5,213 research outputs found
Contributions of temporal encodings of voicing, voicelessness, fundamental frequency, and amplitude variation to audiovisual and auditory speech perception
Auditory and audio-visual speech perception was investigated using auditory signals of invariant spectral envelope that temporally encoded the presence of voiced and voiceless excitation, variations in amplitude envelope and F-0. In experiment 1, the contribution of the timing of voicing was compared in consonant identification to the additional effects of variations in F-0 and the amplitude of voiced speech. In audio-visual conditions only, amplitude variation slightly increased accuracy globally and for manner features. F-0 variation slightly increased overall accuracy and manner perception in auditory and audio-visual conditions. Experiment 2 examined consonant information derived from the presence and amplitude variation of voiceless speech in addition to that from voicing, F-0, and voiced speech amplitude. Binary indication of voiceless excitation improved accuracy overall and for voicing and manner. The amplitude variation of voiceless speech produced only a small increment in place of articulation scores. A final experiment examined audio-visual sentence perception using encodings of voiceless excitation and amplitude variation added to a signal representing voicing and F-0. There was a contribution of amplitude variation to sentence perception, but not of voiceless excitation. The timing of voiced and voiceless excitation appears to be the major temporal cues to consonant identity. (C) 1999 Acoustical Society of America. [S0001-4966(99)01410-1]
Deformation monitoring of a simply supported railway bridge under varying dynamic loads
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from IABMAS via the link in this recordStructural health monitoring is a useful tool for evaluating the condition of bridges, with permanent systems installed on bridges which form vital links on the major transport network. The economic cost of
the monitoring systems limits their installation on smaller bridges which make up the wider transport network.
A short-term monitoring system can be quickly installed and adjusted to suit the requirements of individual
bridges. These systems are ideal for rural regions with a high number of single span bridges on isolated road
and rail networks. This report will review a single span bridge on a private heritage railway under loading from
passing steam engines, including the Flying Scotsman. Acceleration data are used to determine the rotations
and deflections of the bridge deck. To verify the data, deflection measurements at mid-span were recorded using
a video-based measurement system. The deflection measurements from the accelerometers correlate with the
video imagery measurements
A Golf Programme for People with Severe and Enduring Mental Health Problems
This article reports a pioneering golf programme for people with severe and enduring mental health problems. Following a discussion of the problems and possibilities of golf as a form of physical activity for this group, we outline the structure, organisation, and ethos of the golf programme. Through an analysis of qualitative case study data collected during the programme, we discuss the response to the programme from service users and mental health professionals. We conclude by highlighting aspects of the programme which were critical to its success and offering suggestions for further initiatives in this area
EIT-MESHER – Segmented FEM Mesh Generation and Refinement
EIT-MESHER (https://github.com/EIT-team/Mesher) is C++ software, based on the CGAL library, which generates high quality Finite Element Model tetrahedral meshes from binary masks of 3D volume segmentations. Originally developed for biomedical applications in Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) to address the need for custom, non-linear refinement in certain areas (e.g. around electrodes), EIT-MESHER can also be used in other fields where custom FEM refinement is required, such as Diffuse Optical Tomography (DOT)
On several families of elliptic curves with arbitrary large Selmer groups
In this paper, we calculate the Selmer groups
S^{(\phi)} (E / \Q) and S^{(\hat{\varphi})} (E^{\prime} / \Q) of elliptic
curves via descent theory
(see [S, Chapter X]), in particular, we obtain that the Selmer groups of
several families of such elliptic curves can be arbitrary large.Comment: 22 page
Interplay between CCR7 and Notch1 axes promotes stemness in MMTV-PyMT mammary cancer cells
Background: Breast cancer is the major cause of cancer-related mortality in women. It is thought that quiescent stem-like cells within solid tumors are responsible for cancer maintenance, progression and eventual metastasis. We recently reported that the chemokine receptor CCR7, a multi-functional regulator of breast cancer, maintains the stem-like cell population. Methods: This study used a combination of molecular and cellular assays on primary mammary tumor cells from the MMTV-PyMT transgenic mouse with or without CCR7 to examine the signaling crosstalk between CCR7 and Notch pathways. Results: We show for the first time that CCR7 functionally intersects with the Notch signaling pathway to regulate mammary cancer stem-like cells. In this cell subpopulation, CCR7 stimulation activated the Notch signaling pathway, and deletion of CCR7 significantly reduced the levels of activated cleaved Notch1. Moreover, blocking Notch activity prevented specific ligand-induced signaling of CCR7 and augmentation of mammary cancer stem-like cell function. Conclusion: Crosstalk between CCR7 and Notch1 promotes stemness in mammary cancer cells and may ultimately potentiate mammary tumor progression. Therefore, dual targeting of both the CCR7 receptor and Notch1 signaling axes may be a potential therapeutic avenue to specifically inhibit the functions of breast cancer stem cells.Sarah T. Boyle, Krystyna A. Gieniec, Carly E. Gregor, Jessica W. Faulkner, Shaun R. McColl and Marina Kochetkov
The Strange Prospects for Astrophysics
The implications of the formation of strange quark matter in neutron stars
and in core-collapse supernovae is discussed with special emphasis on the
possibility of having a strong first order QCD phase transition at high baryon
densities. If strange quark matter is formed in core-collapse supernovae
shortly after the bounce, it causes the launch of a second outgoing shock which
is energetic enough to lead to a explosion. A signal for the formation of
strange quark matter can be read off from the neutrino spectrum, as a second
peak in antineutrinos is released when the second shock runs over the
neutrinosphere.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, invited talk given at the international
conference on strangeness in quark matter (SQM2008), Beijing, October 6-10,
Beijing, China, version to appear in J. Phys.
RG flow of transport quantities
The RG flow equation of various transport quantities are studied in arbitrary
spacetime dimensions, in the fixed as well as fluctuating background geometry
both for the Maxwellian and DBI type of actions. The regularity condition on
the flow equation of the conductivity at the horizon for the DBI action
reproduces naturally the leading order result of {\it Hartnoll et al.}, [{\it
JHEP}, {\bf 04}, 120 (2010)]. Motivated by the result of {\it van der Marel et
al.}, [{\it science}, {\bf 425}, 271 (2003], we studied, analytically, the
conductivity versus frequency plane by dividing it into three distinct parts:
and . In order to compare, we choose 3+1
dimensional bulk spacetime for the computation of the conductivity. In the
range, the conductivity does not show up the Drude like form in any
spacetime dimensions. In the range and staying away from the
horizon, for the DBI action with unit dynamical exponent, non-zero magnetic
field and charge density, the conductivity goes as , whereas the
phase of the conductivity, goes as,
and . There exists a universal
quantity at the horizon that is the phase angle of conductivity, which either
vanishes or an integral multiple of . Furthermore, we calculate the
temperature dependence to the thermoelectric and the thermal conductivity at
the horizon. The charge diffusion constant for the DBI action is studied.Comment: 1+68 pages, 12 figures and 4 appendices; V2: The charge diffusion
constant is calculated for arbitrary spacetime dimensions and related
references added; v3: Connection with the RG flow of 1010.4036 is made; v4:
Several corrections, typos fixed and a ref. adde
Holographic non-relativistic fermionic fixed point by the charged dilatonic black hole
Driven by the landscape of garden-variety condensed matter systems, we have
investigated how the dual spectral function behaves at the non-relativistic as
well as relativistic fermionic fixed point by considering the probe Dirac
fermion in an extremal charged dilatonic black hole with zero entropy. Although
the pattern for both of the appearance of flat band and emergence of Fermi
surface is qualitatively similar to that given by the probe fermion in the
extremal Reissner-Nordstrom AdS black hole, we find a distinctly different low
energy behavior around the Fermi surface, which can be traced back to the
different near horizon geometry. In particular, with the peculiar near horizon
geometry of our extremal charged dilatonic black hole, the low energy behavior
exhibits the universal linear dispersion relation and scaling property, where
the former indicates that the dual liquid is a Fermi one while the latter
implies that the dual liquid is not exactly of Landau Fermi type
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