Good tone is one of an alto saxophone player's greatest assets and consequently deserves high priority in training and pedagogy. The current pedagogical literature gives little attention to tone production on the saxophone. The mouthpiece is the link between the player and the saxophone. This study examined the effect of the normal mouthpiece pitch and the pitch range produced on the saxophone mouthpiece on alto saxophone tone quality . In this experimental study, recordings were made of forty-three student alto saxophone players who performed tasks consisting of three saxophone mouthpiece exercises and four short musical phrases on the saxophone. The tape recordings were used to provide a spectral analysis of the tone samples by Fast Fourier Transform Analysis, and to allow qualitative analysis by five expert judges. The judges used a saxophone listening profile to provide qualitative evaluation of the recordings. Cluster analysis produced three groups of subjects according to combinations of the mouthpiece pitch and range produced. The mean sustained mouthpiece pitch and mouthpiece range of the groups were: Cluster 1 - 790 Hz and 550 cents; Cluster 2 1023 Hz and 150 cents: and Cluster 3 - 820 Hz and 1203 cents. Analysis of variance was used to test for statistically significant differences between the clusters. Discriminant analysis was used to identify other variables which contributed to the formation of the three clusters. The quantitative analysis of both mouthpiece and saxophone tones provided no insight into the spectra of the student subjects. The qualitative analysis using bipolar descriptors provided valid criteria which could be applied consistently for the analysis of student saxophone tone. A Tonal Index was computed from the judges' ratings in order to test for differences in tone between the clusters. Analysis of variance tests showed significant differences in the tone produced by the clusters on both the mouthpiece and the saxophone. The tone produced by Cluster 3 was significantly different to that produced by Clusters 1 and 2 at the p < .05 level. Discriminant analysis identified the use of saxophone tone models (through comparative critical listening) and small group performance as significant predictor variables (at the p < .05 level) in the formation of the clusters. The results of this study suggest that tone production on the alto saxophone is improved through the development of control on the mouthpiece. It was concluded that routine practice with the mouthpiece can serve in the development of a flexible and responsive embouchure and oral cavity and that students need to develop a mental concept of saxophone tone as part of the development of tone production. Also, experience in small group performance needs to be sought and provided for saxophone students. Finally, this study focussed on an area of mouthpiece behaviour which can easily be included into any instructional design and monitored by teachers.

A fixed terrestrial wireless system such as the Microwave Multi-channel Distribution Service (MMDS) can be used as the ``last mile' to provide a high speed Internet connection from a base station to a home in a rural or suburban residential area. Such a broadband wireless system works very well under line-of-sight transmission. It works quite well even if the line-of-sight is obstructed with a large number of trees. However, when trees obstruct the line-of-sight, under conditions of wind, the user may experience loss of the RF signal from time to time. This is especially true under gusty conditions. As part of this research a high precision DSP-based measuring system is devised to accurately measure and characterize the distortions caused by tree foliage on the RF line-of-sight signal. The approach is to digitally generate a signal composed of several tones, up-convert the signal to 2.5 GHz and send it through tree foliage to a receiver where the signal is down-converted and sampled for a duration of five seconds. The samples collected are processed using Matlab to compute the temporal amplitude and phase variations of the tones. The measurement system provides estimates of the amplitude and phase of the receive tones with a time resolution of 3.2 ms. The standard deviation of the amplitude estimates is 0.3\% of the actual amplitude of the tones and the standard deviation of the phase estimates is 0.23 degree. This accuracy is obtained when the signal-to-noise ratio of the receive signal is greater than 20 dB. Measurement in the field with tree foliage in the line-of-sight shows that the swaying of the branches in the wind can cause rapid signal fading. This research determines the type of fade, the depth and duration of the fade, as well as the fading rate.

A fixed terrestrial wireless system such as the Microwave Multi-channel Distribution Service (MMDS) can be used as the ``last mile' to provide a high speed Internet connection from a base station to a home in a rural or suburban residential area. Such a broadband wireless system works very well under line-of-sight transmission. It works quite well even if the line-of-sight is obstructed with a large number of trees. However, when trees obstruct the line-of-sight, under conditions of wind, the user may experience loss of the RF signal from time to time. This is especially true under gusty conditions. As part of this research a high precision DSP-based measuring system is devised to accurately measure and characterize the distortions caused by tree foliage on the RF line-of-sight signal. The approach is to digitally generate a signal composed of several tones, up-convert the signal to 2.5 GHz and send it through tree foliage to a receiver where the signal is down-converted and sampled for a duration of five seconds. The samples collected are processed using Matlab to compute the temporal amplitude and phase variations of the tones. The measurement system provides estimates of the amplitude and phase of the receive tones with a time resolution of 3.2 ms. The standard deviation of the amplitude estimates is 0.3\% of the actual amplitude of the tones and the standard deviation of the phase estimates is 0.23 degree. This accuracy is obtained when the signal-to-noise ratio of the receive signal is greater than 20 dB. Measurement in the field with tree foliage in the line-of-sight shows that the swaying of the branches in the wind can cause rapid signal fading. This research determines the type of fade, the depth and duration of the fade, as well as the fading rate.

The Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) has been used in many scientific and engineering applications. The use of FFT for financial derivatives has been gaining momentum in the recent past. In this thesis, i) we have improved a recently proposed model of FFT for pricing financial derivatives to help design an efficient parallel algorithm. The improved mathematical model put forth in our research bridges a gap between quantitative approaches for the option pricing problem and practical implementation of such approaches on modern computer architectures. The thesis goes further by proving that the improved model of fast Fourier transform for option pricing produces accurate option values. ii) We have developed a parallel algorithm for the FFT using the classical Cooley-Tukey algorithm and improved this algorithm by introducing a data swapping technique that brings data closer to the respective processors and hence reduces the communication overhead to a large extent leading to better performance of the parallel algorithm. We have tested the new algorithm on a 20 node SunFire 6800 high performance computing system and compared the new algorithm with the traditional Cooley-Tukey algorithm. Option values are calculated for various strike prices with a proper selection of strike-price spacing to ensure fine-grid integration for FFT computation as well as to maximize the number of strikes lying in the desired region of the stock price. Compared to the traditional Cooley-Tukey algorithm, the current algorithm with data swapping performs better by more than 15% for large data sizes. In the rapidly changing market place, these improvements could mean a lot for an investor or financial institution because obtaining faster results offers a competitive advantages. / October 2004

No description available.

Abstracts Photoreflectance(PR) of surface-intrinsic n+ type doped GaAs has been measured for various power densities of pumping laser.The spectra exhibited many Franz-Keldysh oscillations,where by the electric field(F) can be determined from the technique of the fast fourier transform.It is known that F's determined from PR are subjected to photovoltaic effect ,but it is difficult to estimate the strength of modulating field in the PR measurements.Hence we have investigated the relation between F and modulating field by using electroreflectance to simulate PR.In this work,the relation will be confirmed by using solely PR.Here a method was devised to obtain the strength of modulating field in the PR measurements.The photo-voltage(Vs)of the pump beam can be measured directly with a lock-in amplifier by making electrical contacts on the front and rear sides of the sample.The strengh of modulation field is equal to Vs/d due to a uniform F in the undoped layer,where d is the thickness of the undoped layer.

It is known that electroreflectance (ER) of surface-intrinsic-n+ type doped GaAs has exhibited many Franz-Keldysh oscillations to enable the application of fast Fourier transform to separate the heavy and light-hole transitions. However each peak still contains two components, which belong to F+ F/2 and F- F/2 respectively, where F is the built-in field and F is the modulating field of applied voltage (Vac). In this work, we have used a larger Vac to modulate the field, and hence the peaks can be further separated. The peak belonging to heavy hole-transition and F- F/2 can be singled out to compare with Airy function-theory.

A circuit design of Fast Fourier Transform for DVB-H system is presented in this thesis. This circuit is based on SDF (single path delay feedback) pipeline architecture with radix-2 computation element. We propose a novel method of timing scheduling that can share one complex multiplier for couple of stage and promote the utilization of complex multiplier to 100%, so we can improve the implementation with radix-2 computation. The number of bits is carefully selected by system simulation to meetthe requirements of DVB-H system. In addition, a memory table permutation deletion method for memory scheduling, which can reduce the size of memory storing twiddle factors tables. The circuit is carried out by CMOS 0.18£gm 1P6M process with core area 2.08 x 2.076 mm2. In the gate level simulation, the output data rate of this circuit is above 50MHz, so the circuit can meet the requirement of DVB-H system.

<p>In this dissertation a novel approach to protein-ligand docking is presented. First an existing method to predict putative active sites is employed. These predictions are then used to cut down the search space of an algorithm that uses the fast Fourier transform to calculate the geometrical and electrostatic complementarity between a protein and a small organic ligand. A simplified hydrophobicity score is also calculated for each active site. The docking method could be applied either to dock ligands in a known active site or to rank several putative active sites according to their biological feasibility. The method was evaluated on a set of 310 protein-ligand complexes. The results show that with respect to docking the method with its initial parameter settings is too coarse grained. The results also show that with respect to ranking of putative active sites the method works quite well.</p>

Acoustic emission is a widely used nondestructive technique for identification of structural damage. The AE technique relies on transient energy waves generated by the materials during their failure. As for soils, the basic causes of acoustic emission are the mechanisms which are responsible for shearing of soils. Mobilization of shear strength within a soil itself and the interaction of the soil with the adjacent natural or construction materials are directly related to the level of acoustic emission in soils. It is envisioned that acoustic emission signals in deforming soils can be used as an early warning sign in real time landslide-monitoring systems.This thesis study uses a laboratory experimental setup to record the acoustic emission signals emitted during the shearing of cohesionless soils. Several tests were performed with different rates of shearing with parallel (horizontal) and perpendicular (vertical) placement of the AE mote- sensor with respect to the shear plane. Since the original raw signals recorded contain large amounts of noise, it is necessary to de-noise them. The current study uses wavelet and FFT to de-noise the original signals. The filtered signals obtained using wavelet analysis and FFT are compared to determine the suitability of the two techniques. The peak AE values and the time taken to observe an initial visible peak under different conditions are reported in this study. It is observed that relatively faster rates of shearing generate more AE signals compared to slower rates of shearing. In addition, the rapid shearing produces initial visible peak AE activities within a short period of time than in slow rate of shearing.