Across-ear interference from parametrically degraded synthetic speech signals in a dichotic cocktail-party listening task

Recent results have shown that listeners attending to the quieter of two speech signals in one ear (the target ear) are highly susceptible to interference from normal or time-reversed speech signals presented in the unattended ear. However, speech-shaped noise signals have little impact on the segregation of speech in the opposite ear. This suggests that there is a fundamental difference between the across-ear interference effects of speech and nonspeech signals. In this experiment, the intelligibility and contralateral-ear masking characteristics of three synthetic speech signals with parametrically adjustable speech-like properties were examined: (1) a modulated noise-band (MNB) speech signal composed of fixed-frequency bands of envelope-modulated noise; (2) a modulated sine-band (MSB) speech signal composed of fixed-frequency amplitude-modulated sinewaves; and (3) a "sinewave speech" signal composed of sine waves tracking the first four formants of speech. In all three cases, a systematic decrease in performance in the two-talker target-ear listening task was found as the number of bands in the contralateral speech-like masker increased. These results suggest that speech-like fluctuations in the spectral envelope of a signal play an important role in determining the amount of across-ear interference that a signal will produce in a dichotic cocktail-party listening task.     

An Eulerian–Lagrangian WENO finite volume scheme for advection problems

We develop a locally conservative Eulerian–Lagrangian finite volume scheme with the weighted essentially non-oscillatory property (EL–WENO) in one-space dimension. This method has the advantages of both WENO and Eulerian–Lagrangian schemes. It is formally high-order accurate in space (we present the fifth order version) and essentially non-oscillatory. Moreover, it is free of a CFL time step stability restriction and has small time truncation error. The scheme requires a new integral-based WENO reconstruction to handle trace-back integration. A Strang splitting algorithm is presented for higher-dimensional problems, using both the new integral-based and pointwise-based WENO reconstructions. We show formally that it maintains the fifth order accuracy. It is also locally mass conservative. Numerical results are provided to illustrate the performance of the scheme and verify its formal accuracy.     

The advantage of knowing where to listen

This study examined the role of focused attention along the spatial (azimuthal) dimension in a highly uncertain multitalker listening situation. The task of the listener was to identify key words from a target talker in the presence of two other talkers simultaneously uttering similar sentences. When the listener had no a priori knowledge about target location, or which of the three sentences was the target sentence, performance was relatively poor-near the value expected simply from choosing to focus attention on only one of the three locations. When the target sentence was cued before the trial, but location was uncertain, performance improved significantly relative to the uncued case. When spatial location information was provided before the trial, performance improved significantly for both cued and uncued conditions. If the location of the target was certain, proportion correct identification performance was higher than 0.9 independent of whether the target was cued beforehand. In contrast to studies in which known versus unknown spatial locations were compared for relatively simple stimuli and tasks, the results of the current experiments suggest that the focus of attention along the spatial dimension can play a very significant role in solving the "cocktail party" problem.     

Gravitational forces in dual-porosity systems: II. Computational validation of the homogenized model

Three models are considered for single component, single phase flow in naturally fractured porous media. The microscopic model holds on the Darcy scale, and it is considered to govern the system. The macroscopic, dual-porosity model was derived in Part I of this work from the microscopic model by two-scale mathematical homogenization. In this paper, we show that the dual-porosity model predicts well the behavior of the microscopic model by comparing their computed solutions in certain reasonable test cases. Homogenization gives a complex formula for a key parameter in the dual-porosity model; herein a simple approximation to this formula is presented. The third model considered is a single-porosity model with averaged parameters. It is shown that this type of model cannot predict the behavior of the microscopic flow.This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation and by the State of Texas Governor's Energy Office.     

Negative-ion liquid secondary ion mass spectrometry of antiparallel N-carbamoylmorpholine-linked nucleic acid oligomers: Evidence for fragmentation from molecular radical ion precursors

N-Carbamoylmorpholine-linked nucleic acid oiigomers were analyzed by negative-ion liquid secondary ion mass spectrometry. Cleavage of the carbamate backbone in repeating fashion on both sides of the carbonyl groups gives two sequence ion series. The main fragment arises from cleavage of the base-morpholine bond. Important fragment ions are postulated to arise from cleavage of an M^?· radical ion precursor.     

Tandem Mass Spectrometric Characterization of Thiol Peptides Modified by the Chemoselective Cationic Sulfhydryl Reagent (4-Iodobutyl)Triphenylphosphonium—

Fixed charge chemical modifications on peptides and proteins can impact fragmentation behaviors in tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). In this study, we employed a thiol-specific cationic alkylation reagent, (4-iodobutyl)triphenylphosphonium (IBTP), to selectively modify cysteine thiol groups in mitochondrial proteome samples. Tandem mass spectrometric characteristics of butyltriphenylphosphonium (BTP)-modified peptides were evaluated by comparison to their carbamidomethylated (CAM) analogues using a quadrupole time-of-flight (Q-TOF) instrument under low energy collision-induced dissociation (CID) conditions. Introduction of the fixed charge modification resulted in the observation of peptide and fragment (b_n and y_n) ions with higher charge states than those observed for CAM-modified analogues. The charged BTP moiety had a significant effect on the neighboring amide bond fragmentation products. A decrease in relative abundances of the product ions at the corresponding cleavage sites was observed compared with those from the CAM-modified derivatives. This effect was particularly noticeable when an Xxx-Pro bond was in the vicinity of a BTP group. We hypothesized that the presence of a phosphonium moiety will reduce the tendency for protonation of the proximal amide bonds in the peptide backbone. Indeed, calculations indicated that proton affinities of backbone amide bonds close to the modified cysteine residues were generally 20–50 kcal/mol lower for BTP-modified peptides than for the unmodified or CAM-modified analogues with the sequence motif -Ala-Cys-Ala_n-Ala₂-, -Ala-Cys-Ala_n-Pro-Ala-, and -Ala-Pro-Ala_n-Cys-Ala-, n = 0–3.     

Negative ion liquid secondary ion mass spectrometry of carbamate-linked oligodeoxynucleosides. II

Carbamate-linked Oligodeoxynucleosides, in which the backbone consists of carbamate and N-methylcarbamate linkages, have been analyzed by negative ion liquid secondary ion mass spectrometry. Bidirectional sequence-determining fragmentations are postulated to occur from a common radical anion intermediate that is produced by capture of an ionizing electron by the neutral sample molecule. Fragmentation reactions appear to be related to whether a proton or methyl group is present on the amide nitrogen.     

Characterization of disulfide linkages and disulfide bond scrambling in recombinant human macrophage colony stimulating factor by fast-atom bombardment mass spectrometry of enzymatic digests

Fast-atom bombardment mass spectrometry was used to study disulfide bonding patterns in heat-denatured human recombinant macrophage colony stimulating factor (rhM-CSF). The heat-denaturated protein was studied by analysis of the pattern of peptides in the proteolytic digests. Native rhM-CSF is a homodimer with intramolecular disulfide linkages between Cys7–Cys90, Cys48–Cys139, and Cys102–Cys146 and intermolecular linkages between Cys31-Cys31, and the pairs Cys157 and Cys159. Brief heating for 1 min leads to partial disulfide bond scrambling. In addition to the native disulfide bonds between Cys7–Cys90, Cys48–Cys139, and Cys31-Cys31, nonnative disulfide bonds were detected between Cys48–Cys90 and Cys48–Cys102. When heated for 5 min the disulfide bonds of rhM-CSF are completely scrambled and lead to nonnative intramolecular disulfide bonds between Cys48–Cys102 and Cys90–Cys102 and one intermolecular disulfide bond between Cys102–Cys102.