Structured speaker variability in Japanese stops: relationships within versus across cues to stop voicing

A number of recent studies have observed that phonetic variability is constrained across speakers, where speakers exhibit limited variation in the signalling of phonological contrasts in spite of overall differences between speakers. This previous work focused predominantly on controlled laboratory speech and on contrasts in English and German, leaving unclear how such speaker variability is structured in spontaneous speech and in phonological contrasts that make substantial use of more than one acoustic cue. This study attempts to both address these empirical gaps and expand the empirical scope of research investigating structured variability by examining how speakers vary in the use of positive voice onset time and voicing during closure in marking the stop voicing contrast in Japanese spontaneous speech. Strong covarying relationships within each cue across speakers are observed, while between-cue relationships across speakers are much weaker, suggesting that structured variability is constrained by the language-specific phonetic implementation of linguistic contrasts

Use of twitter data for waste minimisation in beef supply chain

Approximately one third of the food produced is discarded or lost, which accounts for 1.3 billion tons per annum. The waste is being generated throughout the supply chain viz. farmers, wholesalers/processors, logistics, retailers and consumers. The majority of waste occurs at the interface of retailers and consumers. Many global retailers are making efforts to extract intelligence from customer’s complaints left at retail store to backtrack their supply chain to mitigate the waste. However, majority of the customers don’t leave the complaints in the store because of various reasons like inconvenience, lack of time, distance, ignorance etc. In current digital world, consumers are active on social media and express their sentiments, thoughts, and opinions about a particular product freely. For example, on an average, 45,000 tweets are tweeted daily related to beef products to express their likes and dislikes. These tweets are large in volume, scattered and unstructured in nature. In this study, twitter data is utilised to develop waste minimization strategies by backtracking the supply chain. The execution process of proposed framework is demonstrated for beef supply chain. The proposed model is generic enough and can be applied to other domains as well

Bloomsbury Companion to Phonology

Originally published as the Continuum Companion to Phonology, this book offers the definitive guide to a key area of linguistic study. It covers all the most important issues, concepts, movements and approaches in the field. Each companion offers a comprehensive reference resource giving an overview of key topics, research areas, new directions and a manageable guide to beginning or developing research in the field. It offers a survey of current research and also gives more practical guidance on advanced study and research in the area. The book includes coverage of key research areas in phonology, including the interaction of phonology with other areas of linguistics while also providing some guidance on how phonological research can be conducted in the field and in the laboratory. It moves from coverage of the smallest units such as features and syllables to larger units incorporating phrasal and prosodic structure. It is a complete resource for postgraduate students and researchers working in phonology

[[alternative]]於公路曲線中佈設差異摩擦舖面之效應

[[abstract]]從有彈簧懸吊的車輛動力之觀點，證實公路超高或曲線半徑的設計準則並不能滿 足廣泛的要求。事實上，超高設計原本就有其種種之限制。因此，在本研究中吾人描述一種 差異舖面摩擦之設計以抗衡超高佈設之不足。此種佈置主要係於公路彎道上之各車道之左右 半面提供某一程度的不同舖面摩擦而言。其功能為促使車輛行駛更穩定，乘客更舒適。這種 佈設沒有像佈設超高的缺點以致有其設限:超高在壞天氣時可能會致使車輛產生側滑意外。本 文繪列出不同設計速度及不同曲率半徑下之應有的相對差異摩擦係數值，至於如何在舖面上 實現差異性摩擦則做了一些舖面材料級配方面的選擇介紹分析。最後鄭重地提醒若建造此差 異摩擦路面應注意的相關安全問題。[[abstract]]From the perspective of sprung vehicle dynamics, the design criteria of superelevation or radius is unsatisfactory for broad requirements. Superelevation design has many limitations. Therefore, in this study, we describe a split layout of pavement friction, designed to counterbalance an insufficiency of superelevation. The layout is to provide different friction pavements between the left and the right sides of a lane in curves. Such a layout would cause vehicles to be more stable, in addition to providing passengers with more comfort. There is no deficiency of placing superelevations, of which the inclined cross-sections possibly cause side slipping in bad weather conditions. Also, the ideal values of friction difference for high design speeds versus various radii are illustrated. How to implement a split friction pavement is also introduced accompanied by an analysis of the selection of materials or aggregates. Finally, a special consideration regarding safety for constructing such a pavement is mentioned.[[booktype]]紙

Anaphora resolution without world knowledge Resolução da anáfora sem conhecimento de mundo

A typical problem in the resolution of pronominal anaphora is the presence of more than one candidate for the antecedent of the pronoun. Considering two English sentences like (1) "People buy expensive cars because they offer more status" and (2) "People buy expensive cars because they want more status" we can see that the two NPs "people" and "expensive cars", from a purely syntactic perspective, are both legitimate candidates as antecedents for the pronoun "they". This problem has been traditionally solved by using world knowledge (e.g. schema theory), where, through an internal representation of the world, we "know" that cars "offer" status and people "want" status. The assumption in this paper is that the use of world knowledge does not explain how the disambiguation process works and alternative explanations should be explored. Using a knowledge poor approach (explicit information from the text rather than implicit world knowledge) the study investigates to what extent syntactic and semantic constraints can be used to resolve anaphora. For this purpose, 1,400 examples of the word "they" were randomly selected from a corpus of 10,000,000 words of expository text in English. Antecedent candidates for each case were then analyzed and classified in terms of their syntactic functions in the sentence (subject, object, etc.) and semantic features (+ human, + animate, etc.). It was found that syntactic constraints resolved 85% of the cases. When combined with semantic constraints the resolution rate rose to 98%. The implications of the findings for Natural Language Processing are discussed.<br>Um problema típico na resolução da anáfora pronominal é a presença de mais de um candidato para antecedente do pronome. Considerando duas frases como (1) "As pessoas compram casas de luxo porque elas oferecem status" e (2) "As pessoas compram casas de luxo porque elas querem status", podemos perceber que os dois SNs "pessoas" e "casas de luxo", de uma perspectiva estritamente sintática, são ambos candidatos legítimos para antecedente do pronome "elas". Este problema tem sido tradicionalmente resolvido pelo uso do conhecimento de mundo (Teoria de Esquemas, por exemplo), onde, através de uma representação interna do mundo, "sabemos" que casas "dão" status e que as pessoas "querem" status. O pressuposto neste trabalho é de que o uso do conhecimento de mundo não explica como o processo desambiguador funciona e explicações alternativas precisam ser exploradas. Usando uma abordagem pobre em conhecimento de mundo (informação explícita do texto em vez de conhecimento de mundo implícito) este estudo procura investigar até que ponto restrições sintáticas e semânticas podem ser usadas para resolver a anáfora. Para isso, 1.400 exemplos da palavra "they" foram aleatoriamente selecionados de um corpus de 10.000.000 de palavras de texto expositivo em língua inglesa. Os candidatos a antecedente em cada caso foram analisados e classificados de acordo com sua função sintática (sujeito, objeto, etc.) e seus traços semânticos (+ humano, + animado, etc.). Os resultados mostraram que as restrições sintáticas resolveram 85% dos casos. Quando essas restrições foram combinadas com as restrições semânticas, o percentual de resolução aumentou para 98%. Discutem-se, finalmente, as implicações desses resultados para o Processamento da Língua Natural