2015 conference was successfully held in Milan, Italy. (Click)
August 20, 2015, News! The conference program is available now. (Click)
December 8, 2014, News! The ICBEM 2015 submission is open now.
September 20, 2014, News! The ICBEM 2014 has been successfully held in Paris, France. (Click)
August 22, 2014, News! ICBEM 2014 conference program is available now. (Click)
June 10, 2014, News! One day tour in Paris is available now.
April 15, 2014, News! ICBEM 2014 keynote speakers are available now.
January 25, 2014, News! The ICBEM 2014 submission is open now.
July 12, 2013, News! Welcome Dr. Maslina Jamil, Dr. Rajeev Pratap Singh, Dr. Syed Hussain Haider Rizvi and Dr. Nor Rasidah Hashim to join into the Technical Committees of ICBEM 2013.
Important Date
|Submission Deadline
|Before July 15, 2017
|Notification Date
|On August 5, 2017
|Registration Deadline
|August 25, 2017
|Conference Date
|September 25-27, 2017

subset: commoncrawl


text: Sorry Brian. this was part of my first post. I havent got the hang of posting more than one picture at a time. I am trying to show the new 2011 British 5 pence coin. The letter P in penny has no hole in the middle. it seems to be filled in with a thick blobb.. I will post better pictures of the full coin. jacqueline


text:
Our expert health, safety and ergonomics training services help organisations achieve a high standard of professional knowledge – while improving their business performance and ensuring that legal responsibilities are met. High quality training is vital in creating a safe, skilled and productive workforce.
Enjoyable, effective health, safety and ergonomics training
Our training courses focus on enthusing your employees about their work, giving delegates the practical knowledge they need to take away from the course. All our team are practitioners who have experienced and solved the many health and safety challenges faced by organisations.
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Our management briefings will focus in on what your senior leaders need to know: they are concise, to the point, and practical.
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Wouldn't you like to improve the health, safety and productivity of your workforce? Our ergonomics training courses will show you how to do exactly that, by applying practical ergonomics solutions.
The ergonomics techniques we advocate, benefit most industrial functions and environments, including:
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- Manual handling
- Risks and responsibilities
- PLUS any other ergonomic non-specialist courses


text:
At Gemvara, we believe that the jewelry you wear should be one of a kind, like you. That's why we make each piece to order, one at a time, just the way you want it. Choose green amethyst and yellow gold or garnet and palladium: it's your choice. Mix and match gems and precious metals for a look that's exactly you. It's jewelry for all life's occasions, from a wedding or birthday to your own personal milestones and celebrations. Gemvara uses only the highest quality materials to craft your platinum two stone alexandrite band jewelry design with meticulous attention to detail. Our precious metals are recycled or responsibly mined. Alexandrite was discovered on Alexander II's 16th birthday and was thusly named after the future Czar. Pure, rare, and eternal, platinum is the most precious metal. Its density gives platinum unequalled durability, keeping gems secure. Our wide selection of platinum two stone alexandrite band jewelry by Jeet Palavwala, Carl Ansley, Ji Hwang, and other talented designers means you can find jewelry that's exactly your style. You can also shop by style, choosing our New Arrivals, Featured PURE, or Delicate Collections. It takes two to fall in love and it takes two gems to add final polish to our two-stone jewelry styles. Gemvara's fine quality platinum two stone alexandrite band jewelry is designed to be passed down for generations to come, crafted by hand in the United States.
We can help right away. Chat with a jewelry expert now!


text:
Nominate a young engineer and submit an outstanding product today!
The deadline for submissions is fast approaching for Consulting-Specifying Engineer's "40 under 40" and "Product of the Year" competitons .
Nominate a young, outstanding engineer To help recognize young engineers and to improve engineering recruitment in your company or organization, we encourage you to nominate a talented young engineer. Consulting-Specifying Engineer magazine is looking for 40 of the most innovative engineers under the age of 40. To qualify, nominees must be under 40 years of age (as of May 1, 2009) and be nominated by a supervisor, academic advisor, peer, mentor, public relations professional, project leader, or other person directly involved in their career progress.
Read on for nominations procedures and details about submitting materials.
It's that time once again for Consulting-Specifying Engineer's Product of the Year contest. The Fifth Annual 2009 Product of the Year competition remains the premier award for new products in the HVAC, fire, electrical, and plumbing engineering markets. An updated entry process has moved the entire product submittal process online. Contest rules, eligibility requirements, and sample entries from 2008's contest can all be found at www.csemag.com/poy . An expanded list of entry categories includes several new categories—Networked building automation, energy management systems, renewable energy, green power, equipment-level sensors/controls, and standby/on-site power. The entry deadline is Feb. 20, at 5 p.m. and it's never too early to submit your product in CSE's Product of the Year Contest.
Visit www.csemag.com/poy to submit your product today!
Call for Entries!
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Annual Salary Survey
Before the calendar turned, 2016 already had the makings of a pivotal year for manufacturing, and for the world.
There were the big events for the year, including the United States as Partner Country at Hannover Messe in April and the 2016 International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago in September. There's also the matter of the U.S. presidential elections in November, which promise to shape policy in manufacturing for years to come.
But the year started with global economic turmoil, as a slowdown in Chinese manufacturing triggered a worldwide stock hiccup that sent values plummeting. The continued plunge in world oil prices has resulted in a slowdown in exploration and, by extension, the manufacture of exploration equipment.
Read more: 2015 Salary Survey


text:
African Utility Week sponsor Accenture excited about smart grid momentum in the utility industry
14th annual event takes place in Cape Town in May
February 05, 2014 --
According to Mr Mginqi, Accenture has put significant investments into smart grid assets at a global scale and "what makes Accenture competitive is the availability of relevant local skills to contextualise the global experience".
He continues: "the utilities' challenges will remain their ability to convert good strategy or strategic intents to real tangible outcomes. Lack of excellent execution is going to cause major project delays. The industry needs to narrow down focus areas to a few strategic areas, namely generation capacity backlog; distribution maintenance backlog and debt collection backlog."
The Accenture Utilities Practice MD sees as the key opportunities in South Africa to put into context "the smart grid agenda and making it relevant to realizing South Africa specific business benefits."
Why did Accenture decide to partner with African Utility Week? "African Utility Week is the premium utility event in South Africa, Accenture is the market leader in smart grid implementation - African Utility Week presents an opportunity to showcase this capability that has made Accenture the market leader. We are looking forward to the interaction with industry players at the event."
By and for the industry
The award winning 14th African Utility Week and Clean Power Africa conference and expo is taking place at the CTICC in Cape Town from 13-14 May 2014. It is attended by more than 5000 power and water professionals from more than 30 African countries and 70 worldwide, at what is the largest utility gathering of its kind on the continent. Discussions, workshops, exhibits and site visits will focus on the industry disciplines of metering, clean power, water, large power users, investment and finance, transmission & distribution, smart grids and generation.
"We pride ourselves in hosting a utility event by and for the industry", says Russell Hughes, event director of African Utility Week, "and having a global giant such as Accenture on board, along with our long-standing partners Eskom and the City of Cape Town, proves it. We look forward to Accenture sharing its smart grids expertise and experience. "
Confirmed attendance from a variety of utility CEOs will add to the discussions at African Utility Week as the annual CEO Forum brings together top representatives from Eskom, the Ugandan Electricity Generation Company, Eko Distribution Company, Senelec and Nampower. This forum, which brings together utility CEOs to collaborate on the development of the sector, starts with a dinner on Monday 12th May and discussion sessions include insights into the Power Africa Initiative and the role of ?smart' in utilities.
Event dates and location:
Conference and Exhibition: 13-14 May 2014
Focus day: 12 May 2014
Site visits: 15 May 2014
Location: CTICC, Cape Town, South Africa
Website: www.clean-power-africa.com ; www.african-utility-week.com
Communications manager: Annemarie Roodbol
Telephone : +27 21 700 3558
Mobile: +27 82 562 7844
Email: [email protected]
Notes for Editor
Spintelligent (Pty) Ltd is an African media business, specialising in Exhibitions, Conferences and Publishing. Head-quartered in Cape Town with a team of 90 experienced professionals, Spintelligent is a dynamic and recognised organiser across multiple industry sectors and geographies. A specialist organiser with the ability to deliver key growth projects in the early emerging markets of the African continent. Spintelligent is the African partner office of Clarion Events Ltd, the UK based organiser operating in 36 countries worldwide with 9 subsidiary offices delivering over 500 exhibitions and conferences annually.
Spintelligent delivers projects in African growth industry sectors; Power & Utilities; Energy; Mining; Education & Careers; Agriculture; Infrastructure; Military & Defence.
Spintelligent delivers projects in the emerging African markets; South Africa; Nigeria; Ghana; Kenya; Tanzania; DRC; Angola; Mozambique; Zambia.
Spintelligent is recognised for its print and electronic publications, with market-leading brands including Metering International, ESI Africa and Mining Review Africa.
Its regular global events and exhibitions, as well as its critical business intelligence and integrated marketing services make it a leader in its field. The company's highly skilled resources in management, marketing, research and production allow for unique products bridging the developed and developing markets.
Page: 1
Related Keywords:Accenture, smart grids, Lungile Mginqi, utilities, African power industry, Cape Town, South Africa, Spintelligent, African Utility Week, Clean Power Africa, Clarion Events
Source:Digital Media Online. All Rights Reserved


text:
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama remains in search of a game where everything comes together.
The Crimson Tide is still unbeaten and ranked No. 1 but not feeling especially good about the team's performance so far.
Even soft-spoken linebacker C.J. Mosley was upset enough to speak up after an unimpressive showing against huge underdog Colorado State, knowing that beating No. 21 Mississippi Saturday night will likely require much better.
"We haven't put a whole game together as far as offense, special teams and defense," linebacker Trey DePriest said. "We haven't put the whole thing together. One side will be clicking one game, the other side won't be clicking. I say we're hungry because every game we've had each other's back – and we held up."
The Tide (3-0, 1-0 Southeastern Conference) hasn't lost much national respect in the process, just a few No. 1 votes.
"Everybody has just sort of gotten overwhelmed with expectations," coach Nick Saban said. "It's been my word from the beginning of time that this is a different team. This is a new team. They've got to create their own identity by what they do and how they play."
Hugh Freeze's Rebels (3-0, 1-0) are aiming to earn a larger chunk of national esteem by nabbing their first win over a top-ranked team in 10 tries.
Thanks to a scheduling quirk, they're making a return trip to Tuscaloosa after last season's 33-14 loss. Freeze found enough positives from that game to show players clips leading up to the rematch.
"Even though the scoreboard showed they beat us fairly good, I think our kids took some great confidence out of that game," he said.
For Alabama, winning games just isn't enough these days. Mosley said he, quarterback AJ McCarron and safety Vinnie Sunseri gave the team a talking-to after a 31-6 win over Colorado State that was close going into the fourth quarter.
"I started off because I was pretty upset, especially with the defense, because the things we gave up were off mental errors, just little things," Mosley said. "I felt like we're about to play Ole Miss next week, about to start getting into SEC play, so all those little things will get us beat bad and get us embarrassed. So we've got to make sure everybody is doing their job."


text:
Camp Pendleton military spouses are raising money for scholarships for local Marine families and are asking the community to donate items to the annual auction.
Each year, the Camp Pendleton Officers Wives' and Spouses' Club gives college scholarships to children and spouses of Marines and sailors based at Pendleton, including active duty, retired and deceased members.
The major fundraiser for the effort is the annual Margaritaville Auction hosted by the club for the past 15 years.
This year's auction is March 21 on base and donations are needed by March 1.
Last year, the nonprofit club raised $42,900 at the event with $24,450 going to academic scholarships and $18,450 to community enrichment grants to support Camp Pendleton Marines and their families.
Scholarships went to 14 recipients; eight area high school seniors and six college students who are children or spouses of Camp Pendleton Marines.
Community enrichment grant recipients included organizations that support the Camp Pendleton military community such as Big Brothers & Big Sisters, Camp Pendleton YMCA, Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund, REINS Therapeutic Horsemanship and United Through Reading.
Past auction items have included everything from surfboards, airline tickets and weekend getaways to original art, jewelry to baby gift baskets.
Some area business have donated products and others have given gift certificates.
No donation is too small and all donations are tax-deductible, said Jennifer O'Neal, chairwoman of the club's scholarship committee. "It's one way to support area Marines."
The auction is from 6 to 10:30 p.m. at the Pacific Views Events Center, Bldg 202850 San Jacinto Rd. on base.
Tickets are $35; $30 for military.
Reservations for the auction are due by March 17.
For information, email the club at firstname.lastname@example.com or visit cpowc.org.


text:
The thoroughbred industry is one of the most exciting investments available. It is unique in that there are numerous opportunities for investment, including, breeding, purchase and resale, and racing.
Our partnerships make it possible for individuals to participate in the world of racing at a reasonable cost. There is strong potential for above average returns, tax advantages, and as an owner, a wealth of excitement.
Raintree Thoroughbred Farm partnerships have been designed as conservative investments with a potential for above average returns. The core of our business is acquiring undervalued thoroughbreds and creating yearling, two-year-old, and racing partnerships. Management of the company has established a network of industry veterans to serve as advisors and help seek access to undervalued opportunities.
Generally, thoroughbreds are bought at public auctions run by leading companies such as the Keeneland Association, Fasig-Tipton, Barretts, and Tattersalls. The horses, after being purchased, are boarded at top centers and nurseries to be prepared for racing and resale.
Raintree Thoroughbred Farm is an emerging bloodstock agency engaging in the purchase and sale of thoroughbred weanlings, yearlings, and two-year-olds both in the United States and abroad. Our full service facility serves as a nursery where we breed and foal thoroughbreds and prepare them for the weanling, yearling, and broodmare sales. We maintain a base of operations for the development of yearlings and two-year-olds in training in both Maryland and South Carolina.
In addition, Raintree Thoroughbred Farm specializes in racing and breeding partnerships, a niche that has become attractive to not only newcomers to the industry, but to current owners and breeders who are looking to diversify and enhance existing operations. Through our general and limited partnerships, shareholders own a group of colts and/or fillies with top pedigrees which, if successful, become extremely desirable stallion or broodmare prospects.
Raintree Thoroughbred Farm, until recently, has operated on a relatively small scale and is now in the process of expanding. The thoroughbred industry enjoyed record high volume and prices during the 1980s. However, the market tapered off in the early 1990s and then regained strong momentum in the late 1990s, resulting in record sales volume beyond the year 2000. Volume returns from the 2010 editions of the weanling and the two-year-olds in training sales reached all time highs. The yearling sales, typically the indicator of the strength of the thoroughbred market, enjoyed a +4.0% increase in average sale price and a +4.6% increase in overall sales volume. Presale expectations at the thoroughbred sales level have been exceeded as the number of buyers and sellers have pushed volume and prices to all-time highs.


text:
Dave Grohl: The Beatles Were A Huge Influence On Nirvana
Dave Grohl has revealed that The Beatles were a huge influence on Nirvana.
Dave Grohl has revealed that The Beatles were a huge influence on Nirvana.
The frontman discussed the Liverpool band's influence at the 2012 MusiCares benefit on Saturday (February 11) when Sir Paul McCartney was named the organisation's "Person Of The Year".
In an interview with Access Hollywood, Grohl said: "When I was young, that's how I learned how to play music - I had a guitar and a Beatles songbook," he recalled. "I would listen to the records and play along. Of course, it didn't sound like The Beatles, but it got me to understand song structure and melody and harmony and arrangement."
He added: "I never had a teacher - I just had these Beatles records... Even in Nirvana - the Beatles [were] such a huge influence.
"Kurt loved The Beatles because it was just so simple. Well, it seemed simple... they sound easy to play, but you know what? They're f--king hard."
Meanwhile, Dave Grohl has unveiled the trailer for his new documentary "Sound City" - you can watch it here.
Last month Grohl, and Taylor announced that they had recorded some new material but did not confirm what the project was for.
Thanks for the report to Gigwise.com.


text:
Jack Hague
Found 10 Records, 10 Photos and 142,172 Family Trees
Born. Jack married Dorothy May Everist and had 2 children.
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text: Hello everyone. I've been BBQing for years with propane but this past summer I decided to get a very inexpensive smoker and a relatively inexpensive charcoal BBQ. I can say that with the help of the Internet and a couple of great books, I'm having a great time. Great resource here and I look forward to sharing my success and failures here with my fellow meat lovers. Cheers!


text:
|Publication number
|Publication type
|Application number
|Publication date
|5 Feb 2008
|Filing date
|9 Oct 2003
|Priority date
|10 Jun 1997
|Fee status
|Also published as
|Publication number
|Lars Gustaf Liljeryd, Per Rune Albin Ekstrand, Lars Fredrik Henn, Hans Magnus Kristofer Kjörling
|Original Assignee
|Coding Technologies Ab
|Export Citation
|BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan
|Patent Citations (19), Non-Patent Citations (17), Referenced by (98), Classifications (9), Legal Events (4)
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet
This application is a divisional of application Ser. No. 09/230,799, filed on Feb. 9, 1999 now U.S. Pat. No. 6,680,972, and for which priority is claimed under 35 U.S.C. § 120. Application Ser. No. 09/230,799 is the national phase of PCT International Application No. PCT/IB98/00893 filed on Jun. 9, 1998 under 35 U.S.C. § 371. The entire contents of each of the above-identified applications are hereby incorporated by reference. This application also claims priority of Application Nos. 9702213-1; 9704634-6; and 9800268-6 filed in Sweden on Jun. 10, 1997; Dec. 12, 1997; and Jan. 30, 1998, respectively under 35 U.S.C. § 119.
In source coding systems, digital data is compressed before transmission or storage to reduce the required bitrate or storing capacity. The present invention relates to a new method and apparatus for the improvement of source coding systems by means of Spectral Band Replication (SBR). Substantial bitrate reduction is achieved while maintaining the same perceptual quality or conversely, an improvement in perceptual quality is achieved at a given bitrate. This is accomplished by means of spectral bandwidth reduction at the encoder side and subsequent spectral band replication at the decoder, whereby the invention exploits new concepts of signal redundancy in the spectral domain.
Audio source coding techniques can be divided into two classes: natural audio coding and speech coding. Natural audio coding is commonly used for music or arbitrary signals at medium bitrates, and generally offers wide audio bandwidth. Speech coders are basically limited to speech reproduction but can on the other hand be used at very low bitrates, albeit with low audio bandwidth. Wideband speech offers a major subjective quality improvement over narrow band speech. Increasing the bandwidth not only improves intelligibility and naturalness of speech, but also facilitates speaker recognition. Wideband speech coding is thus an important issue in next generation telephone systems. Further, due to the tremendous growth of the multimedia field, transmission of music and other non-speech signals at high quality over telephone systems is a desirable feature.
A high-fidelity linear PCM signal is very inefficient in terms of bitrate versus the perceptual entropy. The CD standard dictates 44.1 kHz sampling frequency, 16 bits per sample resolution and stereo. This equals a bitrate of 1411 kbit/s. To drastically reduce the bitrate, source coding can be performed using split-band perceptual audio codecs. These natural audio codecs exploit perceptual irrelevancy and statistical redundancy in the signal. Using the best codec technology, approximately 90% data reduction can be achieved for a standard CD-format signal with practically no perceptible degradation. Very high sound quality in stereo is thus possible at around 96 kbit/s, i.e. a compression factor of approximately 15:1. Some perceptual codecs offer even higher compression ratios. To achieve this, it is common to reduce the sample-rate and thus the audio bandwidth. It is also common to decrease the number of quantization levels, allowing occasionally audible quantization distortion, and to employ degradation of the stereo field, through intensity coding. Excessive use of such methods results in annoying perceptual degradation. Current codec technology is near saturation and further progress in coding gain is not expected. In order to improve the coding performance further, a new approach is necessary.
The human voice and most musical instruments generate quasistationary signals that emerge from oscillating systems. According to Fourier theory, any periodic signal may be expressed as a sum of sinusoids with the frequencies f, 2f, 3f, 4f, 5f etc. where f is the fundamental frequency. The frequencies form a harmonic series. A bandwidth limitation of such a signal is equivalent to a truncation of the harmonic series. Such a truncation alters the perceived timbre, tone colour, of a musical instrument or voice, and yields an audio signal that will sound "muffled" or "dull", and intelligibility may be reduced. The high frequencies are thus important for the subjective impression of sound quality.
Prior art methods are mainly intended for improvement of speech codec performance and in particular intended for High Frequency Regeneration (HFR), an issue in speech coding. Such methods employ broadband linear frequency shifts, non-linearities or aliasing [U.S. Pat. No. 5,127,0541] generating intermodulation products or other non-harmonic frequency components which cause severe dissonance when applied to music signals. Such dissonance is referred to in the speech coding literature as "harsh" and "rough" sounding. Other synthetic speech HFR methods generate sinusoidal harmonics that are based on fundamental pitch estimation and are thus limited to tonal stationary sounds [U.S. Pat. No. 4,771,465]. Such prior art methods, although useful for low-quality speech applications, do not work for high quality speech or music signals. A few methods attempt to improve the performance of high quality audio source codecs. One uses synthetic noise signals generated at the decoder to substitute noise-like signals in speech or music previously discarded by the encoder ["Improving Audio Codecs by Noise Substitution" D. Schultz, JAES, Vol. 44, No. 7/8, 1996]. This is performed within an otherwise normally transmitted highband at an intermittent basis when noise signals are present. Another method recreates some missing highband harmonics that were lost in the coding process ["Audio Spectral Coder" A. J. S. Ferreira, AES Preprint 4201, 100th Convention, May 11-14 1996, Copenhagen] and is again dependent on tonal signals and pitch detection. Both methods operate at a low duty-cycle basis offering comparatively limited coding or performance gain.
The present invention provides a new method and an apparatus for substantial improvements of digital source coding systems and more specifically for the improvements of audio codecs. The objective includes bitrate reduction or improved perceptual quality or a combination thereof. The invention is based on new methods exploiting harmonic redundancy, offering the possibility to discard passbands of a signal prior to transmission or storage. No perceptual degradation is perceived if the decoder performs high quality spectral replication according to the invention. The discarded bits represent the coding gain at a fixed perceptual quality. Alternatively, more bits can be allocated for encoding of the lowband information at a fixed bitrate, thereby achieving a higher perceptual quality.
The present invention postulates that a truncated harmonic series can be extended based on the direct relation between lowband and highband spectral components. This extended series resembles the original in a perceptual sense if certain rules are followed: First, the extrapolated spectral components must be harmonically related to the truncated harmonic series, in order to avoid dissonance-related artifacts. The present invention uses transposition as a means for the spectral replication process, which ensures that this criterion is met. It is however not necessary that the lowband spectral components form a harmonic series for successful operation, since new replicated components, harmonically related to those of the lowband, will not alter the noise-like or transient nature of the signal. A transposition is defined as a transfer of partials from one position to another on the musical scale while maintaining the frequency ratios of the partials. Second, the spectral envelope, i.e. the coarse spectral distribution, of the replicated highband, must reasonably well resemble that of the original signal. The present invention offers two modes of operation, SBR-1 and SBR-2, that differ in the way the spectral envelope is adjusted.
SBR-1, intended for the improvement of intermediate quality codec applications, is a single-ended process which relies exclusively on the information contained in a received lowband or lowpass signal at the decoder. The spectral envelope of this signal is determined and extrapolated, for instance using polynomials together with a set of rules or a codebook. This information is used to continuously adjust and equalise the replicated highband. The present SBR-1 method offers the advantage of post-processing, i.e. no modifications are needed at the encoder side. A broadcaster will gain in channel utilisation or will be able to offer improved perceptual quality or a combination of both. Existing bitstream syntax and standards can be used without modification.
SBR-2, intended for the improvement of high quality codec applications, is a double-ended process where, in addition to the transmitted lowband signal according to SBR-1, the spectral envelope of the highband is encoded and transmitted. Since the variations of the spectra envelope has a much lower rate than the highband signal components, only a limited amount of information needs to be transmitted in order to successfully represent the spectral envelope. SBR-2 can be used to improve the performance of current codec technologies with no or minor modifications of existing syntax or protocols, and as a valuable tool for future codec development.
Both SBR-1 and SBR-2 can be used to replicate smaller passbands of the lowband when such bands are shut down by the encoder as stipulated by the psychoacoustic model under bit-starved conditions. This results in improvement of the perceptual quality by spectral replication within the lowband in addition to spectral replication outside the lowband. Further, SBR-1 and SBR-2 can also be used in codecs employing bitrate scalability, where the perceptual quality of the signal at the receiver varies depending on transmission channel conditions. This usually implies annoying variations of the audio bandwidth at the receiver. Under such conditions, the SBR methods can be used successfully in order to maintain a constantly high bandwidth, again improving the perceptual quality.
The present invention operates on a continuous basis, replicating any type of signal contents, i.e. tonal or non-tonal (noise-like and transient signals). In addition, the present spectral replication method creates a perceptually accurate replica of the discarded bands from available frequency bands at the decoder. Hence, the SBR method offers a substantially higher level of coding gain or perceptual quality improvement compared to prior art methods. The invention can be combined with such prior art codec improvement methods; however, no performance gain is expected due to such combinations.
The SBR-method comprises the following steps:
The passbands of the second signal may be set not to overlap or partly overlap the passbands of the first signal, and may be set in dependence of the temporal characteristics of the original signal and/or the first signal, or transmission channel conditions. The spectral envelope adjustment is performed based on estimation of the original spectral envelope from said first signal or on transmitted envelope information of the original signal.
The present invention includes to basic types of transposers: multiband transposers and time-variant pattern search prediction transposers, having different properties. A basic multiband transposition may be performed according to the present invention by the following:
Alternatively, this basic multiband transposition may be performed according to the invention by the following:
An improved multiband transposition according to the invention incorporates phase adjustments, enhancing the performance of the basic multiband transposition.
The time-variant pattern search prediction disposition according to the present invention may be performed by the following:
The SBR methods and apparatuses according to the present invention offer the following features:
The most attractive application relates to the improvement of various types of low bitrate codecs, such as MPEG 1/2 Layer I/II/III [U.S. Pat. No. 5,040,217], MPEG 2/4 AAC, Dolby AC-2/3, NTT TwinVQ [U.S. Pat. No. 5,684,920], AT&T/Lucent PAC etc. The invention is also useful in high-quality speech codecs such as wideband CELP and SB-ADPCM G.722 etc. to improve perceived quality. The above codecs are widely used in multimedia, in the telephone industry, on the Internet as well as in professional applications. T-DAB (Terrestrial Digital Audio Broadcasting) systems use low bitrate protocols that will gain in channel utilsation by using the present method, or improve quality in FM and AM DAB. Satellite S-DAB will gain considerably, due to the excessive system costs involved, by using the present method to increase the number of programme channels in the DAB multiplex. Furthermore, for the first time, full bandwidth audio real-time streaming over the Internet is achievable using low bitrate telephone modems.
The present invention will now be described by way of illustrative examples, not limiting the scope or spirit of the invention, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
Throughout the explanation of the embodiments herein, emphasis is given to natural audio source coding applications. However, it should be understood that the present invention is applicable on a range of source coding applications other than that of encoding and decoding audio signals.
Transposition Basics
Transposition as defined according to the present invention, is the ideal method for spectral replication, and has several major advantages over prior art, such as: no pitch detection is required, equally high performance for single-pitched and polyphonic programme material is obtained, and the transposition works equally well for tonal and non-tonal signals. Contrary to other methods, the transposition according to the invention can be used in arbitrary audio source coding systems for arbitrary signal types.
An exact transposition a factor M of a discrete time signal x(n) in the form of a sum of cosines with time varying amplitudes, is defined by the relation
where N is the number of sinusoids, hereafter referred to as partials, fi, ei(n), αi are the individual input frequencies, time envelopes and phase constants respectively, βi are the arbitrary output phase constants and fs is the sampling frequency, and 0≦Mfi≦fs/2.
An approximation of an exact transposition may be used. According to the present invention, the quality of such approximations is determined using dissonance theory. A criterion for dissonance is presented by Plomp ["Tonal Consonance and Critical Bandwidth" R. Plomp, W. J. M. Levelt JASA, Vol 38, 1965], and states that two partials are considered dissonant if the frequency difference is within approximately 5 to 50% of the bandwidth of the critical band in which the partials are situated. For reference, the critical bandwidth for a given frequency can be approximated by
with f and cb in Hz. Further, Plomp states that the human auditory system can not discriminate two partials if they differ in frequency by approximately less than five percent of the critical bandwidth in which they are situated. The exact transposition in Eq. 2 is approximated by
where Δfi is the deviation from the exact transposition. If the input partials form a harmonic series, a hypothesis of the invention states that the deviations from the harmonic series of the transposed partials must not exceed five percent of the critical bandwidth in which they are situated. This would explain why prior art methods give unsatisfactory "harsh" and "rough" results, since broad band linear frequency shifts yields a much larger deviation than acceptable. When prior art methods produce more than one partial for only one input partial, the partials must nevertheless be within the above stated deviation limit, as to be perceived as one partial. This again explains the poor results obtained with prior art methods using nonlinearities etc, since they produce intermodulation partials not within the limit of deviation.
When using the above transposition based method of spectral replication according to the present invention, the following important properties are achieved:
Various ways to design the required transposers exist. Typical time-domain implementations expand the signal in time by duplicating signal segments based on the pitch-period. This signal is subsequently read out at a different rate. Unfortunately such methods are strictly dependent on pitch-detection for accurate time splicing of the signal segments. Furthermore, the constraint to work on pitch-period based signal segments makes them sensitive to transients. Since the detected pitch-period can be much longer than the actual transient, the risk of duplicating the entire transient rather than just expanding it in time is obvious. Another type of time domain algorithms obtains time expansion/compression of speech signals by utilising pattern search prediction of the output signal ["Pattern Search Prediction of Speech" R Bogner, T. Li, Proc. ICASSP '89, Vol. 1, May 1989, "Time-Scale Modification of Speech based on a nonlinear Oscillator Model" G. Kubin, W. B. Kleijn, IEEE, 1994]. This is a form of granular synthesis, where the input signal is divided into small parts, granules, used to synthesis the output signal. This synthesis is usually done by performing correlation of signal segments in order to determine the best splicing points. This means that the segments used to form the output signal are not dependent on the pitch period, and thus the non-trivial task of pitch detection is not required. Nevertheless, problems with rapidly changing signal amplitudes remain in these methods, and high quality transposition tends to raise high computational demands. However, an improved time-domain pitch shifter/transposer is now presented, where the use of transient detection and dynamic system parameters produces a more accurate transposition for high transposition factors during both stationary (tonal or non-tonal) and transient sounds, at a low computational cost.
Referring to the drawings wherein like numerals indicate like elements, there is shown in
In order to clarify the explanation, a state space representation is introduced. Here, the state vectors, or granules, represent the input and output signals. The input signal is represented by a statevector x(n):
x(n)=[x(n),x(n−D),x(n−2D), . . . , x(n−(N−1)D)] (5)
which is obtained from N delayed samples of the input signal, where N is the dimension of the state vector and D is the delay between the input samples used to build the vector. The granular mapping yields the sample x(n) following each statevector x(n−1). This gives Eq. 6, where a(.) is the mapping:
x(n)=a(x(n−1)). (6)
In the present method the granular mapping is used to determine the next output based on the former output, using a state transition codebook. The codebook of length L is continuously rebuilt containing the statevectors and the next sample following each statevector. Each statevector is separated from its neighbour by K samples; this enables the system to adjust the time resolution depending on the characteristics of the currently processed signal, where K equal to one represents the finest resolution. The input signal segment used to build the codebook is chosen based on the position of a possible transient and the synchronisation position in the previous codebook.
This means that the mapping a(.), theoretically, is evaluated for all transitions included in the codebook:
With this transition codebook, the new output y(n) is calculated by searching for the statevector in the codebook most similar to the current statevector y(n−1). This nearest-neighbour search is done by calculating the minimum difference and gives the new output sample:
y(n)=a(y(n−1)). (8)
However, the system is not limited to work on a sample by sample basis, but is preferably operated on a segment by segment basis. The new output segment is windowed and added, mixed, with the previous output segment, and subsequently down sampled. The pitch transposition factor is determined by the ratio of the input segment length represented by the codebook and the output segment length read out of the codebook.
Returning to the drawings, in
Sync_pos=Sync_pos_old+S·M−S, (9)
where Sync_pos and Sync_pos_old are the new and old synchronisation positions respectively, S is the length of the input segment being processed, and M is the transposition factor. This synchronisation point is used to compare the accuracy of the new splicing point with the accuracy of the old splicing point 603. If the match is as good as or better than the previous 605, this new synchronisation point is returned 607 provided it is within the codebook. If not, a new synchronisation point is searched for in the loop 609. This is performed with a similarity measure, in this case a minimum difference function 611, however, it is also possible to use correlation in the time- or frequency-domain. If the position yields a better match than that of the previous position found 613 the synchronisation position is stored 615. When all positions are tried 617 the system returns 619 to the flowchart in
Most pitch transposers, or time expanders, based on pattern search prediction give satisfactory results for speech and single-pitched material. However, their performance deteriorates rapidly for high complexity signals, like music, in particular at large transposition factors. The present invention offers several solutions for improved performance, therefore producing excellent results for any type of signal. Contrary to other designs, the system is time-variant and the system parameters are based on the properties of the input signal, and the parameters used during the previous operation cycle. The use of a transient detector controlling not only the codebook size and position, but also the properties of the statevectors included, is a very robust and computationally efficient method to avoid audible degradation during rapidly changing signal segments Furthermore, alteration of the length of the signal segment being processed, which would raise higher computational demands, is not required. Also, the present invention utilises a refined codebook search based on the results from the preceding search. This means that contrary to an ordinary correlation of two signal segments, as is usually done in time-domain systems based on pattern search prediction, the most likely synchronisation positions are tried first instead of trying all positions consecutively. This new method for reducing the codebook search drastically reduces the computational complexity of the system. Further, when using several transposers, synchronisation position information can be shared among the transposers for further reduction of the computational complexity, as shown in the following implementation.
The time-domain transposers as explained above are used to implement the SBR-1 and SBR-2 systems according to the following, illustrative but not limiting, example. In
sync_pos2=sync_pos4−n·4·S−sync_offset, for n=1,2,3,4, . . . , (10)
sync_offset=sync_pos4−sync_pos2, for n=0, (11)
and S is the length of the input segment represented by the codebook. This is valid as long as neither of the synchronisation position pointers reaches the end of the codebook. During normal operation n is increased by one for each time-frame processed by the second order harmonic transposer, and when the codebook end inevitably is reached, by either of the pointers, the counter n is set to n=0, and sync_pos2 and sync_pos4 are computed individually. Similar results are obtained for the third order harmonic transposer when connected to the fourth order harmonic transposer.
The above-presented use of several interconnected time-domain transposers, for the creation of higher order harmonics, introduces substantial computational reduction. Furthermore, the proposed use of time-domain transposers in connection with a suitable filterbank, presents the opportunity to adjust the envelope of the created spectrum while maintaining the simplicity and low computational cost of a time domain transposer, since these, more or less, may be implemented using fixed point arithmetic and solely additive/subtractive-operations.
Other, illustrative but not limiting, examples of the present invention are:
It should be recognised that the method outlined above may be advantageously used for timescale modification only, by simply omitting the sample rate conversion. Further it is understood, that although the outlined method focuses on pitch transposing to a higher pitch, i.e. time expansion, the same principles apply when transposing to a lower pitch, i.e. time compression, as is obvious to those skilled in the art.
Filter Bank Based Transposition
Various new and innovative filter bank based transposition techniques will now be described. The signal to be transposed is divided into a series of BP- or subband signals. The subband signals are then transposed, exact or approximately, which is advantageously accomplished by a reconnection of analysis- and synthesis subbands, hereinafter referred to as a "patch". The method is first demonstrated using a Short Time Fourier Transform, STFT.
The N-point STFT of a discrete-time signal x(n) is defined by
where k=0,1, . . . , N−1 and ωk=2πk/N and h(n) is a window. If the window satisfies the following conditions
an inverse transform exists and is given by
The direct transform may be interpreted as an analyser, see
This yields
where M=2. Eq. 15 may be interpreted as a BP-filtering of the input signal, followed by a linear frequency shift or Upper Side Band (USB) modulation, i.e. single side band modulation using the upper side band, see
According to Eq. 15, a sinusoid with the frequency ωi within the passband of analysis channel k yields a harmonic at the frequency Mωk+(ωi−ωk). Hence the method, referred to as basic multiband transposition, only generates exact harmonics for input signals with frequencies ωi=ωk, where 4≦k≦7. However, if the number of filters is sufficiently large, the deviation from an exact transposition is negligible, see Eq. 4. Further, the transposition is made exact for quasi-stationary tonal signals of arbitrary frequencies by inserting the blocks denoted P 917 (
The harmonic patch of
It is also possible to combine amplitude and phase information from different analyser channels. The amplitude signals |Xk(rR)| may be connected according to
In the above description it was assumed that the highest frequency contained in the input signal was significantly lower than the Nyqvist frequency. Thus, it was possible to perform a bandwidth expansion without an increase in sample rate. This is however not always the case, why a preceding upsampling may be necessary. When using filter bank methods for transposition, it is possible to integrate upsampling in the process.
Most perceptual codecs employ maximally decimated filter banks in the time to frequency mapping ["Introduction to Perceptual Coding" K. Brandenburg, AES, Collected Papers on Digital Audio Bitrate Reduction, 1996].
In the illustrative, but not limiting, descriptions below it is assumed that an L-channel cosine modulated filter bank splits the input signal x(n) into L subband signals. The generic structure of a minimally decimated filter bank is shown in
Synthesising the subband signals with a QL-channel filter bank, where only the L lowband channels are used and the bandwidth expansion factor Q is chosen so that QL is an integer value, will result in an output bit stream with sampling frequency Qfs. Hence, the extended filter bank will act as if it is an L-channel fitter bank followed by an upsampler. Since, in this case, the L(Q−1) highband filters are unused (fed with zeros), the audio bandwidth will not change—the filter bank will merely reconstruct an upsampled version of {circumflex over (x)}(n). If, however, the L subband signals are patched to the highband filters, the bandwidth of {circumflex over (x)}(n) will be increased by a factor Q, producing y(n). This is the maximally decimated filter bank version of the basic multiband transposer, according to the invention. Using this scheme, the upsampling process is integrated in the synthesis filtering as explained earlier. It should be noted that any size of the synthesis filter bank may be used, resulting in different sample-rates of the output signal, and hence different bandwidth expansion factors. Performing spectral replication on {circumflex over (x)}(n) according to the present invention of the basic multiband transition method with an integer transposition factor M, is accomplished by patching the subband signals as
νMk(n)=e Mk(n)(−1)(M−1)knνk(n), (16)
where k∈[0,L−1] and chosen so that Mk∈[L,QL−1], eMk(n) is the envelope correction and (−1)(M−1)kn is a correction factor for spectral inverted subband. Spectral inversion results from decimation of subband signals, and the inverted signals may be reinverted by changing sign on every second sample in those channels. Referring to
Using the basic multiband transposition method according to the present invention, the generated harmonics are in general not exact multiples of the fundamentals. All frequencies but the lowest in every subband differs in some extent from an exact transposition. Further, the replicated spectrum contains zeros since the target interval covers a wider frequency range than the source interval. Moreover, the alias cancellation properties of the cosine modulated filter bank vanishes, since the subband signals are separated in frequency in the target interval. That is, neighbouring subband signals do not overlap in the high-band area. However, aliasing reduction methods, known by those skilled in the art, may be used to reduce this type of artifacts. Advantages of this transposition method are ease of implementation, and the very low computational cost.
To achieve perfect transposition of sinusoids, an effective maximally decimated filter bank solution of the improved multiband transposition method is now presented. The system uses an additional modified analysis filter bank, while the synthesis filter bank is cosine modulated as described by Vaidyanathan ["Multirate Systems and Filter Banks" P. P. Vaidyanathan, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1993, ISBN 0-13-605718-7]. The steps for operation, using the improved multiband transposition method according to the present invention, based on maximally decimated filter banks, are shown schematically in
Steps 3 to 6 may be repeated for different values of the transposition factor M, thus adding multiple harmonics to x1(n). This mode of operation is illustrated by the dotted figures of
for every applicable k. In the first iteration of the loop of
s k(n″)=s k(n″)+s k (M
where k=K/Q, K/Q+1, . . . , min(K,Ti)−1. The subband signals sk(n″) are synthesised once with a K-channel filter bank according to step 7.
The modified analysis filter bank of step 4, is derived through the theory of cosine modulated filter banks, where the modulated lapped transform (MLT) ["Lapped Transforms for Efficient Transform/Subband Coding" H. S. Malvar, IEEE Trans ASSP, vol. 38, no. 6, 1990] is a special case. The impulse responses hk(n) of the filters in a T-channel cosine modulated filter bank may be written
where k=0, 1, . . . , T−1, N is the length of the lowpass prototype filter po(n), C is a constant and Φk is a phase-angle that ensues alias cancellation between adjacent channels. The constraints on Φk is
which may be simplified to the closed form expression
With this choice of Φk, perfect reconstruction systems or approximate reconstruction systems (pseudo QMF systems) may be obtained using synthesis filter banks with impulse responses as
where h′k(n) are sine-modulated versions of the prototype filter po(n). The filters H′k(z) and Hk(z) have identical passband supports, but the phase responses differ. The passbands of the filters are actually Hilbert transforms of each other (this is not valid for frequencies close to ω=0 and ω=π). Combining Eq. 19 and Eq. 23 according to
yields filters that have the same shape of the magnitude responses as Hk(z) for positive frequencies but are zero for negative frequencies. Using a filter bank with impulse responses as in Eq. 24 gives a set of subband signals that may be interpreted as the analytic (complex) signals corresponding to the subband signals obtained from a filter bank with impulse responses as in Eq. 19. Analytic signals are suitable for manipulation, since the complex-valued samples may be written in a polar form, that is z(n)=r(n)+j i(n)=|z(n)|exp{j arg(z(n))}. However, when using the complex filter bank for transposition, the constraint on Φk has to be generalised to retain the alias cancellation property. The new constraint on Φk, to ensure alias cancellation in combination with a synthesis filter bank with impulse responses as in Eq. 22 is
which simplifies to Eq. 21 when M=1. With this choice, transposed partials will have the same relative phases as they would have when M=1 (no transposition).
Combining Eq. 24 and Eq. 25 results in
which are the filters used in the modified filter bank of step 4, according to the present invention
Some clarifications concerning step 5: downsampling the complex-valued subband signals by a factor T/M makes them oversampled by M, which is an essential criterion when the phase-angles subsequently are multiplied by the transposition actor M. The oversampling forces the number of subband samples per bandwidth, after transposition to the target range, to equal that of the source range. The individual bandwidths of the transposed subband signals are M times greater than those in the source range, due to the phase-multiplier. This makes the subband signals critically sampled after step 5, and additionally, there will be no zeros in the spectrum when transposing tonal signals.
In order to avoid trigonometric calculations, that is, having to compute die new subband signals as
where |νk (M)(n″)| is the absolute value of νk (M)(n″), the following trigonometric relationship is used:
the computations of step 5 may be accomplished without trigonometric calculations, reducing computational complexity.
When using transpositions where M is even, obstacles with the phase-multiplier may arise, depending n the characteristics of the lowpass prototype filter po(n). All applicable prototype filters have zeros on the unit circle in the z-plane. A zero on the unit circle imposes a 180° shift in the phase response of the filter. For M even, the phase-multiplier translates these shifts to 360° shifts; i.e. the phase-shifts vanish. The partials so located in frequency that such phase-shifts vanish will give rise to aliasing in the synthesised signal. The worst case scenario is when a partial is located at a point in frequency corresponding to the top of the first side lobe of an analysis filter. Depending on the rejection of this lobe in the magnitude response, the aliasing will be more or less audible. As an example, the first side lobe of the prototype filter used in the ISO/MPEG layer 1 and 2 standard is rejected 96 dB, while the rejection is only 23 dB for the first side lobe of the sine-window used in the MDCT scheme of the ISO/MPEG layer 3 standard. It is clear, that this type of aliasing, using the sine-window, will be audible. A solution to this problem will be presented, and is referred to as relative phase locking.
The filters ha k(n) all have linear phase responses. The phase-angles Φk introduce relative phase differences between adjacent channels, and the zeros on the unit circle introduce 180° phase-shifts at locations in frequency that may differ between channels By monitoring the phase-difference between neighbouring subband signals, before the phase-multiplier is activated, it is easy to detect the channels that contain phase-inverted information. Considering tonal signals, the phase-difference is approximately π/2M, according to Eq. 25, for non-inverted signals, and consequently approximately π(1−1/2M) for signals, where either of the signals is inverted. The detection of inverted signals may be accomplished simply by computing the dot product of samples in adjacent subbands as
νk (M)(n″)∘νk+1 (M)(n″)=real{νk (M)(n″)}real{νk+1 (M)(n″)}+imag{νk (M)(n″)}imag{νk+1 (M)(n″)}. (32)
If the product in Eq. 32 is negative, the phase-difference is greater than 90°, and a phase-inversion condition is present. The phase-angles of the complex-valued subband signals are multiplied by M, according to the scheme of step 5, and finally, the inversion-tagged signals are negated. The relative phase locking method thus forces the 180° shifted subband signals to retain this shift after the phase-multiplication, and hence maintain the aliasing cancellation properties.
Spectral Envelope Adjustment
Most sounds, like speech and music, are characterised as products of slowly varying envelopes and rapidly varying carriers with constant amplitude, as described by Stockham ["The Application of Generalized Linearity to Automatic Gain Control" T. G. Stockham, Jr, IEEE Trans. on Audio and Electroacoustics, Vol. AU-16, No. 2, June 1968] and Eq. 1.
In split-band perceptual audio coders, the audio signal is segmented into frames and split into multiple frequency bands using subband filters or a time frequency domain transform. In most codec types, the signal is subsequently separated into two major signal components for transmission or storage, the spectral envelope representation and the normalised subband samples or coefficients. Throughout the following description, the term "subband samples" or "coefficients" refers to sample values obtained from subband filters as well as coefficients obtained from a time-to-frequency transform. The term "spectral envelope" or "scale factors" represent values of the subbands on a time-frame basis, such as the average or maximum magnitude in each subband, used for normalisation of the subband sample. However, the spectral envelope may also be obtained using linear prediction LPC, [U.S. Pat. No. 5,684,920]. In a typical codec, the normalised subband samples require coding at a high bitrate (using approximately 90% of the available bitrate), compared to the slowly varying temporal envelopes, and thus the spectral envelopes, that may be coded at a much-reduced rate (using approximately 10% of the available bitrate).
Accurate spectral envelope of the replicated bandwidth is important if the timbral qualities of the original signal are to be preserved. The perceived timbre of a musical instrument, or voice, is mainly determined by the spectral distribution below a frequency ftim, located in the highest octaves of hearing. The spectral details above ftim are thus of less importance, and consequently the highband fine structures obtained by the above transposition methods require no adjustment, while the coarse structures generally do. In order to enable such adjustment, it is useful to filter the spectral representation of the signal to separate the envelope coarse structure from the fine structure.
In the SBR-1 implementation according to the present invention, the highband coarse spectral envelope is estimated from the lowband information available at the coder. This estimation is performed by continuously monitoring the envelope of the lowband and adjusting the highband spectral envelope according to specific rules. A novel method to accomplish the envelope estimation uses asymptotes in a logarithmic frequency-magnitude space, which is equivalent to curve fitting with polynomials of varying order in the linear space. The level and slope of an upper portion of the lowband spectrum are estimated, and the estimates are used to define the level and slope of one or several segments representing the new highband envelope. The asymptote intersections are fixed in frequency and act as pivot points. However not always necessary, it is beneficial to stipulate constraints to keep the highband envelope excursions within realistic boundaries. An alternative approach to estimation of the spectral envelope is to use vector quantization, VQ, of a large number of representative spectral envelopes, and store these in a lookup-table or codebook. Vector quantization is performed by training the desired number of vectors on a vast amount of training data, in this case audio spectral envelopes. The training is usually done with the Generalised Lloyd Algorithm ["Vector Quantization and Signal Compression" A. Gersho, R. M. Gray, Kluwer Academic Publishers, USA 1992, ISBN 0-7923-9181-0], and yields vectors that optimally cover the contents of the training data. Considering a VQ codebook consisting of A spectral envelopes trained by B envelopes (B>>A), then the A envelopes represent the A most likely transitions from the lowband envelope to the highband envelope, based on B observations of a wide variety of sounds. This is, theoretically, the A optimum rules for predicting the envelope based on the B observations. When estimating anew highband spectral envelope, the original lowband envelope is used to search the codebook and the highband part of the best matching codebook entry is applied to create the new highband spectrum.
In some codecs, it is possible to transmit the scalefactors for the entire spectral envelope while omitting the highband subband samples, as shown in
Transient Response Improvements
Transient related artifacts are common problems in audio codecs, and similar artifacts occur in the present invention. In general, patching generates spectral "zeros" or notches, corresponding to time domain pre- and post-echoes, i.e. spurious transients before and after "true" transients. Albeit the P-blocks "fill in the zeros" for slowly varying tonal signals, the pre- and post-echoes remain. The improved multiband method is intended to work on discrete sinusoids, where the number of sinusoids is restricted to one per subband. Transients or noise in a subband can be viewed as a large number of discrete sinusoids within that subband. This generates intermodulation distortion. These artifacts are considered as additional quantization-noise sources connected to the replicated highband channels during transient intervals. Traditional methods to avoid pre and post-echo artifacts in perceptual audio coders, for example adaptive window switching, may hence be used to enhance the subjective quality of the improved multiband method. By using the transient detection provided by the codec or a separate detector and reducing the number of channels under transient conditions the quantization noise, is forced not to exceed the time-dependent masking threshold. A smaller number of channels is used during transient passages whereas a larger is used during tonal passages. Such adaptive window switching is commonly used in codecs in order to trade frequency resolution for time resolution. Different methods may be used in applications where the filterbank size is fixed. One approach is to shape the "quantization noise" in time via linear prediction in the spectral domain. The transposition is then performed on the residual signal which is the output of the linear prediction filter. Subsequently, an inverse prediction filter is applied to the original- and spectral replicated channels simultaneously. Another approach employs a commander system i.e. dynamic amplitude compression of the transient signal prior to transposition or coding, and a complementary expansion after transposition. It is also possible to switch between transposition methods in a signal dependent manner, for example, a high resolution filterbank transposition method is used for stationary signals, and a time-variant pattern search prediction method is employed for transient signals.
Practical Implementations
Using a standard signal-processor or a powerful PC, real-time operation of a SBR-enhanced codec is possible. The SBR enhanced codec may also be hard-coded on a custom chip. It may also be implemented in various kinds of systems for storage or transmission of signals, analogue or digital, using arbitrary codecs,
The SBR-2 method needs additional modification of the encoder. In
When only very low bitrates are available, (Internet and slow telephone modems, AM-broadcasting etc.) mono coding of the audio program material is unavoidable. In order to improve the perceived quality and make the programme more pleasant sounding, a simple "pseudo-stereo" generator,
The above-described embodiments are merely illustrative for the principles of the present invention for audio source coding improvement. It is understood that modifications and variations of the arrangements and the details described herein will be apparent to others skilled in the art. It is the intent, therefore, to be limited only by the scope of the impending patent claims and not by the specific details presented by way of description and explanation of the embodiments herein.
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|23 Feb 2004
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text:
LONDON (ICIS)--The March European styrene customer reference price has been settled at €1,378/tonne, down €57/tonne from the previous month, the producer involved confirmed on Friday.
The €57/tonne reduction was in line with the barge contract this month.
Softer raw material costs and a weak spot market have weighed down on styrene, although sources expect demand to begin to pick up into April.
The styrene CRP was agreed on a free carrier (FCA) Rotterdam basis.


text:
Indra is the king of the cosmic gods. One time, pride entered into him because,
while he was supreme in Heaven, he began to neglect Prakriti, who is Mother-Earth.
Prakriti was so enraged that she cursed Indra. She said to him, ?You will
lose everything you have?your throne, your kingdom, everything. Even your
Guru, Brihaspati, will curse you.?

When he was cursed by Prakriti, Indra was so sad and depressed. He was literally
sunk in despair. Who should come to him then but his own Guru, Brihaspati,
who is the Guru of all the cosmic gods. Because Indra was so depressed, he
did not show any respect to his Guru; he did not even stand up. Brihaspati
became furious. He said, ?How is it possible for you, of all the cosmic gods,
not to show any respect to me? Do you not know who is standing here? It is
your own Guru! I curse you! You will lose your kingdom, you will lose your
throne, you will lose all your prosperity. Everything you have, you will
lose. You will become a beggar.?

Prakriti?s curse and Brihaspati?s curse came true. Indra became an utter
beggar. Then Brihaspati felt sorry for Indra and he modified his curse a
little. He told Indra, ?After 60,000 years I will restore your kingdom to
you.? So Indra prayed and meditated for 60,000 years and his kingdom was
restored to him. Unfortunately, he discovered that his kingdom was not as
beautiful as it had been previously. His palace needed remodelling and many
other places needed construction. Indra was filled with sadness because his
kingdom did not have its former perfection. So he employed the Heavenly architect,
Vishwakarma, to do the needful.

Vishwakarma worked for many months. The months became years, but still Indra
was not satisfied. He was always finding fault with Vishwakarma?s work. Every
day Vishwakarma had to endure Indra?s scoldings and insults. In addition,
Vishwakarma had no time for his other important work, so he was miserable.

One day Vishwakarma went to Vishnu and said, ?O Vishnu, please save me, save
me! Indra has appointed me to rebuild his kingdom. How hard I have been working
to please him, but he is not satisfied with my work. He only scolds me and
insults me.?

?Let me see what I can do,? answered Vishnu.

Vishnu took the form of a very striking young boy and came before Indra.
?This kingdom is your kingdom?? he asked.

?Definitely it is my kingdom!? said Indra. ?Who else could have such a kingdom?
This is my creation. Since it is beautiful, you are appreciating it.?

?(lacking text in the original)

?What do you mean?? cried Indra. ?You said ?no other Indra? and ?no other
Vishwaharma.? Does that mean there are more Indras and more Vishwakarmas??

?Yes, yes, there are others,? stated the boy. Indra got furious. When he
thought that there was more than one Indra, he lost all interest in his kingdom.
He did not mind at all if there were other Vishwakarmas. But for Indra to
tolerate more Indras was too much.

?I no longer want this kingdom,? said Indra in a sad voice. ?Now what am
I going to do??

Vishnu once more took his own form as a cosmic god. He said to Indra, ?Go
and bathe in the river and you will be purified. After you have been purified,
you will see that your kingdom, your palace and all your possessions are
as beautiful and as perfect as they were before Prakriti cursed you.?

So Indra got back his kingdom and he was completely satisfied.

Sri Chinmoy
Indra Loses His Kingdom
Indra is the king of the cosmic gods. One time, pride entered into him because,


text:
Supermarket busted for ... selling affordable milk
Posted by + Show Post
Louisiana state regulators recently cracked down on a supermarket chain's weekly promotional deal because it was selling milk too cheaply — which violates state law.
The upscale Fresh Markets was selling gallons of milk for $2.99 as part of a weekly promotional deal. Louisiana requires that retailer price markups be at least six percent above the invoice and shipping costs of the product.
"Because milk is a commodity product with regulated costs that are subject to change, at the current cost, due to Louisiana state law, we are unable to honor the $2.99 Tuesday deal for (Fresh Market) milk," according to a statement from Drewry Sackett of BRAVE Public Relations, who represents Fresh Market. "Because the cost of milk fluctuates, it is possible that we will be able to offer the $2.99 deal on milk again in the future."
"They can sell it six percent over cost all day long. It's when they sell it below cost that it becomes a problem," State Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner Mike Strain told The Advocate.
After getting a complaint about Fresh Market's promotional deal, Strain's office sent an auditor to a French Markets store.
At least one Fresh Market shopper was outraged when he found that the state government had intervened to control the store's milk prices.
"Should we do the same thing with bread? Should we do the same thing with soft drinks?" asked Lafayette stockbroker Kenneth Daigle. "If retailers want to take a loss, so be it."
Replies (21-29):
The price of subsidized commodities is regulated. Thank ibdustry lobbyists for that.
Posted on the NEW CafeMom Mobile
by Ruby Member on Jan. 27, 2013 at 8:47 PM
Then all of us, of course!
Quoting Raintree:Quoting SallyMJ:
Yes. You're complicit.
by Member on Jan. 27, 2013 at 11:38 PM
Fascinating.. the law has been around since the 70s and revised in the 80s. Guess it must not be a big deal the locals if it hasn't been overturned by now.
As far as I know it's the same here.
I assumed it was because they wanted to farmers to get a certain amount and no less. But I would have though most places would have a problem with companies charging way too much for it.
Quoting Erinelizz:
"Louisiana requires that retailer price markups be at least six percent above the invoice and shipping costs of the product."
That's messed up, Louisiana. Stores should be able to take a loss if they want to...it's a marketing strategy. I wonder if other states have similar laws for retailers? The only law I'm aware of here in NY is a law that prevents retailers from price gouging.
by Silver Member on Jan. 28, 2013 at 12:08 PM
It costs me about $1200 a year to feed my dairy goats, and they produce roughly 1200 gallons of milk/9600 pounds each year. I use the milk for drinking, making cheese, yogurt, butter, sour cream, and occasionally ice cream. I have enough extra to feed my chickens and pigs milk for half the year (which provides us with eggs, chicken for the freezer, and pork) ~ and cuts my feed costs for both the chickens and pigs. So ~ $1 per gallon (which includes all the listed dairy products), eggs for well under a $1 a dozen, and pork that roughs out to $.89 a pound.
I know not everyone can do this, but I know I won't play their money games ... and I know how little most farmers get as a return (except for the big producers ~ the grass fed/organic operations get squat which is why their end product costs so much more). I only raise what we need, so my costs are much lower. I also don't have any overhead such as expensive barns, planted/maintained pastures, high property taxes, and expensive equipment before any mention of state/federal fees, permits, etc. come into the equation.
The only way to 'fix' this is to take on monsanto and the ag organizations, and they have now amassed so much capital that there really is no way to fix it.
The store should them Make a Coupon for X$ off of the milk.
This way they are Saleing it for the correct price. but a coupon takes some $ off if the person uses one.
I have gotten Smart Balance milk for .50$ a Gal after coupons.
by Silver Member on Jan. 28, 2013 at 3:59 PM
OMG, free market choices, in Obama's America??? Surely you jest...............
Quoting Mommy_of_Riley:
Let them set their own prices...
Children are a blessing and are never inconvenient.............
by Gold Member on Jan. 28, 2013 at 11:21 PM
(I might be wrong and/or over simplifiying this)
But milk as a comodity...if stores don't adhere to the law, then it drives down the prices of the commodity...investors make less $$$....
I don't understand how the gov't can regulate the percentage of profit a store can charge for any product...
Does our gov't mandate the same for ice cream? (a dairy product) cantaloupe? watermelon? bagels? cream cheese? (a dairy product), meats? cereal? shampoo?
Or just commodities?
Below is a partial list of traded commodities...
|5000 bu
|C/ZC (Electronic)
|50 tons
|5000 bu
|O/ZO (Electronic)
|Rough Rice
|2000 cwt
|5000 bu
|S/ZS (Electronic)
|50 tons
|Soybean Meal
|100 short tons
|SM/ZM (Electronic)
|Soybean Oil
|60,000 lb
|BO/ZB (Electronic)
|5000 bu
|W/ZW (Electronic)
|Chicago Mercantile Exchange
|200,000 lbs
|10 tons
|Coffee C
|37,500 lb
|Cotton No.2
|50,000 lb
|Sugar No.11
|112,000 lb
|Sugar No.14
|112,000 lb
|Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice
|15,000 lbs
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text:
Professor Ron McCallum AO elected to UN Committee
4 November 2008
Following his nomination by the Australian Government in September, Sydney Law School is pleased to announce that Professor Ron McCallum AO has now been elected to the United Nations monitoring committee established under the new international Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Professor McCallum is one of 12 experts to this monitoring committee, the first of its kind, to be located at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
"Professor McCallum's election is a great honour for Australia," said Human Rights Commissioner Graeme Innes. "It will further enhance the respect Australia has recently attracted on international human rights issues."
Speaking after the result, Professor McCallum said, "I am truly humbled by this experience."
Professor McCallum is the only Australian currently serving on a UN treaty body.
To read about Professor McCallum's nomination - Professor Ron McCallum AO nominated to United Nations Committee
Contact: Greg Sherington
Phone: +61 2 9351 0202
Email: 7021031757362a212a421b21191b1a0f4d29093e403d0a3445332d


text:
Submitted by 2020 on and last modified on 26 February, 2017
Is anyone currently using VoiceOver with Slingbox on an iOS device? I would like to know about any accessibility issues since I am interested in purchasing the product. I don't have any way of testing the app without first paying for the hardware, and the app as well. Any input you can give would be welcome.