Spectral pattern recognition of improved voice quality

The self-organizing map (a neural network) was applied to the spectral pattern recognition of voice quality in 34 subjects: 15 patients operated on because of insufficient glottal closure and 19 subjects not treated for voice disorders. The voice samples, segments of sustained /a/, were perceptually rated by six experts. A self-organized acoustic feature map was first computed from tokens of /a/ and then used for the analysis of the samples. The locations of the samples on the map were determined and the distances from a normal reference were compared with the perceptual ratings. The map locations corresponded to the degree of audible disorder: the samples judged as normal were overlapping or close to the normal reference, whereas the samples judged as dysphonie were located further away from it. The comparison of pre- and postoperative samples of the patients showed that the perceived improvement of voice quality was also detected by the map.     

A note about Volterra operators on weighted Banach spaces of entire functions

We characterize boundedness, compactness and weak compactness of Volterra operators acting between different weighted Banach spaces of entire functions with sup‐norms in terms of the symbol g; thus we complement recent work by Bassallote, Contreras, Hernández‐Mancera, Martín and Paul 3 for spaces of holomorphic functions on the disc and by Constantin and Peláez 16 for reflexive weighted Fock spaces.     

Cobalt complexes of a selenium diimide and a tellurium diimide dimer

[CoCl₂{N,N′-Te₂(N^tBu)₄}] (1) was obtained in good yields by the reaction of equimolar amounts of (^tBu)NTe(μ-N^tBu)₂TeN(^tBu) and CoCl₂ in toluene under an argon atmosphere. The crystal structure of 1·CH₂Cl₂ showed that the dimeric tellurium diimide ligand is N,N′-chelated to cobalt. The related reaction of Se(N^tBu)₂ and CoCl₂ affords a green product tentatively identified as a 1:1 adduct [CoCl₂{N,N′-Se(N^tBu)₂}] (CHN analysis). However, recrystallization from thf produces the ion-separated complex [Co₂(μ-Cl)₃{N,N′-Se(N^tBu)₂}₂(thf)₂][CoCl₃{NH₂(^tBu)}]·1½thf (2·1½thf), in which the monomeric selenium diimide ligand is N,N′-chelated to cobalt in the cation. A pathway for the formation of 2 from [CoCl₂{N,N′-Se(N^tBu)₂}] in thf is proposed.     

Importance of structural tightening, as opposed to partially bound States, in the determination of chemical shift changes at noncovalently bonded interfaces

Two models (A and B) have been proposed to account for decreased downfield chemical shifts of a proton bound by noncovalent interactions at a ligand/antibiotic interface as the number of ligand/antibiotic interactions is decreased. In model A, the proton involved in the noncovalent bond suffers a smaller downfield shift because the bond is, with a relatively large probability, broken, and not because it is longer. In model B, the proton involved in the noncovalent bond suffers a smaller downfield shift because the bond is longer, and not because it is, with a relatively large probability, broken. We show that model A cannot account for the chemical shift changes. Model B accounts for the process of positively cooperative binding, in which noncovalent bonds are reduced in length and thereby increase the stability of the organized state.     

Residual lignin inhibits thermal degradation of cellulosic fiber sheets

The market for cellulosic fiber based food packaging applications is growing together with the importance of improving the thermal durability of these fibers. To shed light on this, we investigated the role of residual lignin in pulp on the thermal stability of refined pulp sheets. The unbleached, oxygen delignified, and fully bleached pulp sheets were studied after four separate refining degrees. Comparison by Gurley air resistance, Bendtsen porosity, and the oxygen transmission rate tests showed that lignin containing sheets had better air and oxygen barrier properties than fully bleached sheets. Sheet density and light scattering coefficient measurements further confirmed that the lignin containing pulps underwent more intense fibrillation upon refining that changed the barrier properties of the sheets. Thermal treatments (at 225 °C, 20 and 60 min, in water vapor atmospheres of 1 and 75 v/v %) were applied to determine the thermal durability of the sheets. The results revealed that the residual lignin in pulps improved the thermal stability of the pulp sheets in the hot humid conditions. This effect was systematically studied by tensile strength, brightness, and light absorption coefficient measurements. The intrinsic viscosity results support the findings and suggest that lignin is able to hinder the thermal degradation of pulp polysaccharides. In spite of the fact that lignin is known to enhance the thermal yellowing of paper, no significant discoloration of the pulp sheets containing residual lignin was observed in the hot humid conditions (75 v/v %). Our results support the idea of lignin strengthening the thermal durability of paper.