1,115 research outputs found
Effects of reverberation and amplification on sound localisation
No full textCommunication often takes place in reverberant spaces making it harder for listeners to understand speech. In such difficult environments, listeners would benefit from being able to locate the sound source. In noisy or reverberant environments hearing-aid wearers often complain that their aids do not sufficiently help to understand speech or to localise a sound source. Simple amplification does not fully resolve the problem and sometimes makes it worse. Recent improvements in hearing aids, such as compression and filtering, can significantly alter the Interaural Time Difference (ITD) and the Inter-aural Level Difference (ILD) cues. Digital signal processing also tends to restrict the availability of fine structure cues, thereby forcing the listener to rely on envelope and level cues. The effect of digital signal processing on localisation, as felt by hearing aid wearers in different listening environments, is not well investigated. In this thesis, we aimed to investigate the effect of reverberation on localisation performance of normal hearing and hearing impaired listeners, and to determine the effects that hearing aids have on localisation cues. Three sets of experiments were conducted: in the first set (n=22 normal hearing listeners) results showed that the participants’ sound localisation ability in simulated reverberant environments is not significantly different from performance in a real reverberation chamber. In the second set of four experiments (n=16 normal hearing listeners), sound localisation ability was tested by introducing simulated reverberation and varying signal onset/offset times of different stimuli – i.e. speech, high-pass speech, low-pass speech, pink noise, 4 kHz pure tone, and 500 Hz pure tone. In the third set of experiments (n=28 bilateral Siemens Prisma 2 Pro hearing aid users) we investigated aided and unaided localisation ability of hearing impaired listeners in anechoic and simulated reverberant environments. Participants were seated in the middle of 21 loudspeakers that were arranged in a frontal horizontal arc (180°) in an anechoic chamber. Simulated reverberation was presented from four corner-speakers. We also performed physical measurements of ITDs and ILDs using a KEMAR simulator. Normal hearing listeners were not significantly affected in their ability to localise speech and pink noise stimuli in reverberation, however reverberation did have a significant effect on localising a 500 Hz pure tone. Hearing impaired listeners performed consistently worse in all simulated reverberant conditions. However, performance for speech stimuli was only significantly worse in the aided conditions. Unaided hearing impaired listeners showed decreased performance in simulated reverberation, specifically, when sounds came from lateral directions. Moreover, low-pass pink noise was most affected by simulated reverberation both in aided and unaided conditions, indicating that reverberation mainly affects ITD cues. Hearing impaired listeners performed significantly worse in all conditions when using their hearing aids. Physical measurements and psychoacoustic experiments consistently indicated that amplification mainly affected the ILD cues. We concluded that reverberation destroys the fine structure ITD cues in sound signals to some extent, thereby reducing localisation performance of hearing impaired listeners for low frequency stimuli. Furthermore we found that hearing aid compression affects ILD cues, which impairs the ability of hearing impaired listener to localise a sound source. Aided sound localisation could be improved for bilateral hearing aid users, if the aids would synchronize compression between both sides
The National Redress Scheme
No full textPublished by BenchTV, The National Redress Scheme features Angela Sdrinis, Director of Angela Sdrinis Legal, in discussion with Dr. Hadeel Al-Alosi, lecturer, Western Sydney University. The video can be accessed via: https://benchtv.com.au/angela-sdrinis
Submission on discussion paper to explore the scope for reforming Australian contract law
No full textLetter to the Business Law Branch of the Attorney-General’s Department, Barton, A.C.T. addressing four issues in the discussion paper “Improving Australia’s Law and Justice Framework”. The authors of the letter are Lyria Bennett Moses and Hadeel Al-Alosi who wrote on behalf of the Cyberspace Law and Policy Centre
The criminalisation of fictional child pornography under Australia's child abuse material legislation
No full textDr Tony Krone, Associate Professor - University of Canberra, ACT, in discussion with Dr Hadeel Al-Alosi, Lecturer - Western Sydney University, Sydney.
Discussion includes: Definition of child abuse material topic -- US position on child exploitation material topic -- Cases in which people have been prosecuted for animated of fictional depictions of children -- If Australia had a Bill of Rights protecting freedom of expression, would fictional child pornography be legal in Australia? How are children affected by the child abuse material legislation? -- Summary of issues
Exploring contextual and individual factors that shape English language teachers’ perceptions and experiences around professional development programmes in a Saudi female university context: The role of professional identity, agency, and emotions
No full textUnderstanding teacher identity is an essential aspect of teacher development (Cross, 2006), and there is consensus that a teacher's professional identity is influenced by internal factors, such as tensions and emotions, and by external factors, such as context and experiences, placing teacher identity in a position of constant change (Nguyen, 2017; Pillen et al., 2013; Subryan, 2017). Emotions constitute an essential element of teachers’ work and identity, and have a significant effect on identity and its shaping (Hargreaves, 2001; Nias, 1996; Sutton & Wheatley, 2003). The concept of agency is also embedded in considerations of teacher identity and emotion (Vloet and van Swet, 2010), especially in contexts characterised by mandatory professional development practices and restrictive classroom policies, as is the case in this research context. Teacher education programmes play a crucial role in shaping teachers’ agency, and can be integrated into identity performances and constructions (Lai et al., 2016; Lasky, 2005; Priestley et al., 2012), and professional development is a prominent and institutionalised element of the context investigated in this study. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the role and impact of professional development in the environment in which these teachers operate, and this is explored in relation to teachers' professional identity, agency, and emotions.This study investigates Saudi teachers working in the English Language Institute at King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia, where professional development and educational policies play a distinctive role in student and educator experiences. It aims to provide a holistic, phenomenological account of the intersecting elements that are influential in this educational context. To supplement the phenomenological methodological framework, I drew on Bucholtz and Hall’s (2010) identity framework, Wenger’s (1998) conceptualisation of trajectory in communities of practice, and Lazarus’s (1991) emotion’s theory to provide a theoretical and analytical focus for the study. The method for this phenomenological qualitative study involved observation of professional development training, and narrative and semi-structured interviews of six female English language Saudi teachers.The findings provide valuable insights into how teacher identity is shaped and reshaped by teachers positioning themselves in relation to different elements within the context, indexed particularly through metaphors, and through processes of distinction from and adequation towards others. The findings demonstrate the influence of context, culture, and individual positioning on teacher identity, agency, and emotions, as well as the effect of agency and emotions on teacher identity. This effect is not a one-way process, and should instead be seen as an interrelationship between teachers’ identity, agency and emotions, and this interaction is what constructs and reconstructs teacher identity over time. Overall, this study contributes to our knowledge of how university English language teachers, operating in a context where professional development and policy play distinctive and dominant roles, operate with their own cultures, roles, and expectations, enabling them to engage with both restrictive and developmental practices in different and unexpected ways. Themes around relationality and roles show how teachers respond, often consciously, to different stimuli that require them to negotiate and align elements of their identities, emotions, and agency, which is not always easy and is characterised by change over time. This occurs in ways that require cultural awareness and qualitative insights to understand and interpret. <br/
Comparative studies of bioethanol fuel production and engine emission from different rotten fruits biomasses / Hadeel Mustafa Al-Yamani
No full textThe unsustainable energy resources like fossil fuel are going to be depleted in the next few
decades and the trends in biofuel production from biomass are gaining popularity to encounter
the expected energy crisis in the world. Ethanol is the most widely used liquid biofuel and is
produced as a result of fermentation process from sugars, starches or cellulosie biomass including
fruit wastes. In this study rotten rambutan, mango, banana and pineapple fruits were utilized for
bioethanol production.
Rotten fruits were used to produce bioethanol by fermentation using yeast (Saccromyces
cerevisiae ). Different parameters including pH, TSS, glucose concentration, retention time and
ethanol production at different temperatures were studied. In addition to this, the study also
encompassed parameters such as parts of the fruits, optimum yeast concentration, enzymatic
digestion to facilitate the fermentation. A comparative study was made to compre the production
of biofuel from rambutan, mango, apple and banana. The highest bioethanol production was
obtained from experiments using 4g/L of yeast for 2 days producing bioethanol 9.4 (v/v)%. A
detailed analysis was made regarding reducing sugar contents using digital refrectometer, and
total soluble solid (TSS) were found to reduce after fermentation. The pH of the experimental
mixture was found to decrease as a result of the conversion of waste fruits into bioethanol. The
produced bioethanol was also subjected to a detailed chemical analysis of metal content (Fe, Pb,
Cu, Na, Mg, Ca, etc). The bioethanol obtained as a result of fermentation was subjected to an
engine test using multicylinder Proton Gen 2 engine and it revealed a remarkable reduction in the
production of hazardous gases (NOX) in the blends of bioethanol (E10, E5). The optimum values
for the parameters investigated were found to be 30°C, yeast concentration of 4g/L, pH 5-5.8 for
rotten fruit as compared to fresh fruit at fermentation time of 48 hours. In the enzymatic study using rotten fruits, commercial cellulase and amylase were used to hydrolyze the carbohydrates
into simple sugars which were then utilized by the yeast to produce bioethanol. The bioethanol
produced from rotten rambutan fruit was found to be of high quality, which can be utlized as a
fuel in the engine and met the ASTM standards with regards to emission standards, viscosity and
metal content. Hence, it is concluded that good quality bioethanol can be produced using rotten
rambutan, mango, banana and pineapple
sj-docx-1-smo-10.1177_20503121211059682 – Supplemental material for Folic acid awareness and usage among females at Saudi Electronic University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
No full textSupplemental material, sj-docx-1-smo-10.1177_20503121211059682 for Folic acid awareness and usage among females at Saudi Electronic University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia by Mohammed AL-Mohaithef, Hadeel Alaslani, Nargis Begum Javed and Sriram Chandramohan in SAGE Open Medicine</p
Group Decision Making Model for Evolution and Benchmarking Explosive Ordnance Risk Education (EORE) Messages in Iraq Based on Distance Measurement and Spherical Fuzzy Set
No full textExplosive Ordnance Risk Education Messages (EORE) is a multi-criteria decision-making problem (MCDM) based on three steps, namely, the identification of distinct evolution criteria, the significance criteria, and the variation of data. Because it makes use of a more sophisticated classification technique, the group decision method (GDM) based on weighted arithmetic mean (AM) to prioritize (EORE) messages is the proper approach. In contrast to GDM, which explicitly weights each criterion, GDM implicitly weights each alternative\u27s criterion values. With the help of the new hybrid method weighting technique, we can overcome this theoretical difficulty by providing explicit weights for criteria generated with zero inconsistencies and combined with the new distance-based weighting method. SFS (spherical fuzzy set) is used in hybrid methods, although it can only be used to solve the ambiguity associated with the theoretical concerns outlined above
Smart Irrigation System Based on Solar Cells
No full textAn effective irrigation system will be designed to contribute to the low cost of energy using solar energy from irrigation systems in arable and desert lands in an eco-friendly manner. The project involves the construction of an independent network system that is fully solar-powered. The DC pump is operated through the energy produced by the solar cells to pump water from the water source (Well or groundwater) to a high reservoir, for use in the process of irrigating the plants by the valve on the outlet of the tank, Where the valve is connected using Arduino and humidity and heat sensors to control the flow of water from the reservoir to the field. Batteries are used to store day-to-day energy for use in controller and sensor feeds or in small DC loads
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