Analysis, synthesis, and perception of voice quality variations among female and male talkers

Voice quality variations include a set of voicing sound source modifications ranging from laryngealized to normal to breathy phonation. Analysis of reiterant imitations of two sentences by ten female and six male talkers has shown that the potential acoustic cues to this type of voice quality variation include: (1) increases to the relative amplitude of the fundamental frequency component as open quotient increases; (2) increases to the amount of aspiration noise that replaces higher frequency harmonics as the arytenoids become more separated; (3) increases to lower formant bandwidths; and (4) introduction of extra pole zeros in the vocal-tract transfer function associated with tracheal coupling. Perceptual validation of the relative importance of these cues for signaling a breathy voice quality has been accomplished using a new voicing source model for synthesis of more natural male and female voices. The new formant synthesizer, KLSYN88, is fully documented here. Results of the perception study indicate that, contrary to previous research which emphasizes the importance of increased amplitude of the fundamental component, aspiration noise is perceptually most important. Without its presence, increases to the fundamental component may induce the sensation of nasality in a high-pitched voice. Further results of the acoustic analysis include the observations that: (1) over the course of a sentence, the acoustic manifestations of breathiness vary considerably--tending to increase for unstressed syllables, in utterance-final syllables, and at the margins of voiceless consonants; (2) on average, females are more breathy than males, but there are very large differences between subjects within each gender; (3) many utterances appear to end in a "breathy-laryngealized" type of vibration; and (4) diplophonic irregularities in the timing of glottal periods occur frequently, especially at the end of an utterance. Diplophonia and other deviations from perfect periodicity may be important aspects of naturalness in synthesis.     

Water 1H spin-lattice relaxation as a fingerprint of porous media

The 1H spin-lattice relaxation curves of water in samples of natural porous media can be thought of as "fingerprints" of the porous samples. Also the whole of traditional petrophysical properties (permeability, irreducible water saturation, etc.) can be thought of as "fingerprints" of the porous samples. The characteristics of the pore space determine on one hand the relaxation curve shape, and on the other the petrophysical properties. The understanding of this correspondence can contribute to a better definition of the concept of the architecture of a porous medium. At this purpose we have obtained 1H spin-lattice relaxation curves from a collection of standard sandstone cores of known petrophysical properties and characterized by the same surface properties. The results corroborate the idea that the structure of relaxation curves contains information on the distance scale and on the architecture of the pore space, even if it is difficult to extract it without ambiguities. Different methods of curve fitting were performed and compared with the aim of getting the maximum information from the relaxation curves. Several aspects of this kind of investigation indicate the analogies between 1H response of water confined in porous media and in biological tissues.     

Intra- versus intermolecular hydrogen bonds in salicylamide derivatives

The crystal structures, solid-state infrared patterns, and thermal properties of two polymorphs of 4-nitrosalicylanilide are presented. In both polymorphs, intramolecular hydrogen bonds are found between the phenol oxygen and the amide proton, and intermolecular hydrogen bonds are found between the amide carbonyl oxygen and the phenol proton. These hydrogen bond patterns are compared to those found in other known salicylamide derivatives and an analysis is given of the factors contributing to preferences for intra- or intermolecular hydrogen bonds in these structures. Crystal data: polymorph, orthorhombic,Pbca,a=11.003(4),b=27.959(7),c=7.622(5) Å,Z=4,V=2345(3) ų, andR=0.038 (1351 reflections); polymorph, monoclinic,P2₁/a,a=28.36(1),b=11.64(1),c=7.293(8) Å,=90.68(6)°,Z=8,V=2408 ų, andR=0.043 (2425 reflections).     

Markov type properties for mixtures of probability measures

Summary We show that, given a general Markov type property M, and a finite dimensional set of probability measures , the set of elements of having M can be described by finitely many quadratic equations. We apply the result to the problem of the global Markov property for nonextremal Gibbs states.This work was prepared during the author's stay at the University of Hull, England, and supported by the Science and Engineering Research Council of Great Britatin     

Exact Solutions of the Space Charge Equation Using the Hodograph Method

In this paper we show that a hodograph method first introducedby Budd & Wheeler (1987) to develop a new numerical algorithmto solve the space charge equation •()=0 can be employedto derive all the known exact solutions, which have recentlybeen found by Smith (1988). All these solutions are shown tobe separable solutions of the equations resulting from the applicationof the hodograph transformation. We also briefly describe thisnew numerical method and use one of the exact solutions to demonstrateits accuracy.     

A method to account for acoustic microstreaming when predicting bubble growth rates produced by rectified diffusion

A reinterpretation of existing theory for rectified diffusion, the process by which bubbles in a sound field may grow in radius, is presented in order to quantitate the effect of acoustic microstreaming on bubble growth rates. The 1/t term in the growth rate equation is defined as the "decay term" and t as the "decay time," the time required for the gas concentration in the liquid contacting the bubble to rise (or fall) from its initial to its final value. In the absence of microstreaming, t is the duration of sonification. In the presence of microstreaming, t may be calculated from the streaming velocity and the bubble radius. A comparison between theory and the experimental results of Eller [A. Eller, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 46, 1246-1250 (1969)] and of Gould [R.K. Gould, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 56, 1740-1746 (1974)] shows reasonable agreement in the low kHz range. Theoretical results in the frequency range of 1-10 MHz at 1 and 4 bar are also presented.     

Analyticity properties of the surface free energy of the Ising model

For an Ising ferromagnet with nearest-neighbour interactions of strengthK and surface magnetic fieldh, the surface free energy in the presence of a positively (or negatively) magnetized zero-field bulk phase is shown to be analytic inh for Reh<K–/, where =2.96 ... and is the inverse temperature. This puts the lower boundK–/ on the values ofh at which wetting and layering transitions can take place.     

Slowly relaxing tunneling states in neutron-irradiated quartz: A study of the internal friction at audio-frequencies

The internal friction of two neutron-irradiated quartz samples was measured at audio-frequency as a function of temperature. This is an extension of acoustic measurements to much lower frequencies and thus to much longer time scales. A temperature independent behaviour has been observed and is discussed in the framework of the tunnelling model. One of the major assumptions of this model regarding the tunnelling states with long relaxation time could be verified for neutron-irradiated quartz.     

Quantum relativistic action at a distance

A well-known relativistic action at a distance interaction of two unequal masses is altered so as to yield purely Newtonian radial forces with fixed particle rest masses in the system center-of-momentum inertial frame. Although particle masses experience no kinematic mass increase in this frame, speeds are naturally restricted to less than the speed of light. We derive a relation between the center-of-momentum frame total Newtonian energy and the composite rest mass. In a new proper time quantum formalism, we obtain an L²(R⁴ R⁴, C) Hilbert space by varying individual particle rest masses. We propose the use of density operators, recognizing that the auxiliary proper time parameter is not an observable. The quantum formalism is applied to our altered version of the relativistic harmonic oscillator. Our generalized coherent states yield four-dimensional wave packets which follow the correct classical world lines. Appendices contain reviews of classical Hamiltonian reparametrization (incorporating our notion of manifest covariance), and a comparison of this work with the literature.     

The effect of the relative position of the bandgap with respect to laser wavelength on the behaviour of DFWM in semiconductor-doped glasses

Degenerated four-wave mixing (DFWM) was realised in five commercial semiconductor-doped glasses (Corning CS3–66, CS3–67, CS3–68, CS3–69, CS3–70). The reflectivity obtained for each glass seems very dependent on the energy excess (E=hv–E _g) and relatively independant on l, the product of the absorption coefficient () by the sample thickness (l). The decay time of the DFWM signal was measured for each glass. The relaxation was found to be different when the photon energy is under or over the gap.