Pure-tone increment detection in harmonic and inharmonic backgrounds

The present study investigated the effect of increasing the number and frequency range of background components upon the detection of an increment to the intensity of the center component. Previous studies [e.g., Green et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 75, 1163-1167 (1984)] have demonstrated that, for background stimuli consisting of logarithmically spaced pure-tone components, as the number of background components is increased, the threshold for detection of an increment to the center component is decreased. The present study investigated this effect using harmonically spaced, as well as logarithmically spaced, backgrounds, because many natural sounds, including voiced speech sounds, consist of harmonically spaced components. Two conditions were employed for both types of backgrounds, fixed-level and roving-level within a trial. Group results revealed a small decrease in threshold with increasing number of components only for the fixed-level, logarithmically spaced backgrounds. No decrease in threshold was observed for the other three conditions, including the roving-level, logarithmically spaced backgrounds which were the same as those used by Green et al. (1984). The present results suggest that the decrease in signal threshold with increasing number of background components exists only under limited conditions and that it is a highly individual phenomenon. The present results also suggest that the effect does not occur for harmonically spaced complexes such as most natural sounds including voiced speech.     

Reference priors for exponential families with simple quadratic variance function

Reference analysis is one of the most successful general methods to derive noninformative prior distributions. In practice, however, reference priors are often difficult to obtain. Recently developed theory for conditionally reducible natural exponential families identifies an attractive reparameterization which allows one, among other things, to construct an enriched conjugate prior. In this paper, under the assumption that the variance function is simple quadratic, the order-invariant group reference prior for the above parameter is found. Furthermore, group reference priors for the mean- and natural parameter of the families are obtained. A brief discussion of the frequentist coverage properties is also presented. The theory is illustrated for the multinomial and negative-multinomial family. Posterior computations are especially straightforward due to the fact that the resulting reference distributions belong to the corresponding enriched conjugate family. A substantive application of the theory relates to the construction of reference priors for the Bayesian analysis of two-way contingency tables with respect to two alternative parameterizations.     

Periodic Solutions for Completely Resonant Nonlinear Wave Equations with Dirichlet Boundary Conditions

We consider the nonlinear string equation with Dirichlet boundary conditions u_tt–u_xx=(u), with (u)=u³+O(u⁵) odd and analytic, 0, and we construct small amplitude periodic solutions with frequency for a large Lebesgue measure set of close to 1. This extends previous results where only a zero-measure set of frequencies could be treated (the ones for which no small divisors appear). The proof is based on combining the Lyapunov-Schmidt decomposition, which leads to two separate sets of equations dealing with the resonant and non-resonant Fourier components, respectively the Q and the P equations, with resummation techniques of divergent powers series, allowing us to control the small divisors problem. The main difficulty with respect to the nonlinear wave equations u_tt–u_xx+Mu=(u), M0, is that not only the P equation but also the Q equation is infinite-dimensional.     

The Existence of Bifurcating Invariant Tori in a Spatially Extended Reaction-Diffusion-Convection System with Spatially Localized Amplification

We consider a spatially extended reaction-diffusion-convection system with a marginally stable ground state and a spatially localized amplification. We are interested in solutions bifurcating from the spatially homogeneous ground state in the case when pairs of imaginary eigenvalues simultaneously cross the imaginary axis. For this system we prove the bifurcation of a family of invariant tori which may contain quasiperiodic solutions. There is a serious difficulty in obtaining this result, because the linearization at the ground state possesses an essential spectrum up to the imaginary axis for all values of the bifurcation parameter. To construct the invariant tori, we use their invariance under the flow which manifests in a condition in PDE form. The nonlinear terms of this resulting PDE exhibit a loss of regularity. Since the linear part of this PDE is not smoothing, an adaption of the hard implicit function theorem (or Nash-Moser scheme) and energy estimates will be used to prove our result.     

Wavelet-based dynamic time warping

Dynamic Time Warping (DTW), a pattern matching technique traditionally used for restricted vocabulary speech recognition, is based on a temporal alignment of the input signal with the template models. The principal drawback of DTW is its high computational cost as the lengths of the signals increase. This paper shows extended results over our previously published conference paper, which introduces an optimized version of the DTW that is based on the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT).     

Structure and Properties of Electrochemically Synthesized Silver Nanoparticles in Aqueous Solution by High-Resolution Techniques

The aim of this work was to deeply investigate the structure and properties of electrochemically synthesized silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) through high-resolution techniques such as transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Zeta Potential measurements, and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS). Strong brightness, tendency to generate nanoclusters containing an odd number of atoms, and absence of the free silver ions in solution were observed. The research also highlighted that the chemical and physical properties of the AgNPs seemed to be related to their peculiar oxidative state as suggested by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) analyses. Finally, the MTT assay tested the low cytotoxicity of the investigated AgNPs.     

Simultaneous saccharification and fermentation of steam-pretreated spruce to ethanol

Ethanol production was studied in simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF) of steam-pretreated spruce at 42°C, using a thermotolerant yeast. Three yeast strains of Kluyveromyces marxianus were compared in test fermentations. SSF experiments were performed with the best of these on 5% (w/w) of substrate at a cellulase loading of 37 filter paper units/g of cellulose, and a β-glucosidase loading of 38 IU/gof cellulose. The detoxification of the substrate and the lack of pH control in the experiments increased the final ethanol concentration. The final ethanol yield was 15% lower compared to SSF with Saccharomyces cerevisiae at 37°C, owing to the cessation of ethanol fermentation after the first 10 h.