• Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.39-51
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• 2008

Formant measurements are one of the most important factors to objectively test cross-linguistic differences among vowels produced by speakers of any given languages. However, many speech analysis softwares present erroneous estimates and some researchers use them without any verification procedures. The purposes of this paper are to examine formant measurements of complex waves which were synthesized from the average formant values of five Korean vowels using three default methods in Praat and to verify the measured values of the five vowels produced by 20 students using one of the methods. Variances along the time axis are discussed after determining absolute difference sum from the 1/3 vowel duration point. Results show that there were smaller measurement errors by the burg method. Also, greater errors were observed in the sl or lpc methods mostly caused by the inappropriate formant settings. Formant measurement deviations were greater in those vowels produced by the female students than those of the male students, which were mostly attributed to the settings for the vowels /o, u/. Formant settings can best be corrected by changing the number of formants to the number of visible dark bands on the spectrogram. Those results suggest that researchers should check the validity of the estimates from the speech analysis software. Further studies are recommended on the perception test of the original sound with the synthesized sound by the estimated formant values.

• MALSORI
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• no.37
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• pp.73-85
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• 1999

The prosodic characteristics of Korean particles in read speech were examined in this paper based on K-ToBI labeling system in order to see whether they are prosodically weak form like functions words in English. Acoustic measurements and statistical analysis were done focusing on the distribution of particles over a variety of prosodic positions, prosodic positional effects on the phonetic realization of particles, and acoustic strength of particles compared to those of their surrounding syllables. The panicles were distributed rather equally over all 4 prosodic positions with the highest frequency at IP-medial/AP-final position and the lowest at IP-medial/AP-medial position except that topic marker 'Un/nUn' showed preference for IP-final/AP-final position. There was a significant prosodic positional effect on the duration and F0 of the particles. Duration was the longest at IP-final/AP-final position and interestingly, at IP-medial/AP-medial position while F0 was the highest at IP-final/AP-medial Position as expected. The comparison of the acoustic properties of the particles with those of neighbor syllables showed that duration was generally significantly longer and energy also showed larger values, if not significant, in particles suggesting that the particles in Korean are not prosodically weaker like function words in English.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.3-9
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• 2009

Acoustically English vowels are defined primarily by formant values. The measurements of the values have been usually made at a few time points of the vowel segment despite the fact that the majority of English vowel formants vary dynamically throughout the segment. This study attempts to collect acoustic data of the nine English vowels published by Hillenbrand et al. (1995) online and to examine the acoustic features of the English vowels for phoneticians and English teachers. The author used Praat to obtain the data systematically at six equidistant timepoints over the vowel segment. Obvious errors were corrected based on the spectrographic display of each vowel. Results show that the first two formant trajectories are important to separate the nine vowels within the front- or back-vowel groups. The third formant trajectories appear comparable except those of the high vowels. Second, the back vowels leave longer traces on the vowel space toward the locus of the following consonant /d/. Third, each vowel has inherent duration, pitch, and intensity patterns. The results match the findings of Yang (2009). From the results, the author concludes that dynamic spectral changes are important in specifying acoustic characteristics of English vowels. Further studies on the application of the vowel trajectories to English pronunciation lessons or on perceptual experiment of synthesized vowels are desirable.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.37-46
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• 2010

This study investigates acoustic characteristics of English and Korean voiceless sibilant fricatives as they appear before the three vowels, /i/, /$\alpha$/ and /u/. Three measurements - duration, center of gravity and major spectral peak - are employed to compare acoustic properties and vowel effect for each fricative sound. This study also investigates the question of whether Korean sibilant fricatives are acoustically similar to the English voiceless alveolar fricative /s/ or to the palato-alveolar /$\int$/. The results show that in the duration of frication noise, English /$\int$/ is the longest and Korean lax /s/ the shortest of the four sounds. It is also observed that English alveolar /s/ has the highest value, whereas Korean /s/ shows the lowest value in the frequency of center of gravity. In terms of major spectral peak, while English /s/ reveals the highest frequency, English /$\int$/ shows the lowest value. In addition, evidence indicates that there is a strong vowel effect in the fricative sounds of both languages, although the vowel effect patterns of the two languages are inconsistent. For instance, in the major spectral peak, both Korean lax /s/ and tense /$s^*$/ show significantly higher frequencies before the vowel /$\alpha$/ than before the other vowels, whereas both English /s/ and /$\int$/ exhibit significantly higher frequencies before the vowel /i/ than before the other vowels. These results indicate that Korean sibilant fricatives are acoustically distinct from both English /s/ and /$\int$/.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.53-53
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• 2003

For evaluating the feasibility of treating recurrent lesions in the vaginal cuff and cervix by hyperthermia, ultrasound applicators were designed, constructed, and characterized. For the treatment A half-cylindrical transducer Cd=1cm, length=lcm) and cylindrical transducer (d=2.5cm, length= 1.5cm) were used to construct ovoid type and cylindrical applicators. For the ovoid type applicator, each element was operated at 1.5MHz and characterized by measuring transducer efficiency and acoustic power distribution. Thermocouple probes were used to measure the temperature rise in phantom. The element sizes used in this study were selected to be comparable for high dose rate brachytherapy colpostat applicator. Each element was powered separately to achieve a desired temperature pattern in a target. The acoustic output power as a function of applied electric power of the element 1 and 2 was linear over this 1 to 40 W range and efficiencies were 32.2${\pm}$3.4% and 46.2${\pm}$0.8%, respectively. The temperature measurements in phantom showed that 6$^{\circ}C$ temperature rise was achieved at 2 cm from the applicator surface. As a conclusion, the ability of the ultrasound colpostat applicator to be used for hyperthermia was demonstrated by measuring acoustic output power, ultrasound field distribution, and temperature rise in phantom. Based on the characteristics of this applicator, it has the potential to be useful for inducing hyperthermnia to the vaginal cuff in clinic.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.310-318
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• 2004

For many industrial problems originating from aerodynamic noise, noise prediction techniques, reliable and easy to apply, would be of great value to engineers and manufacturers. General algorithm is presented for the prediction of internal flow-induced noise from quick opening throttle valve in an automotive engine. This algorithm is based on the integral formula derived by using the General Green Function, Lighthill's acoustic analogy and Curle's extension of Lighthill's. Novel approach of this algorithm is that the integral formula is so arranged as to predict frequency-domain acoustic signal at any location in a duct by using unsteady flow data in space and time, which can be provided by the Computational Fluid Dynamics Techniques. This semi-analytic model is applied to the prediction of internal aerodynamic noise from a throttle valve in an automotive engine. The predicted noise levels from the throttle valve show good agreement with actual measurements. The results show that the dipole noise is dominant in this phenomena and the origin of noise sources is attributed to the anti-vortex lines formed in the down-stream from a throttle valve. This illustrative computation shows that the current method permits generalized predictions of flow noise generated by bluff bodies and turbulence in flow ducts.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.53-61
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• 2011

The present work is a follow-up study to that of Han, Choi, Lim and Lee (2011), where an asymmetry in the source segments eliciting the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit (ISIB) was found such that the vowels which did not match any vowel of the Korean language were likely to elicit more ISIB than matched vowels. In order to identify the source of the stronger ISIB in non-matched vowels, acoustic analyses of the stimuli were performed. Two pairs of English front vowels [i] vs. [I], and $[{\varepsilon}]$ vs. $[{\ae}]$ were recorded by English native talkers and two groups of Korean learners according to their English proficiency, and then their vowel duration and the frequencies of the first two formants (F1, F2) were measured. The results demonstrated that the non-matched vowels such as [I], and $[{\ae}]$ produced by Korean talkers seemed to show more deviated acoustic characteristics from those of the natives, with longer duration and with closer formant values to the matched vowels, [i] and $[{\varepsilon}]$, than those of the English natives. Combining the results of acoustic measurements in the present study and those of word identification in Han et al. (2011), we suggest that relatively better performance in word identification by Korean talkers/listeners than the native English talkers/listeners is associated with the shared interlanguage of Korean talkers and listeners.

• Korean Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.380-385
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• 2010

Several theoretical acoustic scattering models were applied to estimate the target strength (TS) for assessing the biomass of zooplankton, to overcome the difficulty of direct measurements. Acoustical scattering characteristics of copepods were estimated using three theoretical models, and the application of the models was evaluated for four frequencies of a scientific echo sounder. The scattering directivity by the body shapes of copepods at 200 kHz and 420 kHz was significantly affected by TS patterns. Averaged TS, however, were similar at higher frequencies. Consequently, a low frequency model, such as a truncated fluid sphere model, provides a good acoustical biomass estimation. The regressions of TS and 30 logL were < $TS_{200\;kHz}$ >= 30logL-118.4 ($R^2=0.716$) and < $TS_{420 kHz}$ > =30 logL-108.8 ($R^2=0.758$), respectively.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.337-340
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• 2006

The present paper describes an experimental work to investigate a transonic resonance in supersonic jet that is discharged from a convergent-divergent nozzle. When the nozzle m: at low nozzle pressure ratios, the shock occurs within the divergent section of the nozzle. The transonic resonance of a jet flow is generated by an emission of strong acoustic tones due to the unsteadiness of the shock. A Schlieren optical system is used to visualize the supersonic jet flow In order to specify the flow resonance of a jet, acoustic measurements are performed to obtain noise spectra. The acoustic characteristics of transonic resonace are compared with those of screech tones. The results obtained show that unlike screech frequency, the transonic reso- nace frequency somewhat increases with increasing the nozzle pressure ratio.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.208-215
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• 2012

The acoustic noise around a launch pad by launches of space launch vehicles was analyzed. The magnitudes of sound noise at some points near launch pad were predicted by locating the sound source at the exhaust jet plume of the rocket engine and considering several factors such as the directivity of the sound propagation and atmospheric attenuation. Specifically, the launch noise of Korea Space Launch Vehicle-I (KSLV-I) was estimated, and was compared to the actual measurement results. The analysis results proved to be heavily affected by the characteristics of directivity of sound propagation and the analysis showed good agreements with the measurements when the directivity of the sound was appropriately adjusted.