Sharif Digital Repository

An HMM-based speech enhancement in Mel-frequency domain is introduced and improved. It is shown that hidden Markov modeling in the Mel-frequency domain is beneficial due to its effective representation of the speech spectrum; however, speech enhancement in this domain requires an inversion from the Mel-frequency to the spectral domain which introduces distortion artifacts for spectrum estimation. To reduce the distortion effects of the inversion and employ the advantages of robustness modeling in the Mel-frequency domain, a parallel cepstral and spectral (PCS) modeling is proposed. In PCS, a concurrent modeling in both cepstral and spectral domains is performed. The performances of the... 

Purpose: Mass-spring-damper (MSD) models are often used for real-time surgery simulation due to their fast response and fairly realistic deformation replication. An improved real time simulation model of soft tissue deformation due to a laparoscopic surgical indenter was developed and tested. Method: The mechanical realization of conventional MSD models was improved using nonlinear springs and nodal dampers, while their high computational efficiency was maintained using an adapted implicit integration algorithm. New practical algorithms for model parameter tuning, collision detection, and simulation were incorporated. Results: The model was able to replicate complex biological soft tissue... 

In this paper, issues related to the identifiability of a fractional order system having its input and output frequency contents are discussed. The effects of the commensurate order α in the identifiability of the model structure and model parameters are analytically studied. It is shown that both identifiabilities (model structure and model parameters) are reduced remarkably for smaller values of α. This phenomenon is observed even though the input signals are rich enough and system belongs to the model set. Our understanding is that the problem arises since differences among different members of the model set fall beyond the practically recognizable precision range. The issue is more... 

Chromatographic method development for preparative targets is a time-consuming and subjective process. This can be particularly problematic because of the use of valuable samples for isolation and the large consumption of solvents in preparative scale. These processes could be improved by using statistical computations to save time, solvent and experimental efforts. Thus, contributed by ESI-MS, after applying DryLab software to gain an overview of the most effective parameters in separation of synthesized celecoxib and its co-eluted compounds, design of experiment software that relies on multivariate modeling as a chemometric approach was used to predict the optimized touching-band... 

Statistical process control provides useful tools to improve the quality of multistage machining processes, specifically in continuous manufacturing lines, where product characteristics are measured at the final station. In order to reduce process errors, variation source identification has been widely applied in machining processes. Although statistical estimation and pattern matching-based methods have been utilized to monitor and diagnose machining processes, most of these methods focus on stage-by-stage inspection using complex models and patterns. However, because of the existence of high rate alarms and the complexity of the machining processes, a surrogate modelling is needed to solve... 

In this study, impact of initial ensembles on posterior distribution of ensemble-based assimilation methods is statistically analyzed. Along with, sampling performance as well as uncertainty quantification of these methods are compared in terms of their ability to accurately and consistently evaluate unknown reservoir model parameters and reservoir future performance. For this purpose, a synthetic test problem, which is a small but highly nonlinear reservoir model under two-phase flow, is utilized. Subsequently, different initial ensemble sets are considered and are updated through the assimilation process performed on the test problem using ensemble-based assimilation methods. Afterwards,... 

The current gold standard for clinical diagnosis of melanoma is excisional biopsy and histopathologic analysis. Approximately 15–30 benign lesions are biopsied to diagnose each melanoma. In addition, biopsies are invasive and result in pain, anxiety, scarring, and disfigurement of patients, which can add additional burden to the health care system. Among several imaging techniques developed to enhance melanoma diagnosis, optical coherence tomography (OCT), with its high-resolution and intermediate penetration depth, can potentially provide required diagnostic information noninvasively. Here, we present an image analysis algorithm, "optical properties extraction (OPE)," which improves the... 

Association mapping of genetic diseases has attracted extensive research interest during the recent years. However, most of the methodologies introduced so far suffer from spurious inference of the associated sites due to population inhomogeneities. In this paper, we introduce a statistical framework to compensate for this shortcoming by equipping the current methodologies with a state-of-the-art clustering algorithm being widely used in population genetics applications. The proposed framework jointly infers the disease-associated factors and the hidden population structures. In this regard, a Markov Chain-Monte Carlo (MCMC) procedure has been employed to assess the posterior probability... 

In recent years, the city of Tehran, Iran's capital, has encountered numerous dust events so that the dust concentration of PM10 has reached even more than 800 μg m−3. This emphasizes the importance of the statistical study of dust in Tehran and the development of correlations for estimating dust concentration of PM10. In the present study, by evaluating the data measured during dust observations over the years 2013–2016 in Tehran, new statistical models are established for estimating PM10 concentration in terms of horizontal visibility and MODIS AOD. Firstly, simple nonlinear regression models between dust concentration of PM10 and horizontal visibility as well as MODIS AOD are developed.... 

The successful design and application of the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) method as a decision-making tool depend on the efficient computation of its order weights. The most popular methods for determining the order weights are the fuzzy linguistic quantifiers approach and the minimal variability method, which give different behavior patterns for the OWA. These two methods will be first analyzed in detail by using sensitivity analysis on the outputs of the OWA with respect to the optimism degree of the decision maker, and then the two methods will be compared. The fuzzy linguistic quantifiers approach gives more information about the behavior of the OWA outputs in comparison to the... 

The depth of anesthesia estimation has been one of the most research interests in the field of EEG signal processing in recent decades. In this paper we present a new methodology to quantify the depth of anesthesia by quantifying the dynamic fluctuation of the EEG signal. Extraction of useful information about the nonlinear dynamic of the brain during anesthesia has been proposed with the optimum Fractal Scaling Exponent. This optimum solution is based on the best box sizes in the Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA) algorithm which have meaningful changes at different depth of anesthesia. The Fractal Scaling Exponent (FSE) Index as a new criterion has been proposed. The experimental results... 

We show that the hydrophobicity of sequences is the leading term in Miyazawa-Jernigan interactions. Being the source of additive (solvation) terms in pair-contact interactions, they were used to reduce the energy parameters while resulting in a clear vector manipulation of energy. The reduced (additive) potential performs considerably successful in predicting the statistical properties of arbitrary structures. The evaluated designabilities of the structures by both models are highly correlated. Suggesting geometrically nondegenerate vectors (structures) as proteinlike structures, the additive model is a powerful tool for protein design. Moreover, a crossing point in the log-linear diagram of... 

In recent years, electromyogram signal (EMG) feature selection, based on wavelet transform, has received considerable attention. This study introduces a new multiwavelet function for surface EMG (sEMG) signal intended for tasks that involve hand movement recognition. To create the new wavelet function, several types of well known mother wavelet were exploited and through their integration the proposed mother wavelet was generated. The proposed wavelet function closely reproduced the characteristics of the EMG signal, while increasing the recognition accuracy of hand movements. We used eight unique classes of hand motions and considered the ability of various mother wavelets and the proposed... 

A diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) -based statistical micromechanical model was developed to study the effect of axonal fiber architecture on the inter- and intra-regional mechanical heterogeneity of the white matter. Three characteristic regions within the white matter, i.e., corpus callosum, brain stem, and corona radiata, were studied considering the previous observations of locations of diffuse axonal injury. The embedded element technique was used to create a fiber-reinforced model, where the fiber was characterized by a Holzapfel hyperelastic material model with variable dispersion of axonal orientations. A relationship between the fractional anisotropy and the dispersion parameter of... 

A signaling pathway is a sequence of proteins and passenger molecules that transmits information from the cell surface to target molecules. Understanding signal transduction process requires detailed description of the involved pathways. Several methods and tools resolved this problem by incorporating genomic and proteomic data. However, the difficulty of obtaining prior knowledge of complex signaling networks limited the applicability of these tools. In this study, based on the simulation of signal flow in signaling network, we introduce a method for determining dominant pathways and signal response to stimulations. The model uses topology-weighted transit compartment approach and comprises... 

A novel second-order-statistics-based sequential blind extraction algorithm for blind extraction of quasi-periodic signals, with time-varying period, is introduced in this paper. Source extraction is performed by sequentially converging to a solution that effectively diagonalizes autocorrelation matrices at lags corresponding to the time-varying period, which thereby explicitly exploits a key statistical nonstationary characteristic of the desired source. The algorithm is shown to have fast convergence and yields significant improvement in signal-to-interference ratio as compared to when the algorithm assumes a fixed period. The algorithm is further evaluated on the problem of separation of... 

Background: Sudden trunk perturbations occur in various occupational and sport activities. Despite numerous measurement studies, no comprehensive modeling simulations have yet been attempted to investigate trunk biodynamics under sudden loading/unloading. Methods: Dynamic kinematics-driven approach was used to evaluate the temporal variation of trunk muscle forces, internal loads and stability before and after a sudden release of a posterior horizontal load. Measured post-disturbance trunk kinematics, as input, and muscle electromyography (EMG) activities, for qualitative validation, were considered. Findings: Computed agonist and antagonist muscle forces before and after release agreed well... 

Background: Oral rehydration solution (ORS) is a form of oral rehydration therapy (ORT) for diarrhoea that has the potential to drastically reduce child mortality; yet, according to UNICEF estimates, less than half of children younger than 5 years with diarrhoea in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) received ORS in 2016. A variety of recommended home fluids (RHF) exist as alternative forms of ORT; however, it is unclear whether RHF prevent child mortality. Previous studies have shown considerable variation between countries in ORS and RHF use, but subnational variation is unknown. This study aims to produce high-resolution geospatial estimates of relative and absolute coverage of... 

The main problem with airway segmentation methods which significantly influences their accuracy is leakage into the extra-luminal regions due to thinness of the airway wall during the process of segmentation. This phenomenon potentially makes large regions of lungparenchyma to be wrongly identified as airways. A solution to this problem in the previous methods was based on leak detection followed by reducing leakage during the segmentation process. This has been dealt with adjusting the segmentation parameters and performing the re-segmentation process on the pre-segmented area. This makes the algorithm very exhaustive and more dependent on the user interaction. The method presented here is... 

Surface Electromyogram signal collected from the surface of skin is a biopotential signal that may be influenced by different types of noise. This is a considerable drawback in the processing of the sEMG signals. To acquire the clean sEMG that contains useful information, we need to detect and eliminate these unwanted parts of signal. In this work, a new method based on wavelet thresholding technique is presented which provides an acceptable purified sEMG signal. sEMG signals for this study are extracted for various hand movements. We use three hand movements to calculate the near optimal estimation parameters. In this work two types of thresholding techniques, namely Stein unbiased risk...