This paper presents our study on the feasibility and effectiveness of using the MELP (Mixed Excitation Linear Prediction) model for coding wideband (7KHz) speech signals at a transmission bit rate of 8kbps. In order to achieve a reasonably good subjective quality for the decoded speech while maintaining a low operating bit rate at the same time, modifications to the pitch estimation, LP analysi...

A wideband speech scalable codec is proposed for improving the flexibility in telecommunication networks. This coder is scalable with G.729 (ITU 8-kbit/s standard). Its decoder can process the incoming bitstream at three bit rates (8, 12, and 16 kbit/s) and provide a choice of speech types (wideband and telephone-band). The codec has a split-band structure, where both bands are coded by analysi...

Maternal mental health is critically important given its impacts on both women's and children's outcomes. Hair cortisol concentrations (HCC) may provide insight into physiological processes underpinning health. This study investigated associations between mothers’ self-reported symptoms their HCC at 1, 2 3 years postpartum. Longitudinal of Australian mothers recruited for experience adversity i...

A continuous record of Pliocene-Pleistocene East African volcanic tephra deposition has been developed from a marine sediment sequence at Ocean Drilling Program Sites 721/722 in the Arabian Sea, some 2000 km distant from Ethiopian source volcanoes. The marine depositional sequence is continuous over the Pliocene-Pleistocene interval, has a wealth of published data addressing regional paleoclima...

W. A. Richter1,2 and B. Alex Brown3 1iThemba LABS, P.O. Box 722, Somerset West 7129, South Africa 2Department of Physics, University of the Western Cape, Private Bag X17, Bellville 7535, South Africa 3Department of Physics and Astronomy, and National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824, USA (Received 21 January 2012; published 16 April 2...

Olive knot disease, caused by the bacterium Pseudomonas savastanoi pv. savastanoi, seriously affects olive trees in the Mediterranean basin. Here, we report the draft genome sequence of P. savastanoi pv. savastanoi DAPP-PG 722, a strain isolated in Italy from an olive plant affected by knot disease.