Speech intonation and focus location in matched statements and questions

An acoustical study of speech production was conducted to determine the manner in which the location of linguistic focus influences intonational attributes of duration and fundamental voice frequency (F0) in matched statements and questions. Speakers orally read sentences that were preceded by aurally presented stimuli designed to elicit either no focus or focus on the first or last noun phrase of the target sentences. Computer-aided acoustical analysis of word durations showed a localized, large magnitude increase in the duration of the focused word for both statements and questions. Analysis of F0 revealed a more complex pattern of results, with the shape of the F0 topline dependent on sentence type and focus location. For sentences with neutral or sentence-final focus, the difference in the F0 topline between questions and statements was evident only on the last key word, where the F0 peak of questions was considerably higher than that of statements. For sentences with focus on the first key word, there was no difference in peak F0 on the focused item itself, but the F0 toplines of questions and statements diverged quite dramatically following the initial word. The statement contour dropped to a low F0 value for the remainder of the sentence, whereas the question remained quite high in F0 for all subsequent words. In addition, the F0 contour on the focused word was rising in questions and falling in statements, regardless of focus location. The results provide a basis for work on the perception of linguistic focus.     

The perception of intonation questions and statements in Cantonese

In tone languages there are potential conflicts in the perception of lexical tone and intonation, as both depend mainly on the differences in fundamental frequency (F0) patterns. The present study investigated the acoustic cues associated with the perception of sentences as questions or statements in Cantonese, as a function of the lexical tone in sentence final position. Cantonese listeners performed intonation identification tasks involving complete sentences, isolated final syllables, and sentences without the final syllable (carriers). Sensitivity (d' scores) were similar for complete sentences and final syllables but were significantly lower for carriers. Sensitivity was also affected by tone identity. These findings show that the perception of questions and statements relies primarily on the F0 characteristics of the final syllables (local F0 cues). A measure of response bias (c) provided evidence for a general bias toward the perception of statements. Logistic regression analyses showed that utterances were accurately classified as questions or statements by using average F0 and F0 interval. Average F0 of carriers (global F0 cue) was also found to be a reliable secondary cue. These findings suggest that the use of F0 cues for the perception of intonation question in tonal languages is likely to be language-specific.     

Influence of filter and signal types in optical matched filtering

The dependence of the output correlation signal on the filter parameters, filter types, and signal types in matched filtering is discussed. On the basis of the established filter criteria—the signal-to-noise ratio, peak-to-sidelobe ratio, and diffraction efficiency—a new measure is introduced giving an overall estimate of the feasibility of filters. According to that single measure, various filter types are compared and selected by numerical experiments.     

基于音节韵律特征分类的汉语语音合成中韵律模型的研究

论述了采用基于统计模型进行韵律建模的思路。在此基础上,提出了基于音节韵律特征分类的韵律建模思路,并采用韵律模板和韵律代价函数实现了韵律的自动预测。对该模型的自动训练算法进行了详细的阐述。根据统计的韵律建模方法,还分析了韵律特征间相互关联对音节韵律模板选取的影响。最后,进一步分析了统计韵律模型的进行韵律预测的误差分布情况,表明了该模型能够使语音合成系统具有较高自然度和高灵活性的特性。     

射线成像检测中射线源焦点的影响及修正

本文分析了在工业无损检测中射线源焦点对成像质量的影响，讨论了射线源焦点对成像影响的数学模型，以此为基础，设计了相应的焦点修正算法，并给出了处理结果     

基于图像处理技术的航空相机镜头焦面自准直定位研究

提出基于图像处理技术的航空相机镜头焦面定位的方法,利用光电自准直原理进行焦面定位,并选用两种图像清晰度评价函数实时提取图像清晰度特征,采用优化的爬山算法进行快速检焦。仿真实验结果表明:利用本系统对焦距为750 mm,F数为6.3,CCD像元尺寸为6.8 m6.8 m,成像光谱为500 nm~800 nm的航空相机进行焦面定位精度测定,得到相机的半焦深为0.040 mm,可用于航空CCD相机的焦面检定及航空CCD相机的自动调焦系统。     

点火位置对激光等离子体减阻效能的影响

利用激光等离子体减小高超声速飞行器波阻是一种新概念减阻方式,点火位置是研究减阻效能的重要参数。基于有限体积法和分区结构网格划分的高分辨力数值方法,在气流马赫数为6.5、飞行高度为30km条件下,计算了不同点火位置对减小高超声速飞行器波阻的影响。研究结果表明:利用激光等离子体可以有效地减小高超声速钝头体飞行器波阻;点火位置到驻点的距离与飞行器直径之比为2时,减阻效果最好,且数值模拟与理论计算结果吻合较好。     

The impact of discourse stress on clause prosody in Chinese Putonghua

By analyzing the acoustic data of a Chinese news report,the present research explores the pattern of how to change syllable duration and pitch of stress when isolated clauses are connected into a discourse.Comparing the same clause between isolated and in discourse context,the pitch variation of the clause nucleus can be most manifests,i.e.the top points as a whole fall remarkably;furthermore the degree of pitch falling varies with different kinds of stresses.When clause stresses are not assigned the status of discourse stress,they show a weakening effect of stress;it means pitch falling and syllable duration shortening.In a discourse composed of several clauses,speakers can modulate clause prosody by varying the strength of stresses;thereby realize the overall control of the discourse prosody and exact semantic expression.The findings on phonetic material from broadcast will shed light on the teaching of news broadcasting and contribute to the prosodic control of Chinese Putonghua synthesis.     

The use of prosody in syntactic disambiguation.

Prosodic structure and syntactic structure are not identical; neither are they unrelated. Knowing when and how the two correspond could yield better quality speech synthesis, could aid in the disambiguation of competing syntactic hypotheses in speech understanding, and could lead to a more comprehensive view of human speech processing. In a set of experiments involving 35 pairs of phonetically similar sentences representing seven types of structural contrasts, the perceptual evidence shows that some, but not all, of the pairs can be disambiguated on the basis of prosodic differences. The phonological evidence relates the disambiguation primarily to boundary phenomena, although prominences sometimes play a role. Finally, phonetic analyses describing the attributes of these phonological markers indicate the importance of both absolute and relative measures.     

Influence of electrode and insulator materials on the neutronemission in a low energy plasma focus device

Insertion of internal impurities is one of the factors for the degradation of neutron output in plasma focus devices. In this context, neutron emission measurements were carried out in a 2.2 kJ (7.2 μF, 25 kV) Mather type squirrel cage plasma focus device with various combinations of electrode and insulator materials. The neutron yield was measured by silver activation detector. The results indicate that a central electrode of low erosion rate material produces maximum neutron yield with the highest anisotropy factor. A time integrated X-ray pinhole image shows that focus corresponding to the highest neutron yield material is the most compressed. The dielectric constant of the ceramic insulators has, at best, a very weak correlation with neutron output. The nonceramic insulators like perspex, nylon, or teflon neither produce focus nor neutrons     

Effect of cochlear implants on children's perception and production of speech prosody

Japanese 5- to 13-yr-olds who used cochlear implants (CIs) and a comparison group of normally hearing (NH) Japanese children were tested on their perception and production of speech prosody. For the perception task, they were required to judge whether semantically neutral utterances that were normalized for amplitude were spoken in a happy, sad, or angry manner. The performance of NH children was error-free. By contrast, child CI users performed well below ceiling but above chance levels on happy- and sad-sounding utterances but not on angry-sounding utterances. For the production task, children were required to imitate stereotyped Japanese utterances expressing disappointment and surprise as well as culturally typically representations of crow and cat sounds. NH 5- and 6-year-olds produced significantly poorer imitations than older hearing children, but age was unrelated to the imitation quality of child CI users. Overall, child CI user's imitations were significantly poorer than those of NH children, but they did not differ significantly from the imitations of the youngest NH group. Moreover, there was a robust correlation between the performance of child CI users on the perception and production tasks; this implies that difficulties with prosodic perception underlie their difficulties with prosodic imitation.     

Influence of Kr doping on neon soft X-rays emission in fast miniature plasma focus device

An investigation on the possibility of enhancement of soft X-ray (SXR) (900–1600 eV) emission from a fast miniature plasma focus (FMPF) device of 235 J (at 14 kV) storage energy through doping of operating gas was performed. Neon (Ne), the operating gaseous medium, was doped with krypton (Kr) in different volumetric ratios at various operating pressures ranging from 2 to 14 mbar. The 1% Kr doping increased the average optimum SXR emission efficiency from 0.47% to 0.6% without enhancing the hard X-ray (HXR) (>1600 eV) emission. The Kr doping influenced the major pinching characteristics such as focusing efficiency and time to pinch with consequential effect on X-ray emissions. Synchronous operation of the 4 pseudo-spark gap (PSG) switches was mandatory for efficient discharge current delivery to the electrodes. A drastic improvement in the pinching efficiency was obtained with replacement of old and worn out PSG switches with the new ones. Optical imaging of current sheath dynamics was performed using gated ICCD camera to verify the normal operation of the device after the PSGs replacement. A numerical simulation analysis on the 2 cm long stainless steel tapered anode, used in this study, was done to predict the maximum SXR emission efficiency and the peak operating gas pressure. An analysis on the amount of SXR fluence generated at the source position and the proportion of it reaching the target position is also reported.     

Influence of attention focus on neural activity in the human spinal cord during thermal sensory stimulation

Perceptions of sensation and pain in healthy people are believed to be the net result of sensory input and descending modulation from brainstem and cortical regions depending on emotional and cognitive factors. Here, the influence of attention on neural activity in the spinal cord during thermal sensory stimulation of the hand was investigated with functional magnetic resonance imaging by systematically varying the participants' attention focus across and within repeated studies. Attention states included (1) attention to the stimulus by rating the sensation and (2) attention away from the stimulus by performing various mental tasks of watching a movie and identifying characters, detecting the direction of coherently moving dots within a randomly moving visual field and answering mentally-challenging questions. Functional MRI results spanning the cervical spinal cord and brainstem consistently demonstrated that the attention state had a significant influence on the activity detected in the cervical spinal cord, as well as in brainstem regions involved with the descending analgesia system. These findings have important implications for the detection and study of pain, and improved characterization of the effects of injury or disease.     

相对论教学中的若干问题

介绍了关于相对论的几个重要而有趣的问题,例如爱因斯坦如何创建狭义相对论,牛顿的水桶实验,双生子佯谬等.     

Effectiveness of spatial cues, prosody, and talker characteristics in selective attention

The three experiments reported here compare the effectiveness of natural prosodic and vocal-tract size cues at overcoming spatial cues in selective attention. Listeners heard two simultaneous sentences and decided which of two simultaneous target words came from the attended sentence. Experiment 1 used sentences that had natural differences in pitch and in level caused by a change in the location of the main sentence stress. The sentences' pitch contours were moved apart or together in order to separate out effects due to pitch and those due to other prosodic factors such as intensity. Both pitch and the other prosodic factors had an influence on which target word was reported, but the effects were not strong enough to override the spatial difference produced by an interaural time difference of +/- 91 microseconds. In experiment 2, a large (+/- 15%) difference in apparent vocal-tract size between the speakers of the two sentences had an additional and strong effect, which, in conjunction with the original prosodic differences overrode an interaural time difference of +/- 181 microseconds. Experiment 3 showed that vocal-tract size differences of +/- 4% or less had no detectable effect. Overall, the results show that prosodic and vocal-tract size cues can override spatial cues in determining which target word belongs in an attended sentence.     

结合数据场情感空间和混合蛙跳算法的连续语音情感变化趋势检测

针对现有的情感计算算法中存在着情感跟踪延迟的问题,且没有考虑到情感状态的连续性的情况,提出了一种结合数据场情感空间和混合蛙跳算法的连续语音情感变化趋势检测技术。首先构建数据场情感空间,利用情感特征量模拟数据场粒子,用势能函数描述粒子之间的相互作用。然后运用混合蛙跳算法技术,用青蛙个体来模拟情感状态变化过程中的情感特征量,得到情感变化的趋势。通过对变化趋势的分析,可以达到情感预测的目的。经实验证明,该算法性能比现有算法有较大改进。     

对应原理两种表述的讨论

对<大学物理>杂志以前刊发的一篇文章中关于对应原理的两种表述及综合运用的部分论点提出了不同的看法和新的见解,并阐述了对普朗克对应原理和玻尔对应原理的理解.     

Influence of energetic excitation on the structure and location of the radical II in X-irradiated Rochelle salt studied by ENDOR

ENDOR investigations of the radical II in X-irradiated Rochelle salt have been performed at 77 K. The number of lines observed is twice that anticipated from symmetry considerations. This fact might indicate the existence of two kinds of radical which differ from each other only slightly and are distinguished by their excitation energy. The excitation is accompanied by an increase in the OH bond length. The original hydrogen bond O₆H…O₂^′ is modified to O₆H…O_l^′, where O₁^′ and O₂^′ represent the atoms of the carboxyl group of the adjacent unit cell. This bond lacks stability. The measurement of the intensity dependence of the lines on the time after irradiation gives evidence of the recombination of the radical after excitation.     

关于态叠加原理的认同与争议

给出了不同学者关于量子力学态叠加原理的几种表述,分析比较了关于该原理的有关观点的争议,并对其中的原因进行了讨论。