This paper presents HE-AAC decoder optimization on TMS320C55x fixed-point DSP core using a DSP-C like FFR code, which provides fast and flexible porting to a DSP core. Our optimization efforts are focused on methodologies that include general optimization methods of FFR code suitable for general DSP or RISC platform in high-level language and software optimization methods in assembly language level. The implementation result requires 48 MIPS and 135 Kbytes memory space to decode 48 Kbps stereo using real Korean S-DMB data.

Blind signal separation is known as a powerful tool for enhancing noisy speech in many real world environments. In this paper, it is demonstrated that the performance of blind signal separation can be further improved by combining with a null beamformer (NBF). Cascading the blind source separation with null beamforming is equivalent to the decomposition of the received signals into the direct parts and reverberant parts. Investigation of beam patterns of the null beamformer and blind signal separation reveals that directional null of NBF reduces mainly direct parts of the unwanted signals whereas blind signal separation reduces reverberant parts. Further, it is shown that the decomposition of received signals can be exploited to solve the local stability problem. Therefore, faster and improved separation can be obtained by removing the direct parts first by null beamforming. Simulation results using real office recordings confirm the expectation.

A new normalized MBD algorithm is presented for nonstationary convolutive mixtures and its properties/modifications are discussed in details. The proposed algorithm normalizes the signal spectrum in the frequency domain to provide faster stable convergence and improved separation without whitening effect. Modifications such as nonholonomic constraints and off-diagonal learning to the proposed algorithm are also discussed. Simulation results using a real-world recording confirm superior performanceof the proposed algorithm and its usefulness in real world applications.

In this paper, we suggest a noise estimation method for speech enhancement in nonstationary noisy environments. The proposed method consists of the following two main processes. First, in order to receive fewer affect of variable signals, a best fitting regression line is used, which is obtained by applying a least squares method to coefficient magnitudes in a node with a uniform wavelet packet transform. Next, in order to update the noise estimation efficiently, a differential forgetting factor and a correlation coefficient per subband are used, where subband is employed for applying the weighted value according to the change of signals. In particular, this method has the ability to update the noise estimation by using the estimated noise at the previous frame only, without utilizing the statistical information of long past frames and explicit nonspeech frames by voice activity detector. In objective assessments, it was observed that the performance of the proposed method was better than that of the compared (minima controlled recursive averaging, weighted average) methods. Furthermore, the method showed a reliable result even at low SNR.

Human, horse and rat bloods in a cylindrical chamber where flow was controlled by a stirring magnet were used for studying red blood cell aggregation. Ultrasound backscattered powers from blood were obtained from the backscattered signals measured by a 5 MHz focused transducer in a pulse-echo setup. The experimental results showed the differences in red blood cell (RBC) aggregation tendency among the three mammalian species with an order of horse > human > rat. The ultrasound backscattered power decreased with stirring speed in human and horse blood, but no variations were observed in rat blood. Sudden flow stoppage led to the slow increase of the backscattered power for human and horse blood. There was no self-aggregation tendency in rat blood. The enveloped echo images showed the spatial and temporal variations of RBC aggregations in the cylindrical chamber. These observations from the different mammalian species may give a better understanding of the mechanism of RBC aggregation.