Glass Breaking Research Articles

Normal and Abnormal Non-Speech Audio Event Detection Using MFCC and PR-Based Feature Sets

Non-speech audio event detection and classification has become a very active subject of research, since it can be implemented in many important areas: audio surveillance and context awareness systems. In this study, non-speech normal and abnormal audio events were detected by Mel-frequency cepstrum coefficients (MFCC) and Pitch range (PR) based features using artificial neural network (ANN) classifiers. We have 4 abnormal events (glass breaking, dog barking, scream, gunshot) and 2 normal events (engine noise and rain). Event detection, using ANN classifiers, resulted in an accuracy of up to 92%, with recognition rates overall in the range of 78%-87.5%.

A Human Factors Perspective : Auditory Alarm Signals

s International. 40/09B, 4543 (University Microfilms No. 8004002), 1979. 13. Momtahan KL. Mapping of psychoacoustic parameters to the perceived urgency of auditory warning signals [dissertation] 14. Hellier E, Edworthy J. On using psychophysical techniques to achieve urgency mapping in auditory warnings. Applied Ergonomics, 30, 167-171, 1999. 15. Brewster SA, Wright PC, Edwards A. Experimentally Derived Guidelines for the Creation of Earcons, in Proceedings of HCI 95, Huddersfield, UK, pp. 155-159, 1995. 16. McGookin DK, Brewster SA. An investigation into the identification of concurrently presented earcons. Proceedings of the 2003 International Conference on Auditory Display, Boston, MA, USA,

The migration of fragments of glass from the pockets to the surfaces of clothing

During the last decade or so there has been some discussion in the forensic community in the United Kingdom concerning whether it is necessary to search the pockets for glass particles in garments attributed to suspects arrested for glass breaking crimes. The removal of this practice would help expedite the searching and recovery process since examining only the surfaces of clothing would reduce the cost of recovering glass evidence. However, it is believed by many scientists that some glass fragments originally acquired in pockets can migrate to the surfaces of clothing prior to examination by the forensic scientist. As glass fragments have been encountered in the pockets of garments during examinations of casework items in the LGC Laboratories, the implications of this change in practice needs to be assessed. Hence, the aim of this study was to investigate this possibility that fragments of glass migrate from a pocket of a garment to its surfaces during police and laboratory handling after a person is suspected of breaking glass during an offence. If this occurs to a significant extent then it could affect the evaluation of the glass evidence when using a Bayesian approach. Sixty fragments of glass were seeded into a pocket of a fleece jacket and a pair of denim jeans. Three experiments were performed; one examined a searching, recovery and blanking procedure, another examined the pre-laboratory 'handling' process of an item in an evidence bag, and the third experiment looked at the removal of an object from a pocket laden with glass and subsequent removal and packaging of the garment. Up to two (3.3%) fragments were recovered from the surfaces of the fleece jacket and the denim jeans via the searching, recovery and blanking procedure. Similar numbers were also recovered from the insides of the evidence bags. Up to four (6.7%) fragments were recovered from the surface of the fleece jacket and up to five (8.3%) fragments were recovered from the surface of the denim jeans after pre-laboratory 'handling'. Again similar numbers were recovered from the insides of the evidence bags. Comparable numbers to those from searching/recovery experiments were observed when garments were removed after taking an object from a pocket. In addition, up to two (3.3%) fragments were recovered from the object (a mobile phone). The findings show that some migration can occur particularly in the second experiment and therefore modification of the evaluation strategy may be required.

Properties and morphology of interpenetrating polymer networks based on poly(urethane-imide) and epoxy resin

Incorporating elastic polyurethane in epoxy resin (EP) can enhance the physico-chemical properties but deteriorate the thermal stability. Poly(urethane-imide) (PUI) with a high reactive function group (-NCO), which combines the advantages of polyurethane and polyimide, was synthesized to simultaneously improve the toughness and thermal stability of epoxy resin. EP/PUI composites were prepared based on epoxy resin and poly(urethaneimide) with 4,4-diaminodiphenylmethane as the curing agent using a simultaneous polymerization method. FTIR analysis confirmed the formation of EP-g-PUI interpenetrating polymer networks via a reaction between -NCO of poly(urethane-imide) and -OH of epoxy resin. The thermal stability and mechanical properties were examined by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) and stress-tensile method, respectively. Corresponding to the pure epoxy resin, which has three stage thermal decomposition, the resulting PUI/EP composite exhibits only one stage and has a much higher initial decomposition temperature (323.8°C) than that (189.8°C) of the epoxy resin. Moreover, the EP/PUI composite has a higher glass transition temperature, tensile strength and breaking elongation when 30 phr PUI was added. With increasing PUI content to 70 phr, the breaking elongation was 213 times higher than that of the neat epoxy resin. The morphology of these composites was also investigated further by scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results showed that a grafted interpenetrating polymer network was formed.

Speech Perception: Motoric Contributions versus the Motor Theory

Recent studies indicate that the motor cortex is involved not only in the production of speech, but also in its perception. These studies have sparked a renewed interest in gesture-based theories of speech perception.

Assessment of a model development for window glass breakage due to fire exposure in a field model

This paper presents a model development for the prediction of window glass breakage and fallout in a field model. Glass breakage is based on the temperature difference and the allowable glass breaking stress; and glass fallout is determined by a preset number of successive breakages. As a validation, generally good agreements are obtained between the numerical predictions and the data from a compartment fire experiment. The predicted glass surface temperature and the adjacent gas temperature are within 10–25% of the test data. For fire sizes of 170, 280 and 390 kW, the time of initial occurrence of glass breakage are shown within reasonable range of the experimental results. For the 680 kW fire case, the model shows an earlier glass fallout time, however, the predicted glass temperature at fallout is around 450 °C and is consistent with previous experiments. Further research to improve the model is discussed such as on radiation modeling and the criteria of glass breakage and fallout.

Study on a Criterion of Heat Flux for Glass Breaking in Fires

The objective of this work is to develop a popular criterion for the prediction of glass breakage in fires. Based on the energy conservation equations and conservative assumptions, a critical heat flux is used for single glass breaking in enclosure fires. The criterion of heat flux is not restricted by frame types and glass types. It is convenient to choose suitable glass and frame type through the calculation based on the fire dynamics simulation for engineering applications of performance-based fire design.

Supper

Supper Jonathan Musgrove (bio) The old man next door stood alone on his back porch and fumbled with the lock until the key fell between boards separated by age and forty layers of gray paint. He knocked, called up to his wife in the back bedroom. No window opened – she'd been dead two years. He called, I hopped the familiar fence separating mine from his. I knew, but he had to ask. I slid carefully, on my belly [End Page 163] headfirst through damp ivy, until I was waist deep in dark. Evening sun through the slats separated an old cat, with new kittens, in the shadows. Tired and surrounded by six, helpless, wet and blind, she barely noticed me, finished eating the bloody sack, freshly ripped, that spilled her litter. Beside her I saw the key. I wanted to say, "I've found it." But it was too late. I heard a cane rap above, once on the glass, twice louder, glass breaking, then hinges, his footsteps in the kitchen. It was 5:30, suppertime, key or no. Jonathan Musgrove Jonathan Musgrove’s work appears in the Atlantic, Ploughshares, and Shenandoah. Copyright © 2005 the University of Nebraska Press

Impact of a simulated accident in virtual training on decision-making performance

This paper considers opportunities to improve effectiveness of computer-based industrial training. Modification is made to an intelligent virtual reality-based training system to take advantage of the way people appear to respond to auditory and visual cues. Training scenarios are developed based on the idea that many times human errors in industry are shown to coincide with conditions that are infrequently encountered. Knowledge and auditory cues for different machining conditions for a computer-numerical-control (CNC) milling machine are built into the existing knowledge base. A simulated tool breakage that consisted of an animation, text and sound of glass breaking is integrated into a virtual training sequence and is triggered by the failure to stop operation in the poor cutting condition represented by sub-optimum spindle speed and cutting sound. A test is performed to check the transfer to the real world task. The simulated tool breakage is intended to help users take advantage of their tendency toward ‘dual coding’. An analysis is conducted to determine the impact of the simulated accident on decision-making performance in a real machining task. A disincentive is also introduced to assess the impact of potential tradeoffs between safety and performance that exist in the workplace. Results indicate that when a disincentive was introduced during the training task and the real task, mental workload was significantly higher, and operator decision-making performance was significantly improved when a simulated tool breakage was included in the training sequence. Some implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed. Relevance to industry Results obtained from this study indicate that virtual training with simulated accident may improve decision-making performance.

Point-of-sale glass bottle recycling: indoor airborne exposures and symptoms among employees

Aims: To assess the impact of newly introduced point-of-sale glass bottle recycling on indoor air quality and employee health. Methods: Airborne exposures and both chronic and acute respiratory and somatic...

Apparatus and method for detecting glass break

A glass break detector is disclosed that uses a neural network to determine if an audio signal is breaking glass. A characteristic extraction unit is used to extract a set of signal characteristics from a time domain signal based on the audio signal. The set of signal characteristics is the set of the magnitudes of the discrete Fourier transform coefficients of an acquired time domain signal, or the Fourier transform coefficients themselves. A classifier is connected to the characteristic extraction unit. It is a two-layer neural network that uses the set of signal characteristics to accurately determine whether the acquired time domain signal represents breaking glass.

Thresholds of discomfort for complex stimuli: acoustic and sound-quality predictors.

The purpose of this study was to explain differences in threshold of discomfort (TD) across complex stimuli using acoustic and sound-quality variables as predictors. Two 4-tone complexes and 10 environmental sounds were used as stimuli. The environmental sounds consisted of a baby crying, hairdryer blowing, glass breaking, jet engine propelling, person laughing, motorcycle accelerating, orchestra tuning, telephone ringing, siren blowing, and toilet flushing. One-third octave band (1/3 OB) spectra were obtained for the 12 stimuli, with overall rms amplitude held constant across the stimuli. Nine acoustic quantities describing the high- and low-frequency content, peakiness, and bandwidth of each 1/3 OB spectrum were defined. Twenty adult subjects, 6 men and 14 women, with normal hearing sensitivity participated in the study. TDs were obtained from each subject for all of the stimuli. In addition, subjects rated each of the stimuli for annoyance, harshness, loudness, noisiness, and tinniness on a 10-point scale. These ratings were completed at a level 10 dB below each subjects TD for that stimulus. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to estimate the amount of variance in TDs accounted for by subject differences, defined acoustic properties, and sound-quality ratings. Results indicated that, after controlling for intersubject differences, acoustic and sound-quality factors significantly influenced TD ratings. Increases in high-frequency cutoff and low-frequency cutoff, as well as higher ratings of loudness and annoyance, were associated with higher TDs. Associated with lower TDs were an increase in the frequency of the primary spectral peak, an increase in the number of spectral peaks, an increase in the center frequency, an increase in the area under the frequency response curve 30 dB down from the peak amplitude, an increase in the calculated loudness level re ANSI S3.4-1980, and higher ratings of tinniness.

An Experimental Study On Glass Cracking And Fallout By Radiant Heat Exposure

To develop a simple model to predict the glass cracking andlor breaking, radiant heating tests were carried out on float glass and wired glass. By changing the imposed heat flux and lateral restraint of the glass, 50 experiments were carried out to measure the time to initial crack and fallout. Temperatures were measured at the center of glass pane and edge, while the strain was measured at the edge. From the experimental data, the critical heat flux was determined under which no glass cracking takes place. By using the measured temperature and stress, the ultimate tensile stress of the glass edge was calculated. The obtained values were lower than the literature values for plain glass surface where no effect of micro defects at the cutting edge is taken into account. By analysing the post crack behavior, it was pointed out that the fallout area mainly depends on imposed heat flux and slightly on restraint. Under intense heating (more than 9kw/m2), large piece of glass tends to fall out, however under moderate heating, glass just cracks but did not fall out. Therefore it was pointed out that the application of the thermal stress model for glass breaking is limited to intensely heated scenarios. A simple prediction formula was derived for such scenarios.

Automatic classification of wideband acoustic signals

Until now, very few contributions were published in the field of wideband acoustic signal recognition, especially for handling impulsive noise signals such as glass breaking, detonations, or door slams, as encountered in security applications, where the signals are highly nonstationary and composed of higher frequency components. This paper shows how the audio alarm recognition problem can efficiently be tackled using either pattern recognition methods relying on Bayes classifiers, or on artificial neural networks (ANN). After extraction of filterbank coefficients in the acoustic analysis module, typical feature vectors are achieved from the concatenation of k consecutive signal frames, in order to exploit dynamic temporal information. The redundancy induced by this dynamic modeling requires a reduction of the feature space dimension, performed with a conventional principal component analysis. The performance of both systems is evaluated experimentally (7000 tests) for the classification of three types of noise events (glass breaking, door slams, and stationary noises). The score of correct classification reaches 99% for the statistical approach, and 98% for the ANN-based system. It is further noticed that errors do not occur on the same signal files for both methods. Thus robustness enhancement can be reasonably expected, when using hybrid methods or fusion strategies.

Window Encapsulation in Car Industry by Using the 50 Ω RF Technology

AbstractThroughout the world car industry has been using window encapsulation for a few years now. This technology is mainly used in production lines and is called RIM for polyurethane reaction injection moulding.This technology, however brings about some problems such as:– glass breaking during mould closure,– high production cost,– systematic rough edges.The PSA Group (Peugeot-Citroën), a pioneer in this field, in collaboration with SAIREM has launched a new innovating process for window encapsulation by using the 50 Ω RF technology for gelling PVC Plastisol.The study was followed by an industrial prototype. Industrial equipment was then installed at WEBASTO HEULIEZ for window encapsulation of the sunshine roof for the Citroën Xantia.The authors describe the principle of window encapsulation and the different existing processes. He describes the 50 ΩRF technology, an industrial installation and the constraints of this technology in order to get maximum efficiency.In the conclusion they present a technical and economical analysis of the different solutions for window encapsulation. They also present the advantages of the 50 Ω RF technology and the new opportunities it offers.In the conclusion they present a technical and economical analysis of the different solutions for window encapsulation. They also present the advantages of the 50 Ω RF technology and the new opportunities it offers.

Direction-sensing acoustic glass-break detecting system

Dual microphones and a time-of-arrival processing circuit comprise a direction-sensing system which improves the false alarm immunity of an acoustic glass break detector by restricting its coverage to a well-defined zone. By comparing the arrival times of an abrupt sound at two spaced microphones, the processing circuit determines the direction of the sound. If the sound originated in the intended coverage zone, the processing circuit generates a signal which enables the glass break detector; otherwise, the detector is inhibited. When the improved glass break detector is oriented so that potential false alarm sources are outside the coverage zone, false alarm immunity is enhanced.

Fire-induced thermal fields in window glass. I—theory

Window glass breaking plays an important role in compartment fire dynamics as the window acts as a wall before breaking and as a vent after breaking. Previous work suggested a model for the time to breakage of a window glass exposed to a particular fire. In this paper, the glass thermal fields obtained using that model are examined in detail. The temperature field dependence on heat transfer coefficients, radiative decay length and flame radiation is explored. The results show that the glass surface temperature increases with a decrease in the decay length and increases with an increase in flame radiation heat flux. Early in the fire, the glass temperature may be higher than the hot layer temperature due to direct impingement of flame radiation. Later the glass temperature lags the hot layer temperature. The variation of the time to breakage as function of the shading width and decay length is also presented and the results indicate that the breaking time decreases with an increase in the shading width and decreases with a decrease in decay length. Heat flux maps for typical conditions indicate that most of the heat influx is stored in the glass, increasing its temperature.

Ke Ke's Brother in Pegged Jeans

Why do I keep dreaming of the older boy I loved the year I was on the edge of eleven? He lived next door, was my best friend's brother. I remember her disgust as I confessed lying under the sky's huge bear of stars. We pricked our fingers, swore allegiance as we smeared the first red drops of innocence. Now we're kin she said,forever. I can't picture her face though I've tried as I've rocked a fevered child or walked cold floors, ears tuned to some dark music. But I can still see him: naked to the waist, his bones wrapped tight with lovely male muscles, and above his belt buckle, the exposed fine designs of hair that lead down to the part of a man's stomach I've always loved. Some nights I see him out my window, a new moon lighting his perfect profile, after a father's whiskey rage, the sound of glass breaking, a back screen door slamming, and feel the same unnameable shock.

Systemic Transgression and Cultural Rewriting in Pynchon's Fiction

Zoyd eyeballed himself in the mirror behind the bar, gave his hair a shake, turned, poised, then screaming ran empty-minded at the window and went crashing through. He knew the instant he hit that something was funny. There was hardly any impact, and it all felt and sounded different, no spring or resonance, no volume, only a sort of fine, dulled splintering … On the Tube, Zoyd came blasting out the window, along with the dubbed-in-sounds now of real glass breaking.

Glass Breaking In Fires

Glass breaking in compartment fires is an important practical problem since a window acts as a wall before breaking and as a vent after breaking. If sufficient excess pyrolyzates have accumulated in the hot layer, this sudden geometric change can lead to backdraft and flashover. As Emmons explained at the First Symposium, windows break in fires due to thermal stress from the differential heating of the central portion and the shaded edge. The focus of this paper is on quantifying the connection between the compartment fire and the glass temperature to predict the window breaking time, tb. Techniques are presented for accurately calculating the history of the central glass temperature profile, T (x .r), for any fire exposure. Two-dimensional temperature histories, T (x ,y ,t), where x is depth and y is toward the center, and mean stress histories, azz (y ,t), are also calculated. It is determined here that breaking occurs when the mean glass temperature difference is ~T = (ablE ~)g, where ablE is the maximum glass tensile strain, ~ is the thermal coefficient of linear expansion and g is a geometry factorpf order one. Calculations suggest that the edge remains at its initial temperature, T; , so that ~T = T (tb) Ti, when the shading is large, sIL ~2, and the heating is fast, atb Is2::;1, where L is the glass thickness, s is the shaded edge width and «is the glass thermal diffusivity,