An acoustic sociophonetic study of three London vowels

The thesis presents an empirical socio-phonetic investigation of the acoustics of the three short vowels in the DRESS, TRAP and STRUT lexical sets (Wells 1982) in London. The vowels have been reported by a number of phoneticians and variationists to have shifted in particular directions in Received Pronunciatioin (RP) and London English during the course of the 20th century; the directions of the movements, however, seem to be rather complicated. Moreover, there have been relatively fewer instrumental studies for these vowels in London. The main purpose of this research, therefore, is to provide detailed patterns of recent vowel shifts involving these three vowels in London English in relation to internal and external factors. Acknowledging RP and Cockney as referential accents on a multidimensional accent continuum in London, it is presumed that Londoners closer to the upper and lower ends of social continuum are distinguished as `London Upper Middle Class (UMC)' speakers and `London Working Class (WC)' speakers respectively. Social class classification is made on the basis of speakers' occupational information. The application of the vowel formant normalisation technique called S-procedure (Watt & Fabricius 2002) allows direct visual and statistical comparisons for multiple speakers regardless of their physical differences. Investigations are made not only by traditional descriptions of relative placements of vowels in a visual two-dimensional FI /F2 vowel space but also by a recent innovative `angle and Euclidean distance calculations' procedure (Fabricius 2007) with thorough statistical analyses. Results show complicated but interesting correlations between the movements of these vowels and the social and phonological characteristics. One of the most interesting findings is an ongoing vowel change process called 'TRAP/STRUT rotation' (Fabricius 2006: 3,2007: 310) among (female) London UMC speakers who show a well progressed anticlockwise chain shift involving DRESS, TRAP and STRUT, whereas there is no evidence for this process among London WC speakers who show a rather moderate vowel shift involving only TRAP and DRESS. In this respect, the most innovative group is discussed to be the female young London UMC speakers, followed by the male young London UMC speakers as far as the data in the current study are concerned. The finding of a clear difference between two different accent groups in the realisations of the vowels is discussed to suggest a correlation between social class and accent variation in London, as well as to enhance the validity of occupation as a single indicator for people's social class. Observing a great number of general and minute patterns from the statistical results, the thesis attempts to provide possible explanations for the vowel changes in London, as well as extends its discussions for possible implications with regard to internal and external factors

Uniqueness of Inverse Scattering Problem in Local Quantum Physics

It is shown that the operator algebraic setting of local quantum physics leads to a uniqueness proof for the inverse scattering problem. The important mathematical tool is the thermal KMS aspect of wedge-localized operator algebras and its strengthening by the requirement of crossing symmetry for generalized formfactors. The theorem extends properties which were previously seen in d=1+1 factorizing models.Comment: to appear in AOP, 18 pages late

TechNews digests: Jan - Nov 2009

TechNews is a technology, news and analysis service aimed at anyone in the education sector keen to stay informed about technology developments, trends and issues. TechNews focuses on emerging technologies and other technology news. TechNews service : digests september 2004 till May 2010 Analysis pieces and News combined publish every 2 to 3 month

Design of novel drug delivery system and optimal dosage regimens

Three representative drug delivery systems were analyzed to emphasize the roles of mathematical models and computer-aided simulations in pharmaceutical research. In the first project, a protocol was developed so that the optimal regimen, consisting of the intravenous boluses and subsequent infusion of theophylline, could be obtained once information on the pharmacokinetics became available. The method was based on a two-compartment model of the human body. A module was created and posted on a website for free access. The second project dealt with the transdermal heat-assisted delivery of corticosterone. Heat conduction and drug diffusion through the patch and the skin were expressed in the mathematical model. Four design parameters were estimated. This model was validated using clinical data from the administration of fentanyl. Cortisone concentrations through the patch and skin layers were predicted. The results were used to rank the relative impacts of the design parameters on the corticosterone delivery and to make proper suggestions for fabricating the products. Finally, the simultaneous application of an electric current and soluble microneedles were proposed for the first time. Preliminary experimental studies suggested that the electric field enhanced the flux by increasing drug diffusion and, thereby, the dissolution of the microneedles. One-, two- and three-dimensional simulations were conducted. In addition, protocols were proposed to help with the analysis of laboratory data

Using language models in question answering

In this thesis, we describe a language model based approach to parts of a complete Question Answering (QA) system. It includes the processing of the natural language query as well as the retrieval of relevant documents, passages and sentences. The results show that the language model based modules in our QA system perform equally well or even better than current state-of-the-art systems. Due to the heavy use of fast statistical algorithms the main advantage of our system is an efficiency gain compared to the slower deep analysis linguistic methods used in other approaches. A second benefit of using language models is the ability to train them for new languages.In dieser Doktorarbeit wird ein Ansatz basierend auf statistischen Sprachmodellen für verschiedene Bestandteile eines kompletten Fragebeantwortungssystems beschrieben. Dies beinhaltet die Verarbeitung der natürlichsprachlichen Suchanfrage sowie die Suche nach relevanten Dokumenten, Textabschnitten und Sätzen. Die Ergebnisse der Arbeit zeigen, dass sprachmodellbasierte Methoden genauso gut oder sogar noch besser funktionieren, als derzeitige, moderne Systeme. Ein wesentlicher Vorteil des beschriebenen Systems liegt in der Nutzung schneller, statistischer Algorithmen gegenüber den vergleichsweise langsamen, tiefen linguistischen Analysen anderer Ansätze

The Dodd-Frank Act and its Impact on Community Bank Mortgage Lending

I investigate the impacts of additional regulatory burdens on community bank mortgage lending due to the Dodd-Frank Act. The Dodd-Frank Act, which was signed into federal law by President Barack Obama on July 21, 2010, was intended to protect consumers, promote financial stability, and reduce the risk associated with larger banks being “too-big-to-fail.” However, one criticism of the Act is that the increased regulations and compliance costs under the Act have made it increasingly difficult for smaller banks to survive. As a result, an unintended consequence of the Dodd-Frank Act is that smaller banks may issue fewer loans than they would in the absence of increased compliance costs. In this thesis I analyze the effect of the Dodd-Frank Act on mortgage lending by community banks before and after the Dodd-Frank Act to determine whether or not this legislation has negatively impacted community banks. I use online public data provided by the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) for a sample of community banks in Mississippi and Alabama. In addition, I evaluate the effect Dodd-Frank has had on small commercial banks’ return on average assets using national data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. My hypothesis is that the average number of mortgage applications received, the average percentage of mortgage applications approved, the average value of mortgage applications received, the average value of mortgage applications approved, the average percentage of mortgage value approved, and the return on average assets for small commercial banks have all decreased in the years following the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act compared to years preceding the legislation. In accordance with my hypothesis, I find that all six variables decreased after the Dodd-Frank Act was enacted, thus providing evidence that community banks were adversely affected by the Dodd-Frank Act

1992 NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program

For the 28th consecutive year, a NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship Program was conducted at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The program was conducted by the University of Alabama and MSFC during the period June 1, 1992 through August 7, 1992. Operated under the auspices of the American Society for Engineering Education, the MSFC program, was well as those at other centers, was sponsored by the Office of Educational Affairs, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC. The basic objectives of the programs, which are the 29th year of operation nationally, are (1) to further the professional knowledge of qualified engineering and science faculty members; (2) to stimulate and exchange ideas between participants and NASA; (3) to enrich and refresh the research and teaching activities of the participants' institutions; and (4) to contribute to the research objectives of the NASA centers

Phonetic And Acoustic Analyses Of Two New Cases Of Foreign Accent Syndrome

This study presents detailed phonetic and acoustic analyses of the speech characteristics of two new cases of Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS). Participants include a 48-year-old female who began speaking with an Eastern European accent following a traumatic brain injury, and a 45-year-old male who presented with a British accent following a subcortical cerebral vascular accident (CVA). Identical samples of the participants\u27 pre- and post-morbid speech were obtained, thus affording a new level of control in the study of Foreign Accent Syndrome. The speech tasks consisted of oral readings of the Grandfather Passage and 18 real words comprised of the stop consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, /b/, /d/, /g/ combined with the peripheral vowels /i/, /a/ and /u/ and ending in a voiceless stop. Computer-based acoustic measures included: 1) voice onset time (VOT), 2) vowel durations, 3) whole word durations, 4) first, second and third formant frequencies, and 5) fundamental frequency. Formant frequencies were measured at three points in the vowel duration: a) 20%, b) 50%, and c) 80% to assess differences in vowel \u27onglides\u27 and \u27offglides\u27. The phonetic analysis provided perceptual identification of the major phonetic features associated with the foreign quality of participant\u27s FAS speech, while acoustic measures allowed precise quantification of these features. Results indicated evidence of backing of consonant and vowel productions for both participants. The implications for future research and clinical applications are also considered