Forward Attention in Sequence-to-sequence Acoustic Modelling for Speech Synthesis

This paper proposes a forward attention method for the sequenceto- sequence acoustic modeling of speech synthesis. This method is motivated by the nature of the monotonic alignment from phone sequences to acoustic sequences. Only the alignment paths that satisfy the monotonic condition are taken into consideration at each decoder timestep. The modified attention probabilities at each timestep are computed recursively using a forward algorithm. A transition agent for forward attention is further proposed, which helps the attention mechanism to make decisions whether to move forward or stay at each decoder timestep. Experimental results show that the proposed forward attention method achieves faster convergence speed and higher stability than the baseline attention method. Besides, the method of forward attention with transition agent can also help improve the naturalness of synthetic speech and control the speed of synthetic speech effectively.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables. Published in IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing 2018 (ICASSP2018

Confinement induced by fermion damping in three-dimensional QED

The three-dimensional non-compact QED is known to exhibit weak confinement when fermions acquire a finite mass via the mechanism of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking. In this paper, we study the effect of fermion damping caused by elastic scattering on the classical potential between fermions. By calculating the vacuum polarization function that incorporates the fermion damping effect, we show that fermion damping can induce a weak confinement even when the fermions are massless and the chiral symmetry is not broken.Comment: 4 pages, no figur

The Improvement of Neural Network Cascade-Correlation Algorithm and Its Application in Picking Seismic First Break

Neural Network is a kind of widely used seismic wave travel time auto-picking method. Most commercial software such as Promax often uses Back Propagation (BP) neural network. Here we introduce a cascade-correlation algorithm for constructing neural network. The algorithm’s convergence is faster than BP algorithm and can determine its own network architecture according to training samples, in addition, it can be able to expand network topology to learn new samples. The cascaded-correlation algorithm is improved. Different from the standard cascade-correlation algorithm, improved algorithm starts at an appropriate BP network architecture (exits hidden units), but the standard one’s initial network only includes input layer and output layer. In addition, in order to prevent weight-illgrowth, adding regularization term to the objective function when training candidate hidden units can decay weights. The simulation experiment demonstrates that improved cascade-correlation algorithm is faster convergence speed and stronger generalization ability. Analytically study five attributes, including instantaneous intensity ratio, amplitude, frequency, curve length ratio, adjacent seismic channel correlation. Intersection figure shows that these five attributes have distinctiveness of first break and stability. The neural network first break picking method of this paper has achieved good effect in testing actual seismic data.Key words: Neural network; Cascade-correlation algorithm; Picking seismic first brea

Eisenia fetida Protease-III-1 Functions in Both Fibrinolysis and Fibrogenesis

The fibrinolytic function of earthworm protease-III-1 (Ef P-III-1) has been studied in recent years. Here, we found that Ef P-III-1 acted not only in fibrinogenolysis, but also in fibrogenesis. We have used Ef P-III-1 to hydrolyze fibrinogen, and to activate plasminogen and prothrombin. Based on the N-terminal sequences of the hydrolytic fragments, Ef P-III-1 was showed to specifically recognize the carboxylic sites of arginine and lysine. Analyses by fibrinogenolysis mapping and amino acid sequencing revealed that the isozyme could cleave the alpha, beta, and gamma chains of fibrinogen, showing a high α-fibrinogenase, moderate β-fibrinogenase, and low γ-fibrinogenase activities. Interestingly, Ef P-III-1 activated plasminogen and released active plasmin, suggesting a tPA-like function. Furthermore, Ef P-III-1 showed a factor Xa-like function on prothrombin, producing alpha-thrombin. The function in both activating prothrombin and catalyzing fibrinogenolysis suggests that Ef P-III-1 may play a role in the balance between procoagulation and anticoagulation

Effect of social support on depression of internet addicts and the mediating role of loneliness

BACKGROUND: Many studies have determined the existence of an extremely close association between Internet addiction and depression. However, the reasons for the depression of Internet addicts have not been fully investigated. AIM: This cross-sectional study aims to explore the factors that influence depression among Internet addicts. METHODS: A total of 162 male Internet addicts completed the Emotional and Social Loneliness Scale, Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, and Self-Rating Depression Scale. RESULTS: Loneliness and lack of social support are significantly correlated with depression among Internet addicts. Structural Equation Modeling results indicate that social support partially mediates loneliness and depression. CONCLUSIONS: Both social support and loneliness were negatively associated with depression of Internet addicts whereas loneliness plays a mediating role between social support and depression