Models and Analysis of Vocal Emissions for Biomedical Applications

The MAVEBA Workshop proceedings, held on a biannual basis, collect the scientific papers presented both as oral and poster contributions, during the conference. The main subjects are: development of theoretical and mechanical models as an aid to the study of main phonatory dysfunctions, as well as the biomedical engineering methods for the analysis of voice signals and images, as a support to clinical diagnosis and classification of vocal pathologies

A model of sonority based on pitch intelligibility

Synopsis: Sonority is a central notion in phonetics and phonology and it is essential for generalizations related to syllabic organization. However, to date there is no clear consensus on the phonetic basis of sonority, neither in perception nor in production. The widely used Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP) represents the speech signal as a sequence of discrete units, where phonological processes are modeled as symbol manipulating rules that lack a temporal dimension and are devoid of inherent links to perceptual, motoric or cognitive processes. The current work aims to change this by outlining a novel approach for the extraction of continuous entities from acoustic space in order to model dynamic aspects of phonological perception. It is used here to advance a functional understanding of sonority as a universal aspect of prosody that requires pitch-bearing syllables as the building blocks of speech. This book argues that sonority is best understood as a measurement of pitch intelligibility in perception, which is closely linked to periodic energy in acoustics. It presents a novel principle for sonority-based determinations of well-formedness – the Nucleus Attraction Principle (NAP). Two complementary NAP models independently account for symbolic and continuous representations and they mostly outperform SSP-based models, demonstrated here with experimental perception studies and with a corpus study of Modern Hebrew nouns. This work also includes a description of ProPer (Prosodic Analysis with Periodic Energy). The ProPer toolbox further exploits the proposal that periodic energy reflects sonority in order to cover major topics in prosodic research, such as prominence, intonation and speech rate. The book is finally concluded with brief discussions on selected topics: (i) the phonotactic division of labor with respect to /s/-stop clusters; (ii) the debate about the universality of sonority; and (iii) the fate of the classic phonetics–phonology dichotomy as it relates to continuity and dynamics in phonology

Proceedings of the University of Cambridge Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference 2010

Second, revised edition of the Proceedings, originally published on CD-Rom as ISBN 978-0-9566139-0-5.Proceedings of the third annual Interdisciplinary Graduate Conference at the University of Cambridge

Measuring and modelling the earthquake deformation cycle at continental dip-slip faults

In order for an earthquake to become a natural disaster, it needs to be significantly large, close to vulnerable populations or both. The largest earthquakes in the world occur in subduction zones, where cool, shallowly dipping fault planes enable brittle failure over a large area. However, these earthquakes often occur far away from major cities, reducing their impact. Similar, low angle fault planes can be found in continental fold and thrust belts, where sub-horizontal decollements offer large potential rupture areas. These seismic sources are often much closer to major urban centres than off-shore subduction zone sources. It is therefore essential to understand the processes that control how strain is accommodated and released in such settings. Much of our current understanding of the earthquake cycle comes from studying strike-slip faults. Can our knowledge of strike-slip faults be transferred over to dip-slip faults, and in particular, fold and thrust belts? Previous work has suggested that there may be significant differences between strike-slip and dip-slip settings, and therefore further study of the earthquake cycle in dip-slip environments is required. The recent launch of Sentinel-1, and the extensive Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) archive of the European Space Agency (ESA), offer an opportunity to obtain measurements of strain in dip-slip environments that can contribute to our understanding. In this thesis, I use geodetic measurements to contribute to our understanding of the earthquake cycle. Enhanced surface deformation rates following earthquakes (so called postseismic deformation) show temporal and spatial variation. Such variation can be used to investigate the material properties of faults and the surrounding medium. I collate measurements of postseismic velocity following contintental earthquakes to examine the temporal evolution of strain following an earthquake over multiple timescales. The compilation show a simple relationship, with velocity inversely proportional to time since the earthquake. This relationship holds for all fault types, with no significant difference between dip-slip and strike-slip environments. Such lack of difference implies that, at least in terms of the temporal evolution of near field postseismic deformation, both environments behave similarly. I compare these measurements with the predictions of various models that are routinely used to explain postseismic deformation. I find that the results are best explained using either rate-strengthening afterslip or power-law creep in a shear zone with high stress exponent. Such a relationship indicates that fault zone processes dominate the near-field surface deformation field from hours after an earthquake to decades later. This implies that using such measurements to determine the strength of the bulk lithosphere should only be done with caution. I then collate geodetic measurements from throughout the earthquake cycle in the Nepal Himalaya to constrain the geometry and frictional properties of the fault system. I use InSAR to measure postseismic deformation following the 2015 Mw~7.8 Gorkha earthquake and combine this with Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) displacements to infer the predominance of down-dip afterslip. I then combine these measurements with coseismic and interseismic geodetic data to determine fault geometries which are capable of simultaneously explaining all three data sets. Unfortunately, the geodetic data alone cannot determine the most appropriate geometry. It is therefore necessary to combine such measurements with other relevant data, along with the expertise to understand the uncertainties in each data set. Such combined measurements ought to be understood using physically consistent models. I developed a mechanically coupled coseismic-postseismic inversion, based on rate and state friction. The model simultaneously inverts the coseismic and postseismic surface deformation field to determine the range of frictional properties and coseismic slip which can explain the data within uncertainties. I applied this model to the geodetic data compilation in Nepal and obtained a range of values for the rate-and-state 'a' parameter between 0.8 - 1.6 x 10^-3, depending on the geometry used. Whilst the Nepal Himalaya is well instrumented, many continental collision zones suffer from a severe lack of data. The Sulaiman fold and thrust belt is one such region, with very sparse GNSS data, but significant seismicity. I apply InSAR to part of the Sulaiman fold and thrust belt near Sibi to examine the evolution of strain throughout the seismic cycle. I tie together observations from ERS, Envisat and Sentinel-1 to produce a time series of displacements over 25 years long which covers an earthquake which occurred in 1997. Using this time series, I investigate the contributions of different parts of the earthquake cycle to the development of topography. I find that postseismic deformation plays a clear role in the construction of short wavelength folds, and that the combination of coseismic and postseismic deformation can reproduce the topography over a variety of lengthscales. The shape of the frontal section of the fold and thrust belt, including the gradient of the topography, is roughly reproduced in a single earthquake cycle. This suggests that fold and thrust belts can maintain their taper in a single earthquake cycle, rather than through earthquakes occurring at different points throughout the belt. I find that approximately 1000 earthquakes like the 1997 event, along with associated postseismic deformation, can reproduce the topography seen today to first order. Such a result may aid our use of topography as a long-term record of earthquake cycle deformation. I finish by drawing these various findings together and commenting on common themes. Afterslip plays an important role in the earthquake cycle, contributing to the surface deformation field in multiple locations, over multiple timescales, and generating topography. This afterslip can be explained using a rate-strengthening friction law with a*sigma between 0.2 and 1.54 MPa. Combining this rate dependence with the static coefficient of friction determined from other methods, such as critical taper analysis, would enable a more complete picture of fault friction to be determined. Fault geometry in fold and thrust belts may control the size of potential ruptures, with junctions and changes in dip angle potentially arresting ruptures. In order to fully determine the role of fault geometry and friction in controlling the earthquake cycle in dip-slip settings, I suggest a more thorough exploitation of the wealth of InSAR data which is now available. These data then need to be combined with measurements from other fields, and models produced which are consistent within the uncertainties of each data set. I suggest that measurements of topography and insights from structural geology may help with understanding the long term and short term processes governing earthquake patterns in an area. As both observations and models are developed, interdisciplinary teams may be able to better constrain the key controls on earthquake hazard in continental dip-slip settings

Neutral Tone in Mandarin: Representation and Interaction with Utterance-level Prosody

In Standard Mandarin, there are syllables that do not carry any of the four citation tones (T1: High-level tone, T2: Mid-rising tone, T3: Low-convex tone and T4: High-falling tone), and they are said to have a neutral tone (NT). These syllables are usually shorter, lighter, prosodically grouped with the preceding CT-bearing syllables. These characteristics of NT have led to a prevailing view that it has no underlying phonological specification. However, research has focused more on how the surface pitch variations of NT are realized rather than the underlying representation of NT. In contrast, morphological, sociolinguistic and diachronic work on NT has suggested that NT may not be a homogeneous entity. In this thesis, I provide acoustic and psycholinguistic evidence that there are two types of NT, Intrinsic NT and Derived NT. Intrinsic NT refers to morphemes that were lexicalized as tone-deleted, unstressed syllables even before the formation of the four CTs of modern Mandarin. Derived NT refers to morphemes derived from the CTs via stress-related tone-deletion. In Part A, the phonological representation of Intrinsic and Derived NT is explored through two production and two processing experiments. The results show that Intrinsic NT is likely to have an underspecified tonal target while Derived NTs are underlyingly CTs. In addition, both subtypes of NT are metrically light, unlike heavy CTs. Part B explores the interaction between NTs and utterance-level prosody in production and perception experiments. NT-bearing syllables have lengthening patterns under focus similar to CT-bearing syllables, in contrast to the realization of unstressed syllables in English. In perception, the identification of intonation (Statement vs. Question) on Intrinsic NT was similar to Derived NT. When compared to CTs, the NTs elicit less bias towards question than T4, and higher accuracy than T2, which may result from their simpler surface representations.CHINA Scholarship COUNCIL (CSC) and Cambridge Trus

A novel approach to estimate glacier mass balance in the Tien Shan and Pamir based on transient snowline observations

Glaciers are recognised as an excellent proxy for climate change and their centennial massloss has accelerated during the past decades. The Central Asian mountain ranges Tien Shan and Pamir host over 25,000 glaciers that have been observed to respond heterogeneous to climate change. Glacier changes in the region have very important consequences on the water availability for the densely populated lowlands. Despite the significance and severity that climate change exerts on the Central Asian water towers, the glacier response is still poorly understood, hampering sound interpretations and predictions of future threats and opportunities. A significant data gap in the field measurement series from the mid-1990s to around 2010, limits the analysis of long-term trends. Despite the recent efforts to re-established the historical cryospheric monitoring network, continuous long-term glacier mass balance time series remain sparse for Central Asia. Thus, improved temporal and spatial coverage of glacier monitoring is essential. Remote sensing techniques are a powerful tool to study a large number of remotely located and unmeasured glaciers and provide a possibility to partly bridge the aforementioned deficit in data availability. However, the coarse temporal resolution of geodetic mass balance assessments is not suitable to improve the understanding of ongoing processes. This accentuates the indispensable need for improved and extended annual to seasonal observations of mass change of inaccessible and remote glaciers on a cost and labour effective basis as well as for a more elaborated and enhanced, process-orientated methodology. This work provides a combination of detailed in situ measurements and remote sensing based glacier mass change observation from local to regional scale. A multi-level strategy is applied to complement data from long-term glaciological surveys and remote sensing (snowline observations and geodetic mass balance measurements) with numerical modelling to obtain information at high temporal and spatial resolution for individual glaciers. Through modelling constrained with transient snowlines, annual mass balance time series for a large amount of glaciers located in the Tien Shan and Pamir were made available. Such mass balance estimates provide valuable baseline data for climate change assessments, runoff projection, hazard evaluation and enhance process understanding. A better understanding of the regional annual variability of glacier response to climate change in the Pamir and Tien Shan became possible based on the outcome of this thesis. In the presented thesis the results are discussed in detail, the weaknesses and strengths of the developed methodology are unfolded and the relevant perspective and future research outlined.Gletscher sind ausgezeichnete Indikatoren für den Klimawandel. Ihr langjähriger Massen- verlust hat sich in den letzten Jahrzehnten weltweit akzentuiert. Die zentralasiatischen Bergketten Tien Shan und Pamir beherbergen u¨ber 25’000 Gletscher. Studien zeigen, dass diese Gletscher heterogen auf den Klimawandel reagieren. Gletscherver¨anderungen in der Region haben wichtige Auswirkungen auf die Wasserverfügbarkeit für das dicht besiedelte Flachland. Trotz den bedeutenden Konsequenzen welche durch den Klimawandel auf diese regionalen Wasserspeicher ausgeübt wird, ist die Veränderung der Gletscher im Tien Shan und Pamir immer noch relativ unbekannt, was fundierte Interpretationen und Vorhersagen zukünftiger Gefahren und Chancen erschwert. Eine prägnante Datenlücke in den existierenden Messreihen von Mitte der 1990er Jahren bis ca. 2010 schränkt eine detaillierte Analyse langfristiger Entwicklungen weiter ein. Trotz der jüngsten Bemühungen, das historische Kryosphäremessnetz wieder herzustellen, bleiben kontinuierliche Langzeitmessungen für die Gletscher in Zentralasien limitiert. Eine verbesserte zeitliche und räumliche Abdeckung der Gletscherbeobachtungen ist daher unerlässlich. Fernerkundungstechniken sind gängige Methoden, um eine große Anzahl abgelegener und unerforschter Gletscher zu untersuchen. Mit solchen Methoden kann das Defizit an Datenverfügbarkeit der Region teilweise kompensiert werden. Die grobe zeitliche Auflösung der geodätischen Massenbilanzberechnungen und das somit limitierte Prozessverständnis unterstreichen jedoch den unabdingbaren Bedarf nach verbesserten und erweiterten jährlichen bis saisonalen Massenbilanzbeobachtungen. Ab- schätzungen auf ausgedehnter räumlicher Skala, sowie eine stärkere Prozess orientierte Forschung sind nötig. Die vorliegende Arbeit beschreibt eine Kombination aus detaillierten Feldmessungen und Fernerkundungsbeobachtungen der Gletschermassenänderung im Tien Shan und Pamir. Die angewandte Strategie basiert auf mehreren Ebenen aus lokalen bis regionalen Studien. Mit dieser Strategie werden Daten aus langzeit-glaziologischen Feldmessungen und aus der Fernerkundung (Schneelinienbeobachtungen, geodätische Massenbilanzmessungen) mit numerischen Modellierungen komplementieren. Dabei werden Informationen für ausgewählte Gletscher mit hoher zeitlicher und räumlicher Auflösung extrahiert. Durch das Modellieren mit wiederholten Schneelinienbeobachtungen, welche zur Kalibrierung verwendet werden, konnten jährliche Massenbilanzzeitreihen für eine große Anzahl von Gletschern im Studiengebiet berechnet werden. Solche grossräumigen und zeitlich hochaufgelösten Abschätzungen liefern wertvolle Grundlagen für detaillierte Studien über die Auswirkungen des Klimawandels, ermöglichen fundierte Abflussprojektionen und erlauben verbesserte Gefahrenanalysen. Basierend auf den Ergebnissen dieser Arbeit, wird ein besseres Verständnis der regionalen jährlichen Variabilität der Gletscherreaktionen auf den Klimawandel im Pamir und Tien Shan ermöglicht. In der hier vorgelegten Arbeit werden die Resultate im Detail diskutiert, die Schwächen und Stärken der entwickelten Methodik offengelegt und die relevanten Perspektiven abgefasst

Big Data Computing for Geospatial Applications

The convergence of big data and geospatial computing has brought forth challenges and opportunities to Geographic Information Science with regard to geospatial data management, processing, analysis, modeling, and visualization. This book highlights recent advancements in integrating new computing approaches, spatial methods, and data management strategies to tackle geospatial big data challenges and meanwhile demonstrates opportunities for using big data for geospatial applications. Crucial to the advancements highlighted in this book is the integration of computational thinking and spatial thinking and the transformation of abstract ideas and models to concrete data structures and algorithms

PnP Maxtools: Autonomous Parameter Control in MaxMSP Utilizing MIR Algorithms

This research presents a new approach to computer automation through the implementation of novel real-time music information retrieval algorithms developed for this project. It documents the development of the PnP.Maxtools package, a set of open source objects designed within the popular programming environment MaxMSP. The package is a set of pre/post processing filters, objective and subjective timbral descriptors, audio effects, and other objects that are designed to be used together to compose music or improvise without the use of external controllers or hardware. The PnP.Maxtools package objects are designed to be used quickly and easily using a `plug and play\u27 style with as few initial arguments needed as possible. The PnP.Maxtools package is designed to take incoming audio from a microphone, analyze it, and use the analysis to control an audio effect on the incoming signal in real-time. In this way, the audio content has a real musical and analogous relationship with the resulting musical transformations while the control parameters become more multifaceted and better able to serve the needs of artists. The term Reflexive Automation is presented that describes this unsupervised relationship between the content of the sound being analyzed and the analogous and automatic control over a specific musical parameter. A set of compositions are also presented that demonstrate ideal usage of the object categories for creating reflexive systems and achieving fully autonomous control over musical parameters