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.     

Deposition of copper oxide (Cu2O,CuO) thin films at high temperatures by plasma-enhanced CVD

Copper-oxide films are deposited by plasma-enhanced CVD using copper acetylacetonate as a precursor. The influence of various experimental parameters on deposition rate, film composition and resistivity have been studied. The substrate temperature and the bias are the parameters which affect these properties the most. An increase of the substrate temperature changes the phases of the deposit from Cu₂O-CuO over Cu₂O to Cu. At temperatures 500° C the deposition rates are high but the films consist mainly of metallic Cu. A negative bias enhances the deposition rate only slightly but has a strong effect on the film composition and can completely balance the oxygen deficiency. At a bias of –120 V the films consist of pure CuO even at temperatures 500° C.     

Disorder arising from the location of enantiomers in a twist-boat structure: 2,6-trans-2,4,6-tris(trichloromethyl)-1-oxa-3,5-dithian

Crystals of the title compound are orthorhombic, Pca2₁;a=27.586(4),b=10.509(3),c=11.080(2) Å,V=3212(1) ų,Z=8. The structure was solved by direct methods, from data collected at room temperature on an Enraf-Nonius CAD4 diffractometer, and refined by full-matrix least squares to a finalR value of 0.055 using 2043 reflections. One of the two independent molecules in the asymmetric unit is disordered. The disorder is manifested mainly between the oxygen atom and one sulfur atom and is caused by opposite enantiomers occupying corresponding positions in different unit cells. The endocyclic torsion angles in both independent molecules are very similar but the disposition of the heteroatoms on the twist-boat framework is different in the two molecules. Site occupancy of the two models on this framework in the disordered molecule is in the ratio 2179 with the smaller proportion being very similar to the ordered molecule and the remainder similar to that found in the normal molecule oftrans-4-chloro-2,4,6-tris(trichloromethyl)-1-oxa-3,5-dithian (Irving and Irving, 1988).     

Crystal and molecular structure of 1R,3S,5S,7R,10R-3,6,6,10,14-Pentamethyltricyclo[10.3.0.05,7]pentadeca-11,14-diene-1, 10-dihydroxy-2,13-dione (Japodagrol), C20H28O4

A new cytotoxic macrocyclic diterpenoid named Japodagrol, C₂₀H₂₈O₄, has been isolated from the ornamental plantJatropha podagrica, family Euphorbiaceae, grown in Nigeria. The structure of the title compound, C₂₀H₂₈O₄, was solved by X-ray analysis.M _r =332.44, monoclinic space groupC2,a=23.285(4),b=6.5105(12),c=12.505(3) Å,=98.504(17),V=1874.8 ų,Z=4,D _c =1.178 Mg/m³. CuK radiation (graphite crystal monochromator, =1.54184 A), (CuK)=6.13 cm^–1,F(000)=720,T=290 K. Final conventionalR factor=0.035,R _w =0.038 for 3349 observed reflections. The structure was solved with the programDirdif. The 5-membered ring is closed to a half-chair form. The compound contains inter- and intramolecular hydrogen bonds.     

Forces of a fluid in a rotating straight pipe

The fluid flow through a rotating straight pipe is considered, the axis of rotation being perpendicular to the pipe axis. The flow of the fluid is taken as fully developed, i.e. the velocity field is assumed to be the same in all transverse cross sections of the pipe. The derivation presented applies to viscous and nonviscous incompressible fluids. For constant angular pipe velocity a simple and exact (Coriolis type) relationF=2Q(t) is derived between the forceF by which the fluid acts on the (unit length of the) pipe in the direction perpendicular to the two axes, the fluid mass flow rateQ(t) through the pipe, and the angular velocity. Variable angular velocities, i.e. , introduce an additional term into the expression for the inertial forceF, which depends only on and on known (constant) parameters; this term is known for given angular velocity(t). The flow configuration investigated here is an idealization of those appearing (over short space and time intervals) in the devices measuring mass flow rateQ(t) through the (Coriolis) forceF. Therefore the exact results derived here cast some light on the degree of precision one expects in these devices, where more complicated flow configurations are present than those looked at in this paper.     

On the contact dimensions of graphs

Every simple graphG=(V, E) can be represented by a family of equal nonoverlapping spheres {S _v :v V} in a Euclidean spaceR ⁿ in such a way thatuv E if and only ifS _u andS _v touch each other. The smallest dimensionn needed to representG in such a way is called the contact dimension ofG and it is denoted by cd(G). We prove that (1) cd(T)<(7.3) log |T| for every treeT, and (2)

Precipitation structure in an Al-2·0 at. % Zn-1·0 at. % Mg alloy within and close to the grain boundaries and its effects on mechanical properties

During ageing the Al-2·0 at. %Zn-1·0 at. % Mg alloy at elevated temperatures the width of the precipitation free zone (PFZ) at both sides of the grain boundaries (GB) is identical with that free of quenched-in dislocation loops (DL). After sufficiently long ageing a band of precipitates is growing inside the former PFZ and the DLs in the midgrain regions act as sites for the heterogeneous nucleation of the-phase. Two precipitation processes significantly affect the mechanical properties. TEM correlates grain boundary precipitate density and morphology with grain boundary misorientation.     

Off-shell behaviour of theN-N interaction in a six-quark resonating group model of the deuteron

Two different 6-quark resonating group models of the deuteron are investigated to study the off-shell property of theN-N interaction. In the first model the quarks interact by a central one-gluon-exchange potential plus confinement potential. The meson-exchange contribution to then-p potential is simulated by a central GaussianN-N potential. In the second model the quarks interact by one-gluon-and one-pion-exchange potentials (central and noncentral) plus confinement potential. A small additional -exchange potential between neutron and proton binds the deuteron at the correct energy.Several off-shell variants of the two resonating group models are compared with each other by analyzing their elastic electron scattering cross sections. It is found that the standard renormalized version of the resonating group model yields potentials and wave functions that may be considered physical within the limitations of the model. Unitary off-shell transformations, which modify potentials and wave functions in any sizeable way, lead to a disagreement between the charge distribution predicted by the model via analysis of electron scattering and the charge distribution following from the microscopic quark distribution.Both of the 6-quark models support a soft repulsive core of the tripletn-p potential with a core height of around 900 MeV.     

Laser spectroscopy of desorbing molecules

In this article the application of tunable dye lasers to desorption phenomena is illuminated. These lasers provide radiation continuously tunable from 105 nm in the vacuum ultraviolet to about 10 m in the mid-IR. By employing either laser induced fluorescence (LIF) or resonance enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) spectroscopy almost all diatomic and many polyatomic molecules can be probed with the sensitivity required to detect desorbing molecules under UHV conditions. The spectral resolution of the lasers is sufficiently high that rotational state selectivity is achieved. Recent developments permit in addition the velocity distributions of molecules to be determined with internal quantum state resolution. Therefore very detailed information about the molecular dynamics has been obtained. In most experiments so far reactive recombinations off surfaces have been investigated. In this paper special emphasis will be given to the recombination of hydrogen on copper and palladium surfaces. For these systems very detailed data about the internal state populations at various surface temperatures have been obtained. The rotational cooling previously observed in molecular beam scattering has also been established for desorption. Strong vibrational excitation has been observed, which in the case of desorption from copper may be associated with the recombination dynamics, whereas for desorption of D₂ from Pd(100) a molecular precursor state might be responsible. By measuring the velocity distribution in each quantum state, the complete energetics of the desorbing molecules has been determined. Some first experiments on laser induced desorption with state selective detection of the desorbing molecules will also be discussed. Finally, making use of the polarization analysis of the signal, alignment effects in the desorption can be observed, permitting observation of molecular dynamics with a magnifying glass.Heisenberg fellow of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft