17 ways to say yes:Toward nuanced tone of voice in AAC and speech technology

People with complex communication needs who use speech-generating devices have very little expressive control over their tone of voice. Despite its importance in human interaction, the issue of tone of voice remains all but absent from AAC research and development however. In this paper, we describe three interdisciplinary projects, past, present and future: The critical design collection Six Speaking Chairs has provoked deeper discussion and inspired a social model of tone of voice; the speculative concept Speech Hedge illustrates challenges and opportunities in designing more expressive user interfaces; the pilot project Tonetable could enable participatory research and seed a research network around tone of voice. We speculate that more radical interactions might expand frontiers of AAC and disrupt speech technology as a whole

Dissociative electron attachment to the H2O molecule. II. Nuclear dynamics on coupled electronic surfaces within the local complex potential model

We report the results of a first-principles study of dissociative electron attachment to H2O. The cross sections are obtained from nuclear dynamics calculations carried out in full dimensionality within the local complex potential model by using the multi-configuration time-dependent Hartree method. The calculations employ our previously obtained global, complex-valued, potential-energy surfaces for the three (doublet B1, doublet A1, and doublet B2) electronic Feshbach resonances involved in this process. These three metastable states of H2O- undergo several degeneracies, and we incorporate both the Renner-Teller coupling between the B1 and A1 states as well as the conical intersection between the A1 and B2 states into our treatment. The nuclear dynamics are inherently multidimensional and involve branching between different final product arrangements as well as extensive excitation of the diatomic fragment. Our results successfully mirror the qualitative features of the major fragment channels observed, but are less successful in reproducing the available results for some of the minor channels. We comment on the applicability of the local complex potential model to such a complicated resonant system.Comment: Corrected version of Phys Rev A 75, 012711 (2007

Vortex line in a neutral finite-temperature superfluid Fermi gas

The structure of an isolated vortex in a dilute two-component neutral superfluid Fermi gas is studied within the context of self-consistent Bogoliubov-de Gennes theory. Various thermodynamic properties are calculated and the shift in the critical temperature due to the presence of the vortex is analyzed. The gapless excitations inside the vortex core are studied and a scheme to detect these states and thus the presence of the vortex is examined. The numerical results are compared with various analytical expressions when appropriate.Comment: 8 pages, 6 embedded figure

Pseudo-time Schroedinger equation with absorbing potential for quantum scattering calculations

The Schroedinger equation with an energy-dependent complex absorbing potential, associated with a scattering system, can be reduced for a special choice of the energy-dependence to a harmonic inversion problem of a discrete pseudo-time correlation function. An efficient formula for Green's function matrix elements is also derived. Since the exact propagation up to time 2t can be done with only t real matrix-vector products, this gives an unprecedently efficient scheme for accurate calculations of quantum spectra for possibly very large systems.Comment: 9 page

Spatial Modulation Microscopy for Real-Time Imaging of Plasmonic Nanoparticles and Cells

Spatial modulation microscopy is a technique originally developed for quantitative spectroscopy of individual nano-objects. Here, a parallel implementation of the spatial modulation microscopy technique is demonstrated based on a line detector capable of demodulation at kHz frequencies. The capabilities of the imaging system are shown using an array of plasmonic nanoantennas and dendritic cells incubated with gold nanoparticles.Comment: 3 pages, 4 figure

Reproducing Kernels of Generalized Sobolev Spaces via a Green Function Approach with Distributional Operators

In this paper we introduce a generalized Sobolev space by defining a semi-inner product formulated in terms of a vector distributional operator $\mathbf{P}$ consisting of finitely or countably many distributional operators $P_n$, which are defined on the dual space of the Schwartz space. The types of operators we consider include not only differential operators, but also more general distributional operators such as pseudo-differential operators. We deduce that a certain appropriate full-space Green function $G$ with respect to $L:=\mathbf{P}^{\ast T}\mathbf{P}$ now becomes a conditionally positive definite function. In order to support this claim we ensure that the distributional adjoint operator $\mathbf{P}^{\ast}$ of $\mathbf{P}$ is well-defined in the distributional sense. Under sufficient conditions, the native space (reproducing-kernel Hilbert space) associated with the Green function $G$ can be isometrically embedded into or even be isometrically equivalent to a generalized Sobolev space. As an application, we take linear combinations of translates of the Green function with possibly added polynomial terms and construct a multivariate minimum-norm interpolant $s_{f,X}$ to data values sampled from an unknown generalized Sobolev function $f$ at data sites located in some set $X \subset \mathbb{R}^d$. We provide several examples, such as Mat\'ern kernels or Gaussian kernels, that illustrate how many reproducing-kernel Hilbert spaces of well-known reproducing kernels are isometrically equivalent to a generalized Sobolev space. These examples further illustrate how we can rescale the Sobolev spaces by the vector distributional operator $\mathbf{P}$. Introducing the notion of scale as part of the definition of a generalized Sobolev space may help us to choose the "best" kernel function for kernel-based approximation methods.Comment: Update version of the publish at Num. Math. closed to Qi Ye's Ph.D. thesis (\url{http://mypages.iit.edu/~qye3/PhdThesis-2012-AMS-QiYe-IIT.pdf}

Relationships between changes in sustained fronto-striatal connectivity and positive affect with antidepressant treatment in major depression

Objective: Deficits in positive affect and their neural bases have been associated with major depression. However, whether reductions in positive affect result solely from an overall reduction in nucleus accumbens activity and fronto-striatal connectivity or the additional inability to sustain engagement of this network over time is unknown. The authors sought to determine whether treatment-induced changes in the ability to sustain nucleus accumbens activity and fronto-striatal connectivity during the regulation of positive affect are associated with gains in positive affect. Method: Using fMRI, the authors assessed the ability to sustain activity in reward-related networks when attempting to increase positive emotion during per- formance of an emotion regulation para- digm in 21 depressed patients before and after 2 months of antidepressant treat- ment. Over the same interval, 14 healthy comparison subjects underwent scanning as well. Results: After 2 months of treatment, self-reported positive affect increased. The patients who demonstrated the largest increases in sustained nucleus accumbens activity over the 2 months were those who demonstrated the largest increases in positive affect. In addition, the patients who demonstrated the largest increases in sustained fronto-striatal connectivity were also those who demonstrated the largest increases in positive affect when control- ling for negative affect. None of these associations were observed in healthy comparison subjects. Conclusions: Treatment-induced change in the sustained engagement of fronto- striatal circuitry tracks the experience of positive emotion in daily life. Studies examining reduced positive affect in a va- riety of psychiatric disorders might benefit from examining the temporal dynamics of brain activity when attempting to under- stand changes in daily positive affect

Healthier prisons: The role of a prison visitors' centre

Since the inception of the prison as a ‘setting’ for health promotion, there has been a focus on how the health of those men and women who spend ‘time inside’ can at least be maintained and if possible, enhanced, during their prison sentence. This paper presents findings from a mainly qualitative evaluation of a prison visitors' centre in the UK. It reports experiences of prisoners' families, prisoners, prison staff, the local community and the ways in which the visitors' centre has contributed positively to their health and well-being. In addition, key stakeholders were interviewed to ascertain the role this visitors' centre has in policy frameworks related to re-offending. The findings from this evaluation underscore how the visitors' centre improved the quality of visits, and contributed towards the maintenance of family ties through the help and support it provides for families and prisoners. The paper concludes by suggesting that visitors' centres are an essential part of a modern prison service helping to address the government's health inequalities agenda

Life events and hemodynamic stress reactivity in the middle-aged and elderly

Recent versions of the reactivity hypothesis, which consider it to be the product of stress exposure and exaggerated haemodynamic reactions to stress that confers cardiovascular disease risk, assume that reactivity is independent of the experience of stressful life events. This assumption was tested in two substantial cohorts, one middle-aged and one elderly. Participants had to indicate from a list of major stressful life events up to six they had experienced in the previous two years. They were also asked to rate how disruptive and stressful they were, at the time of occurrence and now. Blood pressure and pulse rate were measured at rest and in response to acute mental stress. Those who rated the events as highly disruptive at the time of exposure and currently exhibited blunted systolic blood pressure reactions to acute stress. The present results suggest that acute stress reactivity may not be independent of stressful life events experience

The integrated academic information system support for education 3.0 in higher education institution: lecturer perspective

Education 3.0 has been implemented in many higher education institutions (HEIs). Education 3.0 has been directed the institution toward better educational experience. But on the other hands, the implementation of Education 3.0 also caused some problems. Previous research has found administrative problem experienced by the lecturer. This research explores deeper from the lecturer and suggested the solution from lecturer perspective, combined with information technology capabilities owned by the HEIs. The research used a case study as the method and conducted a qualitative research with a semi-structured interview. The interview analysis has found that the increase of the administrative processes is caused by online and offline administrative activities. The online activities are from e-learning and the offline activities are from traditional learning (face-to-face). The administrative processes also involved the academic information system (AIS). Simplified all of the administrative processes are more preferred. To overcome the problems, integrating the AIS and e-learning become necessary. This research suggests transforming the existing AIS into an integrated AIS and hopes the solution can simplify the administration process