This paper proposes a two microphone-based source localization technique for multiple speech sources utilizing speech specific properties and novel clustering algorithms. Voiced speech is sparse in ...the frequency domain and can be represented by sinusoidal tracks via sinusoidal modeling which provides high local signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). By utilizing the inter-channel phase differences (IPDs) between the dual channels on the sinusoidal tracks, the source localization of the mixed multiple speech sources is turned into a clustering problem on the IPD versus frequency plot. The generalized mixture decomposition algorithm (GMDA) is used to cluster the groups of points corresponding to multiple sources and thus estimate the direction of arrival (DOA) of the sources. Experiments illustrate the proposed GMDA algorithm with the Laplacian noise model can estimate the number of sources accurately and exhibits smaller DOA estimation error than the baseline histogram based DOA estimation algorithm in various scenarios including reverberant and additive white noise environments. Experiments suggest that appropriate power thresholding can be a simple and good approximation to the sinusoidal modeling, for the purpose of selecting time-frequency points with high local SNR, with slight loss in performance.
Accurate and loss-free extraction of human echo signals from the hidden environment is of great importance in military, disaster relief and medical fields, and is also a hot spot for research in the ...related field of radar through walls. When detecting human targets through walls, noise and hidden environment objects such as walls tend to attenuate electro-magnetic waves to a large extent, which leads to the inability of radar to detect human targets accurately. In this paper, in order to remove the interference of wall echo and environmental noise from the echo signal, a pre-processing method of human echo signal of through-wall radar with improved PCA and MTI fusion algorithm is proposed. Firstly, SVD is used to pre-process the simulated noise-plus-interference echo signal, and then it is verified by the actual collected data, and the simulation results are more satisfactory, but the interference from the wall cannot be completely removed in practical application. In response to the above problem, the improved PCA and MTI fusion algorithm was used for pre-processing, and the simulation results and actual data showed that the ambient noise was suppressed and the wall interference was also removed.
The aim of the current study is to investigate the importance of monitoring and employee control for employees’ felt trust, as well as felt trust as a mediating variable between monitoring and ...control, intrinsic motivation and mastery. A random sample of 3015 Norwegian employees was analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling. Monitoring was negatively related to employees’ felt trust, while employees’ control over decisions was related to higher felt trust. In turn, felt trust was related to employees’ intrinsic motivation and experience of mastery. Felt trust also partially mediated the relationship between employee control and intrinsic motivation, employee control and mastery, and entirely mediated the relationship between monitoring and intrinsic motivation and monitoring and mastery. The findings highlight the importance of felt trust for theory related to the workplace: Our findings support that employees are less intrinsically motivated if they are monitored because they feel less trusted.
The concept of coworkership is widely established as a top-down communication strategy within organizations. However, interpretations may differ between organizational levels, and the employees’ ...point of view is still largely unexplored. The aim of this study was to explore and describe conceptions of coworkership among employees with different professions in a Swedish health care organization. Twelve focus group interviews were conducted with 68 employees, and the data were analyzed using phenomenography. Coworkership was experienced as a collective process, which included colleagues but not explicitly managers. Five categories emerged, representing different conceptions of coworkership: group coherence and striving toward a common goal, cooperation over professional and organizational boundaries, work experience and trusting each other’s competence, social climate and sense of community, and participation and influence. The collective process in terms of cooperation is closely related to team climate, which in turn influences the quality of patient care and a health-promoting work environment.
Web-based Collaborative Working Environments intend to support collaborations between users by integrating and offering different collaborative tools. However, this makes it difficult for users to ...manage and find useful resources to advance their collaborations, which are stored distributively within these tools. This raises an issue: how to manage these resources and identify useful ones for users. In our research, we intend to consider a web-based Collaborative Working Environment as an ontology-based System of Information Systems and to apply a collaboration context ontology that can manage and recommend resources to users within the context of collaboration. In this paper, we present a prototype of such environments and show how context-aware resource recommendations can be generated.
L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry is very successful for mapping ground deformation in densely vegetated regions. However, due to its larger wavelength, the capacity to detect slow ...deformation over a short period of time is limited. Stacking and small baseline subset (SBAS) techniques are routinely used to produce time series of deformation and average deformation rates by reducing the contribution of topographic and atmospheric noise. For large sets of images that are presently available from C-band European Remote Sensing Satellites (ERS-1/2) and Environmental Satellite (ENVISAT), the standard stacking and SBAS algorithms are accurate. However, the same algorithms are often inaccurate when used for processing of interferograms from L-band Advanced Land Observing Satellite Phased Array type L-band SAR (ALOS PALSAR). This happens because only a limited number of interferograms is acquired and also because of large spatial baselines often correlated with the time of acquisition. In this paper two techniques are suggested that can be used for removing the residual topographic component from stacking and SBAS results, thereby increasing their accuracy.
Every software system has architecture. The architecture strongly influences the software system's properties, including maintainability and runtime properties such as performance and reliability. By ...describing the architecture in models, we can make the architecture explicit. Developers typically use software architecture models at design time to capture the significant decisions about a software system's organization and to describe and establish a common understanding about the system's abstract properties. In the MADAM (mobility- and adaptation-enabling middleware) project, we aim to facilitate adaptive application development for mobile computing. We follow an architecture-centric approach where we represent architecture models at runtime to allow generic middleware components to reason about and control adaptation.
The Oxford Handbook of Meaningful Work examines the concept, practices, and effects of meaningful work in organizations and beyond. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, this volume reflects diverse ...scholarly contributions to understanding meaningful work from philosophy, political theory, psychology, sociology, organizational studies, and economics. In philosophy and political theory, treatments of meaningful work have been influenced by debates concerning the tensions between work as unavoidable and necessary, and work as a source of self-realization and human flourishing. This tension has come into renewed focus as work is reshaped by technology, globalization, and new forms of organization. In management studies, much empirical work has focused on meaningful work from the perspective of positive psychology, but more recent research has considered meaningful work as a complex phenomenon, socially constructed from interactive processes between individuals, and between individuals, organizations, and society. This Handbook examines meaningful work in the context of moral and pragmatic concerns such as dignity, alienation, freedom, organizational ethics, and corporate social responsibility. Representing some of the most up-to-date academic research, the collection illuminates the relationship of meaningful work to organizational constructs of identity, belonging, callings, self-transcendence, culture, and occupations. Researchers and practitioners will be inspired and equipped to identify new directions and methods with which to deepen scholarly inquiry into a topic of growing importance.
Aim: This study was conducted to determine the level of fungal contamination of the air in bakeries to assess health hazards for workers. Materials and Methods: Six bakeries producing traditionally ...baked goods were selected for the study. After a background survey, samples of exhaled air were collected to test for fungal aerosols. The inhalable and respirable fraction in the bakery air environment was measured by the gravimetric method. Statistical Analysis Used: All data analyses were performed using Statistica software (v 8.0). Results: The mean concentration of fungi and particles in the bakeries did not exceed the recommended levels. The air in the bakeries had a low level of microbial contamination. The identified fungi included biological agents from hazard group 2. Conclusions: Proper employee training and the introduction of preventive measures (including both individual and group protection) can significantly reduce employees' exposure and thus their occupational risk.
This article deals with one part of the ongoing project of the Air transport department of the University College of Business in Prague. This project aims to apply modern trends and knowledge in the ...process of detection checks at airports and thus to modify the screening sites on the basis of this knowledge. Partial goals of the project are behavioural detection and working environment. The text of the article itself deals with the boundary conditions of the project - about limits. These limits mainly concern the absence of the necessary legislative base in the EU. The aim of this article is to highlight important and rigorous marginal conditions in this area that do not allow innovative approaches to most scientific and other projects. That is why the project team of aimed at one of the outputs of the project also proposal for the direction of research activities in this sphere of civil aviation protection against unlawful acts. This article deals with this recommendation.
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