Abstract:
There is provided a sound collecting device, including: an orientation direction forming section that forms an orientation direction of a microphone array; and a control section that, when a characteristic in a frequency band of a synthesized signal obtained by synthesizing the acoustic signals corresponds to a characteristic of an acoustic signal corresponding to a sound other than a target sound, controls the orientation direction forming section such that an orientation direction that is a direction that is different than an orientation direction of the microphone array at a present point in time is formed, and, when the characteristic in the frequency band of the synthesized signal does not correspond to a characteristic of an acoustic signal corresponding to a sound other than the target sound, controls the orientation direction forming section such that the orientation direction of the microphone array is maintained.
Abstract:
An object of the invention is to produce a microorganism which yields high amounts in a short time of a hydroxycarboxylic acid reduced in impurity content. This invention further provides a process for producing a hydroxycarboxylic acid, including glycolic acid, using the microorganism. This process enables a hydroxycarboxylic acid having high purity to be supplied at low cost.
Abstract:
In a telephone device, a near-end signal processor delays each input near-end signal delivered from the respective microphones by a delay amount, and synthesizes the input near-end signals into a synthesized near-end signal. In an echo canceller, mounted on board the telephone device, a far-end signal is delayed by the same delay amounts as used in the near-end signal processor to form plural delayed far-end signals, which are synthesized into a synthesized far-end signal, with which the echo component in the synthesized near-end signal will be suppressed.
Abstract:
In a voice coding apparatus of a voice communication system, feature parameters of background noise in background noise sections of an input signal stream are extracted and background noise is encoded into a comfortable-noise code, and embedding positions where additional information is to be embedded are determined according to the values of the extracted feature parameters. Additional information is embedded into the embedding positions thus determined of the voice or comfortable-noise code, which will be transmitted to a voice decoding apparatus in the system. In the decoding apparatus, the transmitted code is separated into voice and background noise sections to be decoded. From the background noise sections, the values of the feature parameters are found out and used to reference a correspondence relationship table to determine the embedding positions where the additional information is embedded. The additional information is extracted at the embedding positions thus determined to be restored.
Abstract:
An automatic gain control apparatus can prevent jumps in the gain coefficient when the gain coefficient is altered, due to a sharp change in the level of the received signal before and after the alteration. The apparatus includes a mean square circuit for processing the received signal, a gain coefficient generating circuit for generating a gain coefficient, a decision circuit for deciding whether the received level of the received signal has changed, and a control circuit for, when a change in the received level of the received signal is detected, determining a number of mean square values and a generating interval. The apparatus further includes a gain coefficient linear smoother for altering the gain coefficient over an interval, and a multiplier for multiplying the received signal by the gain coefficient obtained from the gain coefficient linear smoother.
Abstract:
The present invention provides: a lactic acid-producing Escherichia coli including an enzymatic activity of at least one NAD-dependent lactate dehydrogenase and an enzymatic activity of at least one NAD-independent lactate oxidoreductase, both of which are enhanced so as to decompose one of D-lactic acid or L-lactic acid and to produce the other one of D-lactic acid or L-lactic acid; and a lactic acid production method using the lactic acid-producing Escherichia coli.
Abstract:
The invention provides: yeast having cellulose degradation ability that degrades cellulose outside the cell and glucose accumulation ability that accumulates, in a reaction liquid, glucose produced from cellulose as a result of the cellulose degradation ability, when the yeast was brought into contact with cellulose in the reaction liquid; and a method for producing glucose, wherein the glucose is produced from cellulose, the method comprising the step of bringing the yeast into contact with cellulose in a reaction liquid and the step of separating and collecting, from the reaction liquid, glucose accumulated in the reaction liquid as a result of the contact of the yeast with the cellulose.
Abstract:
In a telephone device, a near-end signal processor delays each input near-end signal delivered from the respective microphones by a delay amount, and synthesizes the input near-end signals into a synthesized near-end signal. In an echo canceller, mounted on board the telephone device, a far-end signal is delayed by the same delay amounts as used in the near-end signal processor to form plural delayed far-end signals, which are synthesized into a synthesized far-end signal, with which the echo component in the synthesized near-end signal will be suppressed.
Abstract:
In a printing system capable of supplying a sheet of a job having undergone print processing by the printing unit of a printing apparatus to a post-processing unit capable of executing at least a specific type of post-processing among a plurality of types of post-processes, when the target job requires the specific type of post-processing, the printing apparatus is inhibited from executing print processing of the job without explicitly determining a sheet necessary for the print processing of the job by a user using a user interface unit. When the target job does not require the specific type of post-processing, the printing apparatus is permitted to execute print processing of the job without explicitly determining a sheet necessary for the print processing of the job by the user using the user interface unit.
Abstract:
Because conditions for recording identification data of a medium vary in accordance with the structure of different media, such as a single-layer or a multiple-layer structure, stable data recording has been a difficult task. To solve this problem, an incident side of the laser beam for recording identification data on a single-layer optical disk 5 and a double-layer optical disk 6 is the opposite side of a substrate 1 upon which user data is recorded. From this structure, even in a double-layer optical disk 6, the recording is not affected by the recording layer of a second layer 12b and the like. Therefore, in the double-layer optical disk 6, identification data of the medium can be recorded under the same conditions as the single-layer optical disk 5.