Effects of speaking rate on tongue position and velocity of movement in vowel production

This study used glossometry to examine the position of the tongue and the velocity of its movements in vowels spoken normally and at a self-selected fast rate. The subject in experiment 1 showed lingual undershoot for stressed vowels in "a big again" and "a bob again." The tongue was lower for /I/ and higher for /a/ at the fast rate than at the normal rate. The stressed vowels exerted an affect on unstressed vowels: The tongue was lower in the schwas that preceded and followed /a/ than /I/. Only one of the three subjects in experiment 2 showed no lingual undershoot for fast-rate /I/. The tongue was higher at the fast rate than at the normal rate in the schwas flanking /I/ so that the displacement was less at the fast rate than at the normal rate. Another talker increased the peak velocity of tongue movements at the fast rate and showed no undershoot for /a/. Multiple regression analyses showed that the timing of movements for successive phonetic segments accounted well for undershoot in only one of the three subjects. The results suggest that in order to model the effects of speaking rate on the tongue movements used in forming stressed vowels, it will be necessary to take into account: (1) how much vowels are shortened at a fast rate: (2) how much the peak velocity of tongue movements is increased, if at all; and (3) the position of the tongue before and after the stressed vowels. All three factors are likely to be influenced by how clearly the talker wishes to speak.     

Quasi-genericity of bifurcations to high dimensional invariant tori for maps

We consider a family of maps in a Banach spaceE near the situation when the derivative at the fixed point has two pairs of complex eigenvalues lying on the unit circle, the other part of the spectrum being strictly inside the unit disc. We focus our attention on the region of the parameter space where the truncated normal form of the maps shows a bifurcation of a family of invariantT ¹-circles into a family of invariantT ²-tori. We show that this problem needs a 3 dimensional parameter unfolding and that, for the complete maps, bifurcation occurs at points _,, where is the rotation number on the non-normally hyperbolicT ¹-circle, ande ^±2i are the eigenvalues of the constant matrix conjugated to the non-contracting part of the linearization on the normal fiber bundle overT ¹. Making some non-resonance and diophantine assumptions on (, ) leading to a positive measure Cantor set inT ², we show that in paraboloïdal regions of the 3 dim. parameter space we have clean bifurcations as for the truncated normal form. The complement of these regions forms a set of bubbles such as the ones obtained by Chenciner in [Chen] for a codimension 2 problem for maps in ². The main tool here is a generalization for a matrix function onT ¹, close to a constant, of the quasi-conjugacy to a constant, modulo a minimum of additional parameters (moved quasi-conjugacy). For the infinite dimensional case we use aC decoupling result on the angular dependent linear parts into a contraction, still angular dependent, and another part quasi-conjugated to a constant matrix. This type of analysis applies for a wide range of problems, where truncated normal forms of the maps give bifurcations fromT ⁿ toT ⁿ⁺¹ tori, and this needs a (n+1)-dimensional parameter unfolding.We gratefully acknowledge the DRET (contrat 86/1445) who supported one of the authors (J.L.) during this work. This research has been also supported by the E.E.C. contract No. ST 2J-0316-C (EDB) on Mathematical problems in nonlinear Mechanics     

Ultra'soft X-ray diagnostics of short-living plasmas

Ultrasoft X-ray plasma diagnostics in IPP is realized by using X-ray diodes with Al photocathodes and submicrometer nitrocellulose filters. The X-ray detections system is suitable for measurements in a relatively broad range of radiation intensities in the spectral interval of (10–1000) eV with the time resolution of (1–10) ns under various plasma conditions. Construction, calibration and characteristic properties of the measuring apparatus are described. To illustrate its use, some results of the diagnostics of REB-heated plasma are presented.We would like to acknowledge Dr. P. unka for many helpful discussions and Dr. J. Ullschmied for cooperation in REB-heated plasma diagnostics interpretation.     

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.     

An alternative approach to quantum phenomena

This paper outlines the qualitative foundations of a quasiclassical theory in which particles are pictured as spatially extended periodic excitations of a universal background field, interacting with each other via nonlinearity in the equations of motion for that field, and undergoing collapse to a much smaller volume if and when they are detected. The theory is based as far as possible directly on experiment, rather than on the existing quantum mechanical formalism, and it offers simple physical interpretations of such concepts as mass, 4-momentum, interaction, potentials, and quantization; it may lead directly to the standard equations of quantum theory, such as the multiparticle Schrödinger equation, without going through the conventional process of quantizing a classical theory. The theory also provides an alternative framework in which to discuss wave-particle duality and the quantum measurement problem; in particular, it is suggested that the unpredictability of quantum phenomena may arise from deterministic chaos in the behavior of the background field.     

Periodic solutions of some infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian systems associated with non-linear partial difference equations. II

This is our second paper devoted to the study of some non-linear Schrödinger equations with random potential. We study the non-linear eigenvalue problems corresponding to these equations. We exhibit a countable family of eigenfunctions corresponding to simple eigenvalues densely embedded in the band tails. Contrary to our results in the first paper, the results established in the present paper hold for an arbitrary strength of the non-linear (cubic) term in the non-linear Schrödinger equation.     

Pervasiveness of cluster excitations as seen in the Mössbauer spectra of magnetic materials

Magnetic cluster excitations in various physical systems (e.g., soliton bearing one-dimensional solids, metallic alloys, amorphous materials, small particle aggregates, magnetically ordered substances near T_C, transition metal di-chloride graphite intercalation compounds, etc.) are described. Use of Fe-57 Mössbauer effect spectroscopy as a probe of the spin dynamics for inverse autocorrelation times between 10⁷Hz to 10¹⁰ Hz is emphasized. Particular attention is given to systems which exhibit local or long range magnetic order and whose Mössbauer spectra must therefore be described by more than one autocorrelation (or dwell) time for fluctuations between different allowed hyperfine field directions on a given site.