自耦式紫外预电离开关特性

 研究了300 kV脉冲电压作用下自耦式紫外预电离开关的工作原理。为了在脉冲电压下实现开关的自耦合预电离,设计了适当的分压电路及预电离结构。模拟计算表明,分压电路参数合适时,可以实现预电离间隙与开关主间隙的击穿配合。实验结果表明：在脉冲电压作用下,调节电路参数可以有效调节紫外预电离产生时刻;在适当的时刻产生紫外预电离可以有效减小开关击穿抖动;该开关在240 ns上升时间脉冲电压作用下击穿抖动可小于3 ns,在36 ns上升时间脉冲电压作用下击穿抖动可小于2 ns。     

Effects of practice with and without knowledge of results on jitter and shimmer levels in normally speaking women

The effects of practice on jitter and shimmer were assessed in two groups of normally speaking women. Subjects in both groups sustained trials of /a/ as steadily as possible during a baseline session, two practice sessions, and a transfer session. Subjects in one group received visual and verbal feedback during the practice sessions. Subjects in the other group received no feedback. Shimmer means remained essentially stable over the four sessions for both groups, and no differences were apparent between the groups. Jitter values were significantly different between sessions for both groups, and between the two groups for the practice sessions. These results are consistent with findings from manual performance and retention tasks. The present findings also support a recently developed neurologic model of jitter.     

The effects of vowels on voice perturbation measures

This study examines voice perturbation parameters of the sustained [a] in English and of the eight vowels in Turkish to discover whether any difference exists between these languages, and whether a correlation exists between voice perturbation parameters and articulatory and acoustic properties of the Turkish vowels. Eight Turkish vowels uttered by 26 healthy nonsmoker volunteer males who are native Turkish speakers were compared with a voice database that includes samples of normal and disordered voices belonging to American English speakers. Fundamental frequencies, the first and second formants, and perturbation parameters, such as jitter percent, pitch perturbation quotient, shimmer percent, and amplitude perturbation quotient of the sustained vowels, were measured. Also, the first and second formants of the sustained [a] in English were measured, and other parameters have been obtained from the database. When the voice perturbation parameters in Turkish and English were compared, statistically significant differences were not found. However, when Turkish vowels compared with each other, statistically significant differences were found among perturbation values. Categorical comparisons of the Turkish vowels like high-low, rounded-unrounded, and front-back revealed significant differences in perturbation values. In correlation analysis, a weak linear inverse relation between jitter percent and the first formant (r=-0.260, p<0.05) was found.     

A comparative study of F_0 patterns between Chinese and other languages

I.IntroductionEady[1]examinedhowthefundamentalfrequencyF,patternsintone1anguage-Chinesearcdifferentfromthatinstresslang1agnEnglish.HearguedthatthcF,patternsinatonelanguagearesystematica1lydifferentfromthoseinastress1anguageandhisfindingcontradictstheclaimofBo1ingerthat-humanspcakerseverywhercdoessentiallythesamethingwithfundamentalpiteh'.EadyusedcepstalmethodtOdoF,extractionsohecannotgetaninsightintothemicrostructureofthelaryngea1vibrahonsprecisely,althoughanaveragerateofchangeinF,forevery…     

Multimodal Standardization of Voice Among Four Multicultural Populations: Fundamental Frequency and Spectral Characteristics

A stratified random sample of 20 males and 20 females matched for physiological factors and cultural-linguistic markers were examined to determine differences in fundamental frequency and spectral characteristics during prolongation of three vowels: [a], [i], and [u]. The ethnic-gender breakdown included four sets of five male and five female subjects comprised of Caucasian and African-American speakers of standard American English, native Hindi Indian speakers, and native Mandarin Chinese speakers. Acoustic measures were analyzed using the Multidimensional Voice Program (Kay Elemetrics, Lincoln Park, NJ) (Model 4305) from which fundamental frequency and associated acoustic spectra were extracted from a 200-ms sample of each vowel token. Statistically significant group differences for the main effects of culture, race, and gender were found. The acoustic differences found are attributed to biomechanical, physiological, cultural, and linguistic factors.     

Buffer storage for continuous delivery of video data

The video communication requires considerable large bandwidth – a scarce resource and thus it needs be used efficiently. It can be traded for buffer storage, i.e. for maintaining more buffer storage the data downloading rate (bandwidth) can be reduced. In order to transmitting the videos, they are divided into segments and the bandwidth of the physical channel is divided into logical channels. A logical channel transmits only one segment of each video. When there is switching of the segments, some time delay, called jitter delay, occurs. The jitter delay, being independent, memoryless, and positive, can be modeled as exponentially distributed random variable. In this paper, we propose a stochastic model incorporating jitter delay for estimating the storage space required in the user’s system in order to maintain continuous delivery of the video data to the users.     

Multivariate negative binomial models for insurance claim counts

It is no longer uncommon these days to find the need in actuarial practice to model claim counts from multiple types of coverage, such as the ratemaking process for bundled insurance contracts. Since different types of claims are conceivably correlated with each other, the multivariate count regression models that emphasize the dependency among claim types are more helpful for inference and prediction purposes. Motivated by the characteristics of an insurance dataset, we investigate alternative approaches to constructing multivariate count models based on the negative binomial distribution. A classical approach to induce correlation is to employ common shock variables. However, this formulation relies on the NB-I distribution which is restrictive for dispersion modeling. To address these issues, we consider two different methods of modeling multivariate claim counts using copulas. The first one works with the discrete count data directly using a mixture of max-id copulas that allows for flexible pair-wise association as well as tail and global dependence. The second one employs elliptical copulas to join continuitized data while preserving the dependence structure of the original counts. The empirical analysis examines a portfolio of auto insurance policies from a Singapore insurer where claim frequency of three types of claims (third party property damage, own damage, and third party bodily injury) are considered. The results demonstrate the superiority of the copula-based approaches over the common shock model. Finally, we implemented the various models in loss predictive applications.     

Measures of vocal function during changes in vocal effort level

The purpose of this article is to present the results of a controlled study of the day-to-day variabilities of three acoustic parameters (jitter, shimmer, and normalized noise energy), and two electroglottographic parameters (contact quotient and contact quotient perturbation) for vowels produced at three vocal efforts (low, normal, high). Data were obtained with use of a sophisticated bilinear interpolation pitch detection method. A repeated measures design required subjects to produce the vowels // and /a/ five times a day over 3 days at each vocal effort level. The jitter, shimmer, and normalized noise energy values from acoustic measures and contact quotient and contact quotient perturbation values varied significantly among the three vocal effort levels. The clinical implication of this finding is that vocal effort must be controlled in order to obtain consistent clinical measures. Furthermore, day-to-day variability must be taken into account if representative measures are to be obtained for clinical use.     

Acoustic analysis of the singing and speaking voice in singing students

The singing power ratio (SPR) is an objective means of quantifying the singer's formant. SPR has been shown to differentiate trained singers from nonsingers and sung from spoken tones. This study was designed to evaluate SPR and acoustic parameters in singing students to determine if the singer-intraining has an identifiable difference between sung and spoken voices. Digital audio recordings were made of both sung and spoken vowel sounds in 55 singing students for acoustic analysis. SPR values were not significantly different between the sung and spoken samples. Shimmer and noise-to-harmonic ratio were significantly higher in spoken samples. SPR analysis may provide an objective tool for monitoring the student's progress.