A method for synthesizing near-field head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) from far-field HRTFs measured using an acoustic point-source of sound is presented. Near-field HRTFs are synthesized by applying an analytic function describing the change in the transfer function when the location of a sound source changes from the far-field to the near-field: the distance variation function (DVF). Th...

Unsupervised clustering can be significantly improved using supervision in the form of pairwise constraints, i.e., pairs of instances labeled as belonging to same or different clusters. In recent years, a number of algorithms have been proposed for enhancing clustering quality by employing such supervision. Such methods use the constraints to either modify the objective function, or to learn th...

Estimation of efficiency of firms in a non-competitive market characterized by heterogeneous inputs and outputs along with their varying prices is questionable when factor-based technology sets are used in data envelopment analysis (DEA). In this scenario, a value-based technology becomes an appropriate reference technology against which efficiency can be assessed. In this contribution, the val...

The purpose of this paper is to suggest a procedure to empirically test the Porter hypothesis. This hypothesis argues that environmental regulation not only increases environmental quality, but also brings the polluting producers information that makes them more resource efficient, as well as able to develop new technologies. Specifically, the hypothesis tested is whether there is a positive si...

With the outstanding of economic and environmental conflicts, issues between them are increasingly becoming the focus of the world. This paper used the directional distance function to measure Chinese industry environmental technical efficiency during 2001-2008, and it used the efficiency to evaluate the coordination of environment, energy and industrial growth. It found that Chinese environmen...

Industrial sectors account for around 70% of the total energy-related CO2 emissions in China. It is of great importance to measure the potential for CO2 emissions reduction and calculate the carbon price in industrial sectors covered in the Emissions Trading Scheme and carbon tax. This paper employs the directional distance function to calculate the marginal abatement costs of CO2 emissions dur...

This paper, by using conditional directional distance functions as introduced by Simar and Vanhems [J. Econometrics 166 (2012) 342-354] modifies the model by Färe and Grosskopf [Eur. J. Operat. Res. 157 (2004) 242-245], examines the link between regional environmental efficiency and economic growth. The proposed model using conditional directional distance functions incorporates the effect of r...

The estimation of the value of carbon emissions has become a major research and policy topic since the establishment of the Kyoto Protocol. The shadow price of CO2 provides information about the marginal abatement cost of this pollutant. It is an essential element in guiding environmental policy issues, since the CO2 shadow price can be used when fixing carbon tax rates, in environmental cost-b...

bstract. A comprehensive survey of 48 filters for impulsive noise emoval from color images is presented. The filters are formulated sing a uniform notation and categorized into 8 families. The perforance of these filters is compared on a large set of images that over a variety of domains using three effectiveness and one effiiency criteria. In order to ensure a fair efficiency comparison, a fas...