Acoustic Analysis of Pathological Voices Compressedwith MPEG System

The MPEG-1 Layer 3 compression schema of audio signal, commonly known as mp3, has caused a great impact in recent years as it has reached high compression rates while conserving a high sound quality. Music and speech samples compressed at high bitrates are perceptually indistinguishable from the original samples, but very little was known about how compression acoustically affects the voice signal. A previous work with normal voices showed a high fidelity at high-bitrate compressions both in voice parameters and the amplitude-frequency spectrum. In the present work, dysphonic voices were tested through two studies. In the first study, spectrograms, long-term average spectra (LTAS), and fast Fourier transform (FFT) spectra of compressed and original samples of running speech were compared. In the second study, intensities, formant frequencies, formant bandwidths, and a multidimensional set of voice parameters were tested in a set of sustained phonations. Results showed that compression at high bitrates (96 and 128 kbps) preserved the relevant acoustic properties of the pathological voices. With compressions at lower bitrates, fidelity decreases, introducing some important alterations. Results from both works, Gonzalez and Cervera and this paper, open up the possibility of using MPEG-compression at high bitrates to store or transmit high-quality speech recordings, without altering their acoustic properties.     

A solvent-free synthesis of coumarins using a Wells-Dawson heteropolyacid as catalyst

Substituted coumarins are synthesized from phenols and β-ketoesters by the Pechmann reaction, using a Wells-Dawson heteropolyacid (H₆P₂W₁₈O₆₂·24H₂O) as catalyst by a solvent-free procedure. This one requires low reaction times, 130 °C temperature and as little as 1 mol % of Wells-Dawson acid, obtaining good to excellent yields of coumarins. The catalyst showed to be reusable with no differences in the yields. The results are compared with those of the reactions performed in toluene solution. The presented synthetic procedure is a convenient, clean and fast alternative for synthesizing 4-substituted coumarins (17 examples).     

New FIR laser lines and frequency measurements for optically pumped CD3OH

Twenty new cw FIR laser lines in CD₃OH, optically pumped by a CO₂ laser, are reported. The frequencies of 39 of the stronger laser lines were measured relative to stabilized CO₂ lasers with a fractional uncertainty, as determined by the reproducibility of the FIR frequency itself, of 2 parts in 10⁷.Contribution of the U.S. Government, not subject to copyright.     

Li3N、Mg3N2、Ca3N2催化作用的比较和分析

 Li₃N、Mg₃N₂和Ca₃N₂是高温高压下以hBN为原料合成cBN的催化剂。在实验中发现它们对常压高温下生成hBN的反应也表现出催化作用。对比了三种氮化物催化效果的差异，发现三种氮化物都只有在熔融状态下才能表现出催化效果，以及三种氮化物对生成hBN反应的催化效果与它们在高温高压下合成cBN反应的催化效果次序相似。提出了对合成hBN有催化作用的化合物也将对合成cBN表现出催化作用的观点。     

Crystallization and morphology of poly(vinylidene fluoride)/poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate) blends. I. Spherulitic morphology and growth by polarized microscopy

The development of the poly(3‐hydroxybutyrate) (PHB) morphology in the presence of already existent poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) spherulites was studied by two‐stage solidification with two separate crystallization temperatures. PVDF formed irregular dendrites at lower temperatures and regular, banded spherulites at elevated temperatures. The transition temperature of the spherulitic morphology from dendrites to regular, banded spherulites increased with increasing PVDF content. A remarkable amount of PHB was included in the PVDF dendrites, whereas PHB was rejected into the remaining melt from the banded spherulites. When PVDF crystallized as banded spherulites, PHB could consequently crystallize only around them, if at all. In contrast, PHB crystallized with a common growth front, starting from a defined site in the interfibrillar regions of volume‐filling PVDF dendrites. It formed by itself dendritic spherulites that included a large number of PVDF spherulites. For blends with a PHB content of more than 80 wt %, for which the PVDF dendrites were not volume‐filling, PHB first formed regular spherulites. Their growth started from outside the PVDF dendrites but could later interpenetrate them, and this made their own morphology dendritic. These PHB spherulites melted stepwise because the lamellae inside the PVDF dendrites melted at a lower temperature than those from outside. This reflected the regularity of the two fractions of the lamellae because that of those inside the dendrites of PVDF was controlled by the intraspherulitic order of PVDF, whereas that from outside was only controlled by the temperature and the melt composition. The described morphologies developed without mutual nucleating efficiency of the components. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys 41: 873–882, 2003     

3,7-二硝基亚氨基-2,4-二氮杂双环[3,3,0]辛烷的放热分解反应动力学

在程序升温条件下 ,用DSC研究了标题化合物的放热分解反应动力学 .用线性最小二乘法、迭代法以及二分法与最小二乘法相结合的方法 ,以积分方程、微分方程和放热速率方程拟合DSC数据 .在逻辑选择建立了微分和积分机理函数的最可几一般表达式后 ,用放热速率方程得到相应的表观活化能 (Ea)、指前因子 (A)和反应级数 (n)的值 .结果表明 :该反应的微分形式的经验动力学模式函数、Ea 和A值分别为 (1-α) 0 .44、2 30 .4kJ/mol和 10 18.16s-1.借助加热速率和所得动力学参数值 ,提出了标题化合物放热分解反应的动力学方程 .该化合物的热爆炸临界温度为 30 2 .6℃ .上述动力学参数对分析、评价标题化合物的稳定性和热变化规律十分有用 .