scholarly journals Masking of low-frequency signals by high-frequency, high-level narrow bands of noise

2011 ◽  
Vol 129 (2) ◽  
pp. 876-887 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harisadhan Patra ◽  
Christina M. Roup ◽  
Lawrence L. Feth
2019 ◽  
Vol 121 (3) ◽  
pp. 1018-1033 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Lee ◽  
J. J. Guinan ◽  
M. A. Rutherford ◽  
W. A. Kaf ◽  
K. M. Kennedy ◽  
...  

Little is known about the spatial origins of auditory nerve (AN) compound action potentials (CAPs) evoked by moderate to intense sounds. We studied the spatial origins of AN CAPs evoked by 2- to 16-kHz tone bursts at several sound levels by slowly injecting kainic acid solution into the cochlear apex of anesthetized guinea pigs. As the solution flowed from apex to base, it sequentially reduced CAP responses from low- to high-frequency cochlear regions. The times at which CAPs were reduced, combined with the cochlear location traversed by the solution at that time, showed the cochlear origin of the removed CAP component. For low-level tone bursts, the CAP origin along the cochlea was centered at the characteristic frequency (CF). As sound level increased, the CAP center shifted basally for low-frequency tone bursts but apically for high-frequency tone bursts. The apical shift was surprising because it is opposite the shift expected from AN tuning curve and basilar membrane motion asymmetries. For almost all high-level tone bursts, CAP spatial origins extended over 2 octaves along the cochlea. Surprisingly, CAPs evoked by high-level low-frequency (including 2 kHz) tone bursts showed little CAP contribution from CF regions ≤ 2 kHz. Our results can be mostly explained by spectral splatter from the tone-burst rise times, excitation in AN tuning-curve “tails,” and asynchronous AN responses to high-level energy ≤ 2 kHz. This is the first time CAP origins have been identified by a spatially specific technique. Our results show the need for revising the interpretation of the cochlear origins of high-level CAPs-ABR wave 1. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Cochlear compound action potentials (CAPs) and auditory brain stem responses (ABRs) are routinely used in laboratories and clinics. They are typically interpreted as arising from the cochlear region tuned to the stimulus frequency. However, as sound level is increased, the cochlear origins of CAPs from tone bursts of all frequencies become very wide and their centers shift toward the most sensitive cochlear region. The standard interpretation of CAPs and ABRs from moderate to intense stimuli needs revision.


2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurent Schmitt ◽  
Jean-Pierre Fouillot ◽  
Gérard Nicolet ◽  
Alain Midol

Opuntia ficus indica (OFI) has many physiological effects, but a relationship between OFI and heart-rate variability (HRV) has never been established. The aim of this study was to describe the effects of a diet supplement of OFI on HRV in athletes. The first day, heart rate (HR) was measured at rest in supine (SU) and standing (ST) positions to analyze HRV in 10 athletes, followed by a randomized assignment to an OFI (5) or placebo (5) group. The next day, the athletes repeated the HRV test. One month later the crossover protocol was applied. In OFI, the high-frequency-activity HFSU (1,773 ± 2,927 vs. 5,856 ± 8,326 ms2, p < .05), HFST (295 ± 313 vs. 560 ± 515 ms2, p < .05), and low-frequency LFSU (1,621 ± 1,795 vs. 6,029 ± 9,007 ms2, p < .01) increased. HRSU (66 ± 13 vs. 57 ± 11 beats/min, p < .01) and HRST (87 ± 11 vs. 76 ± 9 beats/min, p < .01) decreased. A diet supplement of OFI increases HF and LF activities and decreases HR.


Perception ◽  
1997 ◽  
Vol 26 (8) ◽  
pp. 1039-1045 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainer Hoeger

Studies of the microgenesis of perception led to the hypothesis that global aspects of objects are processed faster than their details. If one starts with the assumption that low-frequency information of objects corresponds to the global, and high-frequency information to the local aspects, recognising objects should rely at first on information from the low-frequency channels and afterwards from that of the high-frequency channels. The priming paradigm provides a mean of investigating experimentally the temporal availability of low-frequency and high-frequency information in object perception. In the experiments subjects had to respond to target objects preceded either by related or by unrelated priming stimuli, which consisted of low-pass-filtered and high-pass-filtered versions of the objects. With the influence of stimulus complexity controlled, pictures of objects were chosen that varied in the number of intensity changes in the high-frequency components, with those of the low-frequency components kept constant. The exposure duration of each prime was varied between 40 and 100 ms. The results indicated that target identification only profits more from low-frequency than from high-frequency primes if the high-frequency information has a high level of complexity. If the number of intensity changes in the high-frequency components of the prime is low, target identification is most strongly facilitated. The results are discussed in terms of models which focus on organising principles at different scales.


2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reza Kashani ◽  
Kazim Mirza

Air mounts can provide the highest degree of isolation of any type vibration isolator. Soft-mounting, and thus high level of low-frequency isolation, with system natural frequency as low as 1 Hz can be achieved. Due to their construction, air mounts have negligible damping. Although, this almost undamped nature of air mounts enhances the high-frequency isolation, provisions should be made to address the lack of isolation resulting in excessive body displacements around the resonant frequencies, especially when the system is exposed to shock inputs. While the addition of viscous damping to the air mount is proposed in the literature but it is not recommended in most applications. This is because it deteriorates the mount’s high-frequency isolation performance. Instead, it would be highly desirable to add tuned damping to the mounted system at its resonant frequency (ies). The challenge in doing so, is realizing a damper tunable to a very low frequency and yet not be prohibitively large. A novel tuned damping mechanism is proposed in this paper. It adds damping to an air mount only at the resonant frequency (ies), via a bi-fluid Helmholtz resonator. In an illustrative example the mechanics and mathematics (modeling) of a one and three degree of freedom air mounted systems equipped with a tuned damper, as well as the tuning of such damper are discussed. The example also demonstrates the effectiveness of the air mount with the tuned damper.


2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (16-19) ◽  
pp. 1744079 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xifang Zhu ◽  
Feng Wu ◽  
Tao Wu ◽  
Chunyu Zhao

Cloud obstacles obscure ground information frequently during remote sensing imaging which leads to valuable information losses. Removing clouds from a single image becomes challenging since no reference images containing cloud-free regions are available. In order to study cloud removal technologies and evaluate their performances, a method to simulate evenly and unevenly distributed clouds was proposed by analyzing the physical model of remote sensing imaging. Dual tree complex wavelet transform (DTCWT) and its features were introduced briefly. According to the frequency relationships between clouds and ground objects in remote sensing images, a novel cloud removal algorithm was proposed. The algorithm divided the cloud-contaminated image into low-level high frequency sub-bands, high-level high frequency sub-bands and low frequency sub-band by DTCWT. Low-level high frequency sub-bands were filtered to enhance the ground object information by Laplacian sharpening. The other two types of sub-bands were processed to remove clouds by cloud cover coefficient weighting (CCCW). The experiments were implemented to process cloud disturbed images produced by the proposed simulation method. The results of cloud removal from remote sensing images were analyzed. It proved the proposed algorithm is greatly superior to algorithms based on traditional wavelet transform and dark channel prior.


1995 ◽  
Vol 78 (1) ◽  
pp. 212-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Mukai ◽  
J. Hayano

We investigated the responses of the frequency components of heart rate (HR) and blood pressure (BP) variabilities to progressive changes in autonomic activity induced by the graded head-up tilt technique in 12 normal subjects (age 19–27 yr) under the condition of frequency-controlled respiration (0.25 Hz). During low-level tilt (0–30 degrees), the R-R interval was unchanged and the amplitude of the high-frequency (HF; 0.25 Hz) component of HR variability showed only a slight insignificant decrease. The amplitude of the low-frequency (LF; 0.04–0.15 Hz) component of HR variability increased progressively as the angle increased (P < 0.05). During high-level tilt (30–90 degrees), the R-R interval and the HF amplitude of HR variability decreased progressively with tilt angle (P < 0.001 for both). The LF amplitude of HR variability peaked at a tilt angle of 30 degrees. The LF-to-HF ratio of HR variability and the LF amplitude of systolic and diastolic BP variabilities increased progressively as the tilt angle increased from 0 to 60 degrees (P < 0.001), although systolic and diastolic BPs were unchanged. These results suggest that mixed autonomic responses to orthostatic stress, which are thought to be mediated by both cardiopulmonary and arterial baroreflex mechanisms, can be distinguished by changes in the frequency components of HR and BP variabilities.


Author(s):  
G. Y. Fan ◽  
J. M. Cowley

It is well known that the structure information on the specimen is not always faithfully transferred through the electron microscope. Firstly, the spatial frequency spectrum is modulated by the transfer function (TF) at the focal plane. Secondly, the spectrum suffers high frequency cut-off by the aperture (or effectively damping terms such as chromatic aberration). While these do not have essential effect on imaging crystal periodicity as long as the low order Bragg spots are inside the aperture, although the contrast may be reversed, they may change the appearance of images of amorphous materials completely. Because the spectrum of amorphous materials is continuous, modulation of it emphasizes some components while weakening others. Especially the cut-off of high frequency components, which contribute to amorphous image just as strongly as low frequency components can have a fundamental effect. This can be illustrated through computer simulation. Imaging of a whitenoise object with an electron microscope without TF limitation gives Fig. 1a, which is obtained by Fourier transformation of a constant amplitude combined with random phases generated by computer.


Author(s):  
M. T. Postek ◽  
A. E. Vladar

Fully automated or semi-automated scanning electron microscopes (SEM) are now commonly used in semiconductor production and other forms of manufacturing. The industry requires that an automated instrument must be routinely capable of 5 nm resolution (or better) at 1.0 kV accelerating voltage for the measurement of nominal 0.25-0.35 micrometer semiconductor critical dimensions. Testing and proving that the instrument is performing at this level on a day-by-day basis is an industry need and concern which has been the object of a study at NIST and the fundamentals and results are discussed in this paper.In scanning electron microscopy, two of the most important instrument parameters are the size and shape of the primary electron beam and any image taken in a scanning electron microscope is the result of the sample and electron probe interaction. The low frequency changes in the video signal, collected from the sample, contains information about the larger features and the high frequency changes carry information of finer details. The sharper the image, the larger the number of high frequency components making up that image. Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) analysis of an SEM image can be employed to provide qualitiative and ultimately quantitative information regarding the SEM image quality.


1992 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 52-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gail L. MacLean ◽  
Andrew Stuart ◽  
Robert Stenstrom

Differences in real ear sound pressure levels (SPLs) with three portable stereo system (PSS) earphones (supraaural [Sony Model MDR-44], semiaural [Sony Model MDR-A15L], and insert [Sony Model MDR-E225]) were investigated. Twelve adult men served as subjects. Frequency response, high frequency average (HFA) output, peak output, peak output frequency, and overall RMS output for each PSS earphone were obtained with a probe tube microphone system (Fonix 6500 Hearing Aid Test System). Results indicated a significant difference in mean RMS outputs with nonsignificant differences in mean HFA outputs, peak outputs, and peak output frequencies among PSS earphones. Differences in mean overall RMS outputs were attributed to differences in low-frequency effects that were observed among the frequency responses of the three PSS earphones. It is suggested that one cannot assume equivalent real ear SPLs, with equivalent inputs, among different styles of PSS earphones.


1971 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 527-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman P. Erber

Two types of special hearing aid have been developed recently to improve the reception of speech by profoundly deaf children. In a different way, each special system provides greater low-frequency acoustic stimulation to deaf ears than does a conventional hearing aid. One of the devices extends the low-frequency limit of amplification; the other shifts high-frequency energy to a lower frequency range. In general, previous evaluations of these special hearing aids have obtained inconsistent or inconclusive results. This paper reviews most of the published research on the use of special hearing aids by deaf children, summarizes several unpublished studies, and suggests a set of guidelines for future evaluations of special and conventional amplification systems.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document