Telephony Applications Research Articles

A Research about Call Simulation Based on SIP VOIP Terminal

The significance of this thesis is that the function of call simulation is designed to satisfy the operator’s needs. Operators can diagnose whether the telephony applications proceed normally by manipulating the VOIP(Vocie Over IP) telephony terminals on ITMS(Integrated Terminal Management System) platform remotely, by which way, it can help operators to save large manual and material resources. And this thesis focuses on how to realize the function of call simulation on VOIP phone terminals. It firstly studies the related modules in the process of call simulation and the procedures of each modules cooperated, from a macro point of view. And then it focuses on elaborating the scheme of designing call simulation, including the design of simulation applications for call and called sides and design of simulation signal process in the situation of normal calling. In the testing step, it turns on to validate and realize the goal of manipulating and diagnosing the telephony applications by packeting the communication’s terminal , analyzing signaling streams, etc,.

Computational auditory models in predicting noise reduction performance for wideband telephony applications

The performance of several noise reduction algorithms intended for wideband telephony was evaluated both subjectively and objectively. The chosen algorithms were based on statistical modeling, spectral subtraction, Wiener filtering, or subspace modelling principles. A customized wideband noise reduction database containing speech samples corrupted by three types of background noises at three SNR levels, along with their enhanced versions was created. The overall quality of the speech samples in the database was subsequently rated by a group of listeners with normal hearing capabilities. Comprehensive statistical analyses were performed to assess the reliability of the subjective data, and to assess the performance of noise reduction algorithms across varied noisy conditions. The subjective quality ratings were then used to investigate the performance of several auditory model-based objective quality metrics. Key results from these investigations include: (a) there was a high degree of inter- and intra-subject reliability in the subjective ratings, (b) noise reduction algorithms enhance speech quality for only a subset of the noise conditions, and (c) auditory model-based metrics perform similarly in predicting speech quality ratings, when speech quality scores pertaining to a particular noise condition were averaged.

Measuring Time Use of Older Couples

Time diaries are a well established method for providing population estimates of the amount of time and types of activities respondents carry out over the course of a full day. This paper focuses on a computer assisted telephone application developed to collect multiple, same-day 24-hour diaries from older couples who participated in the 2009 Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). We present selected findings from developmental and field activities, highlighting methods for three diary enhancements: 1) implementation of a multiple, same-day diary design; 2) minimizing erroneous reporting of sequential activities as simultaneous; and 3) tailoring activity descriptors (or "follow-up" questions) that depend on a pre-coded activity value. A final section discusses limitations and implications for future time diary efforts.

Abstract 241: Neurocognitive Functioning and Quality of Life After Successful Resuscitation from Cardiac Arrest

Objective Neurocognitive function (NCF) and Quality of Life (QoL) of patients (pts) with an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) may have improved since an increasing number of pts are managed with an AED and Therapeutic Hypothermia (TH) is universally applied. We studied the NCF and QoL of consecutive pts 6-12 months after OHCA and the QoL of their relatives. Materials and methods The study population comprises all consecutive pts (>18 year) who survived 6-12 months after OHCA from mid-2010 to mid-2011. Pts and relatives were interviewed by telephone. The questionnaires used were validated for telephonic application with a validated cut-off score. The QoL was measured with the SF-12, NCF with the Telephonic Interview Cognitive Status (TICS), level of independence with the Modified Rankin Scale (MRS). If needed, the IQ-code was used as proxy-questionnaire to measure the NCF of the pt. The Caregiver Strain Index (CSI) was used to measure QoL of the relatives. The elderly (≥ 80 years) were compared to an open Dutch population of ≥ 80 years. Treatment effect was calculated with an effect size θ. Effect sizes near 0 are small, >0.8 or <-0.8 are considered as significant and relevant. Results The proportion of the pts who scored normal on the questionnaires is shown in the table. When TICS and IQ-code are added up, 180 of 220 pts (82%) had a normal NCF. The mean score of elderly on the mental SF-12 was 40.5 and on the physical SF-12 53.2, while the compatible population scored 38.1 (θ =-0.20) and 54.4 (θ =0.15), respectively. Pts with TH scored 54.2 on the mental SF-12, while pts without TH scored 52 (θ=0.26). The mean score on the physical SF-12 of pts with TH was 46.4 and without the need of TH 44.8 (θ=0.16), respectively. Conclusion QoL, NCF and independency in daily-life 6-12 months after OHCA is normal in the great majority of pts. Mental QoL is better compared to physical QoL. Pts ≥80 years score equal to age comparable persons of the normal population. Outcome after TH is equal to those not needing TH.

Abstract 85: The Overall Performance Category and Cerebral Performance Category to Assess Neurologically Intact Survival at Discharge from Cardiac Arrest: A Good Estimate of Patients’ Functioning?

Objective- It is known that recovery from neurologic damage takes 6-12 months. However, most studies on out of hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) use the Overall Performance Category (OPC)/Cerebral Performance Category (CPC) as outcome at discharge from hospital. We studied the neurocognitive functioning and level of independence (LoI) of patients (pts) 6-12 months after OHCA and compared the results with the OPC/CPC at discharge. Materials and methods- The study population comprises all pts (>18 year) who survived 6-12 months after OHCA from mid-2010 to mid-2011. Pts were interviewed by telephone with questionnaires validated for telephonic application. We used a validated cut-off score. Neurocognitive functioning was measured with the Telephonic Interview Cognitive Status (TICS) and LoI with the Modified Rankin Scale (MRS). If needed, the IQ-code was used as proxy-questionnaire to measure the neurocognitive functioning of the pt. Neurological outcome at discharge was assessed from hospital records estimating OPC/CPC (figure). Results- Comparison between OPC at discharge and MRS at 6-12 months is shown in the figure. Of all pts, 93% was classified as having a good outcome (OPC 1-2) at discharge. At 6-12 months only 76% had a good outcome (MRS 0-2). Thirty of the 218 (13%) pts seemed to be cognitively impaired (TICS <31) at 6-12 months while they were classified as having a good outcome (CPC 1-2) at discharge. Conclusion- MRS and other tests 6-12 months after discharge better reflect pts’ functioning at home than OPC/CPC at the moment of discharge. OPC/CPC cannot measure impairments that manifest themselves only in the home environment.

Digital evidence from mobile telephone applications

In this paper we examine the legal aspects of the forensic investigation of mobile telephone applications. Mobile telephone applications might be involved with a variety of types of computer misuse including fraud, theft, money laundering, dissemination of copyrighted materials or indecent images, or instances where mobile telephone applications have been involved in the transmission of malware for malicious or criminal purposes. In this paper we examine the process of the forensic investigation of mobile telephone applications, and the issues relating to obtaining digital evidence from mobile telephone applications.

Real-time video quality monitoring

The ITU-T Recommendation G.1070 is a standardized opinion model for video telephony applications that uses video bitrate, frame rate, and packet-loss rate to measure the video quality. However, this model was original designed as an offline quality planning tool. It cannot be directly used for quality monitoring since the above three input parameters are not readily available within a network or at the decoder. And there is a great room for the performance improvement of this quality metric. In this article, we present a real-time video quality monitoring solution based on this Recommendation. We first propose a scheme to efficiently estimate the three parameters from video bitstreams, so that it can be used as a real-time video quality monitoring tool. Furthermore, an enhanced algorithm based on the G.1070 model that provides more accurate quality prediction is proposed. Finally, to use this metric in real-world applications, we present an example emerging application of real-time quality measurement to the management of transmitted videos, especially those delivered to mobile devices.

SICE: An Enhanced Framework for Design and Development of Speech Interfaces on Client Environment

VoiceXML has emerged as standard for developing IVRS based telephony applications. It provides the requisite robustness and control over dialogue based delivery over telephone line. This paper presents a framework based on VoiceXML specifications for developing web based interactive voice applications. Communications are made using VOIP; therefore, user does not have the dependency on telephony interface as required by existing VoiceXML specifications. Besides, it is able to handle the complex and voluminous information of web. The framework demonstrates the best practice of application design, development and software engineering.

Where Is My Bus? Impact of mobile real-time information on the perceived and actual wait time of transit riders

In order to attract more choice riders, transit service must not only have a high level of service in terms of frequency and travel time but also must be reliable. Although transit agencies continuously work to improve on-time performance, such efforts often come at a substantial cost. One inexpensive way to combat the perception of unreliability from the user perspective is real-time transit information. The OneBusAway transit traveler information system provides real-time next bus countdown information for riders of King County Metro via website, telephone, text-messaging, and smart phone applications. Although previous studies have looked at traveler response to real-time information, few have addressed real-time information via devices other than public display signs. For this study, researchers observed riders arriving at Seattle-area bus stops to measure their wait time while asking a series of questions, including how long they perceived that they had waited. The study found that for riders without real-time information, perceived wait time is greater than measured wait time. However, riders using real-time information do not perceive their wait time to be longer than their measured wait time. This is substantiated by the typical wait times that riders report. Real-time information users say that their average wait time is 7.5 min versus 9.9 min for those using traditional arrival information, a difference of about 30%. A model to predict the perceived wait time of bus riders was developed, with significant variables that include the measured wait time, an indicator variable for real-time information, an indicator variable for PM peak period, the bus frequency in buses per hour, and a self-reported typical aggravation level. The addition of real-time information decreases the perceived wait time by 0.7 min (about 13%). A critical finding of the study is that mobile real-time information reduces not only the perceived wait time, but also the actual wait time experienced by customers. Real-time information users in the study wait almost 2 min less than those arriving using traditional schedule information. Mobile real-time information has the ability to improve the experience of transit riders by making the information available to them before they reach the stop.

Misuse Detection for Mobile Devices Using Behaviour Profiling

Mobile devices have become essential to modern society; however, as their popularity has grown, so has the requirement to ensure devices remain secure. This paper proposes a behaviour-based profiling technique using a mobile user’s application usage to detect abnormal activities. Through operating transparently to the user, the approach offers significant advantages over traditional point-of-entry authentication and can provide continuous protection. The experiment employed the MIT Reality dataset and a total of 45,529 log entries. Four experiments were devised based on an application-level dataset containing the general application; two application-specific datasets combined with telephony and text message data; and a combined dataset that included both application-level and application-specific. Based on the experiments, a user’s profile was built using either static or dynamic profiles and the best experimental results for the application-level applications, telephone, text message, and multi-instance applications were an EER (Equal Error Rate) of 13.5%, 5.4%, 2.2%, and 10%, respectively.

Commentary on Teesson et al. (2010): Getting help to those who need it—improving the delivery of services to people affected by risky drinking

Commentary on Teesson <i>et al</i>. (2010): Getting help to those who need it—improving the delivery of services to people affected by risky drinking

Objective and subjective speech quality evaluation of wideband noise reduction algorithms.

Subjective and/or objective measurements of speech quality are important in benchmarking speech enhancement algorithms. Subjective measures include ratings of speech quality by listeners, whereas objective measures compute a metric based on the clean and enhanced speech samples. While subjective quality ratings are the “gold‐standard,” they are also time‐ and resource‐consuming. An objective metric that correlates highly with subjective data is attractive, as it can act as a substitute for benchmarking and fine‐tuning the noise reduction algorithms. In this paper, the performance of several noise reduction algorithms for wideband (50–7000 Hz) telephony application was evaluated both subjectively and objectively. A custom wideband noise reduction database was created that contained speech samples corrupted by different background noises at different signal to noise ratios and processed by seven different noise reduction algorithms. Speech samples in the database were subsequently rated by a group of 32 listeners with normal hearing capabilities. Several objective metrics including log‐likelihood ratio, weighted spectral slope, PESQ, and the loudness pattern distortion (LPD) measure based on the Moore–Glasberg auditory model were used to predict the subjective ratings. Results showed that the subjective ratings were highly reliable and the LPD metric correlated the best with subjective ratings of enhanced wideband speech.

The Elements of a Hand Held Device for Nurse Access to Home Healthcare Monitors

Home-based patient monitors have limited access for field nurses when they are away from their desktop computers and central monitoring station software. The major consequences of this are delayed responses to patient problems, possibly leading to less effective treatment. Further, nurses' laptops lack mobility and versatility, which often makes it difficult for them to quickly access patient information during a variety of tasks. Using nurse demographic information, requirements gathering, and observations from 15 nurses, a design concept for both a longer-term nurse hand held device with a touch screen interface, as well as a simple cellular telephone application that can receive SMS messages on patient problems from the central monitoring station were proposed. It was anticipated that after successful user testing with nurses on the simpler cellular telephone application, that a more capable application could be developed for their cellular telephones with the ability to send and receive information from the central monitoring station.

Black-box analysis of Internet P2P applications

After P2P file-sharing and VoIP telephony applications, VoD and live-streaming P2P applications have finally gained a large Internet audience as well. In this work, we define a framework for the comparison of these applications, based on the measurement and analysis of the traffic they generate. In order for the framework to be descriptive for all P2P applications, we first define a minimum set of observables of interest: such features either pertain to different layers of the protocol stack (from network up to the application), or convey cross-layer information (such as the degree of awareness, at overlay layer, of properties characterizing the underlying physical network). The framework is compact (as it allows to represent all the above information at once), general (as is can be extended to consider features different from the one reported in this work), and flexible in both space and time (as it allows different levels of spatial aggregation, and also to represent the temporal evolution of the quantities of interest). Using the minimum feature set, we analyze some of the most popular P2P application nowadays, highlighting their main similarities and differences. We then apply the framework, using also different features and metrics, to two interesting case study: namely, the detection of malfunctioning or misbehaving peers, and a fine-grained analysis of P2P network-awareness and friendliness.

Abstract CN11-03: Designing sustainable cancer prevention interventions for populations of low socioeconomic status

Abstract CN11-03: Designing sustainable cancer prevention interventions for populations of low socioeconomic status

An efficient asynchronous mobile web service framework

The popularity of web services within the IT industry continuous to grow. Accessing web services from a small device is very com-mon these days. There are number of challenges to access a web services on mobile device due to its limited resources and the lack of bandwidth in its communication network. In Mobile devices, Synchronous web services are not feasible. It makes the user wait while each Web service processes requests and returns results. Asynchronous Web services invocation solves this performance issue and enhances the end user experience by increasing server efficiency. The architecture of asynchronous web services is con-trollable and monitor able. In order to enhance the efficiency of a mobile web services, we have created a bridge between telephony application and web application. We integrate the telecommunica-tion facility and asynchronous invocation of web services. It ex-poses telephony services as web services, so that web application can easily access telecommunication facilities through SMS messaging.

A Limited Resources-Based Approach to Coding for Wireless Video Sensor Networks

Coding for the wireless video sensor networks should be a different issue from the coding for video telephony applications. There are two special features observed in the video sensor networks, limited resources, and low fidelity. Due to these features, coding for this network application requires a new perspective. It is a direction for coding to be of simple structure and not for the entertainment purpose but sufficient for the basic sensing needs. Our coding method is accordingly developed as follows: motion compensation followed by a new idea of shape compensation to replace the conventional residue discrete cosine transform coding. More specifically, our binary images are coded by the motion vectors and the class of morphological filters to achieve a bit rate below 10 kp/s. The resources (bandwidth, power, and hardware) are thus altogether significantly saved. This limited resources approach is the first time particularly investigated for the wireless sensor networks.

Could new communication systems be used to advise public in emergency situations? The HSDPA/WCDMA-based video telephony application to pre-hospital care medicine

In the study by Newton et al ,1 the Licensing Act is described as “permitting 24-hour drinking”. While this is true, it belies the practical reality of gaining local authority...

Beyond the interoperability of telephony, VoIP and networking: self-realisation marketing contribution to value creation in telecommunications sector

Drawing on behaviour and trust literature, this article presents and discusses a marketing strategy applied by the operators of telecommunications, defined by the authors as Self-Realisation Marketing. Together with technology, this marketing strategy contributes to create value in this sector, partially taking advantage of inefficient regulation leading to market failure. From a technological point of view, this article evaluates the costs of three applications in long-distance communication, considering landline and mobile telephony, as well as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and their interoperability with the data net. On the other hand, from a business point of view, landline operators are losing clients because of the lack of specific regulation by the telecommunications authority. Through a theoretical discussion the paper hypothesises that value creation in this sector is the result of three distinct components: technological advancements, branding opportunities and regulation failures. The contribution of Self-Realisation Marketing is particularly underlined, showing how this tool can help to increase value both in a positive way (brand value) and in a negative way (hiding market failures).

Echo suppression and speech detection techniques for telephony applications

Various methods and apparatus are described for implementing effective echo suppression in a wide variety of telephony system architectures. These methods and apparatus include broadband and multi-band techniques for speech detection, estimation of near-end transmission path attenuation, and estimation of far-end transmission path attenuation and delay.