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.     

Vibrotactile temporal gap detection as a function of age

The ability of subjects to detect temporal gaps between bursts of sinusoids or bursts of bandlimited noise was measured to evaluate the phenomenon of tactile "sensory persistence" in older persons. Vibratory stimuli were delivered to the right thenar eminence of 27 subjects ranging in age from 8-75 years. The subjects' task was to detect the presence of a silent interval or "gap" between flanking 350-ms vibrotactile stimuli. The gap-detection threshold, expressed as the amplitude of vibration relative to the absolute detection threshold, decreased as the gap duration increased and was higher for gaps in noise than for gaps in sinusoids. The threshold for detecting short gaps increased with age for noise stimuli, but not for sinusoidal stimuli. Furthermore, the gap-detection threshold recovered more rapidly in older subjects for noise stimuli, but less rapidly in older subjects for sinusoidal stimuli. Because of these differences, it appears that the effects of age on gap detection cannot be due to a simple increase in sensory persistence, but may be due to multiple processes.     

Renormalization group calculation of the critical temperature dependence on longitudinal magnetic field for a disordered superconductor model

We describe a calculation ofT _c (P, H) in a model of a disordered superconductor which is based on the de Gennes-Skal-Shklovskii (dGSS) picture of the large cluster in a percolation system. The calculation is done by carrying out successive decimations on the Landau-Ginzburg Hamiltonian describing the links in the model. We calculateT _c (P, H) in the presence of longitudinal magnetic field by evaluating the renormalized Landau-Ginzburg coupling when the renormalized Landau-Ginzburg length equals the percolation link length in the dGSS picture and obtain the approximate analytic form ofT _c (P, H).Work supported by China Natural Science Foundation     

Nonlinear properties of surface “screw” instability in symmetric semiconductor plates

For the first time we study the nonlinear properties of the surface screw instability (SSI) when waves are excited at both faces of a plate and the interaction between them must be taken into account. The nature of the SSI development and the stability of surface screw waves against modulation are examined. Diagrams of the regions where the SSI development is soft and explosive as well as the regions of modulated waves are given in the space of parameters characterizing the electro-hole plasma and external fields.Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 4, pp. 30–34, April 1990.     

Erbium:YAG (2.94 mum) laser effects on dental tissues

Past trials with soft and calcified tissues have demonstrated that long pulse train (2.5 mus) Er:YAG (2.94 mum) laser may be used to ablate tooth structure of human teeth. Determination of physical and thermal damage to surrounding tissue during removal of enamel and dentin is a primary objective of this study. Extracted human teeth with thermal probes imbedded in the pulp chambers were submitted to cavity preparation using an Erbium YAG laser with water mist. Wavelength selection as well as use of a water mist during the procedure resulted in efficient tissue removal without significant surrounding damage. Ground sections and SEM sections of teeth showed little or no melting or ash formation in adjacent dentin and enamel and no visible change in the pulp chamber. The surfaces produced by laser ablation were rough and irregular with craters and grooves. Average temperature change in the pulp chamber monitored during tooth preparation was 2.2 degrees Centigrade. These findings suggest that constantly available water aids vaporization and microexplosions, increasing the efficiency of tooth structure removal, and aids in cooling of the tooth structures. The long pulse Er:YAG (2.94 mum) laser may be an effective method for tooth reduction applications when used with a water mist.     

Behavior of effective charges in e6 grand unification theory in curved spacetime

The behavior of effective charges _i(t) corresponding to the parameters of nonminimal coupling of scalar and gravitational fields in E₆ Grand Unification Theory (GUT) in curve spacetimes is studied. It is shown that in a strong gravitational field ¦_i(t)¦ grows indefinitely.Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 9, pp. 74–11, September, 1990.     

Excitation spectrum of anisotropic non-dissipative elastic-plastic medium

The simplest gauge theory of an elastic-plastic medium is considered in this paper that takes account of just translational plasticity. The equations of motion for such a model turn out to be linear and permit the normal modes spectrum of a medium to be obtained. Taking account of plasticity results in a cardinal transformation of the elastic branches of the spectrum and the appearance of a group of plasma oscillations of a dislocation gas.Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 6, pp. 64–68, June, 1990.     

Dependence of “Reststrahlen” bands in far-infrared reflectivity on configuration of GaAs/AlAs multiple quantum well heterostructures

Far infrared reflectivity measurements are performed on a series of GaAs/AlAs multiple quantum well (MQW) heterostructures with systematically varied thicknesses of the constituent layers. In addition to the artificial anisotropy we observe two distinct bulk-like Reststrahlen regions. The widths of the GaAs-like and the AlAs-like Reststrahlen bands strongly depend on the relative thicknesses of the constituent layers of the MQW heterostructures, in excellent agreement with the predictions of the effective-medium theory.Prof. Aldo Cingolani passed away just before the publication of this article. We would like to dedicate this paper to his memory     

Crystal structure oftrans-[PtCl2(Me2PhP)(cis-2,5-dimethylpyrrolidine)]

The complextrans-[PtCl₂ (Me₂PhP)(cis-2,4-dimethylpyrrolidine)] has been characterized by X-ray crystallography. It crystallizes in the monoclinic space group P 2₂/c witha=8.762(3),b=16.034(5),c=12.600(4)Å,=93.43(3)° andZ=4. The structure was solved by heavy atom method and refined toR=0.052 for 3251 observed counter reflections. The coordination sphere of the Pt atom is square-planar with a geometry very similar to that of the studied complexes of the type trans-[PtCl₂(R₃P)L] whereL is either one of the possible isomers of theC,C-dimethylpyrrolidine or the unsubstituted pyrrolidine. In the present complex the puckered five-membered ring of the dimethylpyrrolidine ligand assumes an envelope conformation with the maximum puckering at the N atom.