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.     

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.     

Relativistically covariant chronological ordering of interaction lagrangians

A general form of chronological ordering is proposed, based on introduction of relativistically invariant multipoint step functions (x₁, ..., x_n). A system of recursive relations is established for these functions, which guarantees that the scattering matrix is unitary, covariant, and causal. The explicit form of the first four -functions is found. A comparative analysis of the known methods of chronological ordering is given.Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Fizika, No. 5, pp. 70–73, May, 1990.     

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.     

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.     

Structure of a nonequilibrium high-frequency discharge

The problem for a one-temperature plasma is considered with allowance for the finite ionization rate. It is shown that in the developed nonequilibrium case the leading effect of ambipolar electron diffusion and ionization lag lead to a qualitatively different picture as compared with the equilibrium case. In particular, the heat release zone covers only a relatively small leading part of the ionization zone with a relatively low (n_e n_ef) electron concentration.Translated from Izvestiya Akademii Nauk SSSR, Mekhanika Zhidkosti i Gaza, No. 3, pp. 161–169, May–June, 1989.The authors thank A. A. Barmin and A. G. Kulikovskii for useful discussions.     

Impossibility of centrally symmetric shock waves in vacuum in the relativistic theory of gravitation

Burevestnik Scientific-Industrial Union, Leningrad. Translated from Teoreticheskaya i Matematicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 79, No. 3, pp. 473–480, June, 1989.     

Complex homogeneous splines on the torus

We construct functions M_α which are piecewise homogeneous polynomials on the (d+1)-dimensional torus U^d+1. These functions possess complete symmetry with respect to the independent variables. The symmetry and homogeneous relations for these functions are exploited to obtain a recurrence relation and explicit representations. Furthermore, we show that , where ω=e^12x/k, 0≤j_t≤k−1, are linearly independent. By restricting M_α to U^d, we obtain the complex analogue of polynomial box splines on a (d+1)-direction mesh on U^d, which is a multivariate analogue of B-splines on the circle studied by I.J. Schoenberg^[8].     

Relaxation methods in control theory

Two different relaxed problems associated with a problem of optimal control theory, governed by an ODE, are considered: the first is obtained by Young's methods and the second by semicontinuity arguments. A formula which relates the two relaxed functionals to each other is given.