101 research outputs found
Lateral Loading Tests in The Pit for a Large-Diameter Deep Pile
Although the ground supporting the foundation can be regarded as three-dimensional nonlinear continuous body, in design, grounds are modeled as linear elastic springs. However, in reality, grounds exhibit nonlinear load-displacement (ρ-δ) characteristics. In Specifications for Highway Bridges (Japan Road Association, 1994), ground reaction coefficient is defined as the secant slope of noticeable displacement and load intensity on ρ-δ curve corrected according to width of foundation. For the purpose of examining the scale effect of large-diameter pile, this paper presents a study on scale effect of lateral ground reaction coefficient based on results of lateral loading tests performed using large loading plate in the pit of a large-diameter deep pile
Streaming Target-Speaker ASR with Neural Transducer
Although recent advances in deep learning technology have boosted automatic
speech recognition (ASR) performance in the single-talker case, it remains
difficult to recognize multi-talker speech in which many voices overlap. One
conventional approach to tackle this problem is to use a cascade of a speech
separation or target speech extraction front-end with an ASR back-end. However,
the extra computation costs of the front-end module are a critical barrier to
quick response, especially for streaming ASR. In this paper, we propose a
target-speaker ASR (TS-ASR) system that implicitly integrates the target speech
extraction functionality within a streaming end-to-end (E2E) ASR system, i.e.
recurrent neural network-transducer (RNNT). Our system uses a similar idea as
adopted for target speech extraction, but implements it directly at the level
of the encoder of RNNT. This allows TS-ASR to be realized without placing extra
computation costs on the front-end. Note that this study presents two major
differences between prior studies on E2E TS-ASR; we investigate streaming
models and base our study on Conformer models, whereas prior studies used
RNN-based systems and considered only offline processing. We confirm in
experiments that our TS-ASR achieves comparable recognition performance with
conventional cascade systems in the offline setting, while reducing computation
costs and realizing streaming TS-ASR.Comment: Accepted to Interspeech 202
Anti-Obesity and Anti-Diabetic Effects of Acacia Polyphenol in Obese Diabetic KKAy Mice Fed High-Fat Diet
Acacia polyphenol (AP) extracted from the bark of the black wattle tree (Acacia meansii) is rich in unique catechin-like flavan-3-ols, such as robinetinidol and fisetinidol. The present study investigated the anti-obesity/anti-diabetic effects of AP using obese diabetic KKAy mice. KKAy mice received either normal diet, high-fat diet or high-fat diet with additional AP for 7 weeks. After the end of administration, body weight, plasma glucose and insulin were measured. Furthermore, mRNA and protein expression of obesity/diabetic suppression-related genes were measured in skeletal muscle, liver and white adipose tissue. As a result, compared to the high-fat diet group, increases in body weight, plasma glucose and insulin were significantly suppressed for AP groups. Furthermore, compared to the high-fat diet group, mRNA expression of energy expenditure-related genes (PPARα, PPARδ, CPT1, ACO and UCP3) was significantly higher for AP groups in skeletal muscle. Protein expressions of CPT1, ACO and UCP3 for AP groups were also significantly higher when compared to the high-fat diet group. Moreover, AP lowered the expression of fat acid synthesis-related genes (SREBP-1c, ACC and FAS) in the liver. AP also increased mRNA expression of adiponectin and decreased expression of TNF-α in white adipose tissue. In conclusion, the anti-obesity actions of AP are considered attributable to increased expression of energy expenditure-related genes in skeletal muscle, and decreased fatty acid synthesis and fat intake in the liver. These results suggest that AP is expected to be a useful plant extract for alleviating metabolic syndrome
Side-chain-dependent helical conformation of amylose alkylcarbamates: Amylose tris(ethylcarbamate) and amylose tris(n-hexylcarbamate)
Eight amylose tris(ethylcarbamate) (ATEC) samples ranging in the weight-average molar mass Mw from 1.0 - 104 to 1.1 - 106 g mol-1 and five amylose tris(n-hexylcarbamate) (ATHC) samples of which Mw varies from 4.9 - 104 to 2.2 - 106 g mol-1 have been prepared from enzymatically synthesized amylose samples having narrow dispersity indices and no branching. Small-angle angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), light scattering, viscometry, and infrared (IR) absorption measurements were carried out for their dilute solutions, that is, ATEC in tetrahydrofuran (THF), 2-methoxyethanol (2ME), methanol (MeOH), and ATHC in THF and 1-propanol (1PrOH) to determine M w, particle scattering functions, intrinsic viscosities, and IR spectra. SAXS and viscosity measurements were also made on ATEC in d- and l-ethyl lactates. The data were analyzed in terms of the wormlike cylinder model to estimate the helix pitch (or contour length) per residue h and the Kuhn segment length λ-1 (stiffness parameter, twice the persistence length). Both ATEC and ATHC have large λ-1 in THF, that is, 33 and 75 nm, respectively, and smaller λ-1 were obtained in alcohols, indicating that they have rigid helical conformation stabilized by intramolecular hydrogen bonds in THF. On the contrary, the helical structure estimated from the h value significantly depends on the alkyl side groups in a complex fashion, that is, h = 0.36 nm for ATEC, h = 0.29 nm for ATHC, and h = 0.26 nm for amylose tris(n-butylcarbamate) (ATBC). This is likely related to the bulkiness of side groups packed inside the amylosic helices. The solvent dependence of h, λ-1, and the fraction fhyd of intramolecular hydrogen bonds for ATEC can be explained by a current model as is the case with ATBC [ Terao, K.; Macromolecules 2010, 43, 1061 ], in which each contour point along the chain takes loose helical and rigid helical sequences independently. © 2012 American Chemical Society.Terao K., Maeda F., Oyamada K., et al. Side-chain-dependent helical conformation of amylose alkylcarbamates: Amylose tris(ethylcarbamate) and amylose tris(n-hexylcarbamate). Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 116(42), 12714-12720, October 5, 2012. Copyright © 2012, American Chemical Society. https://doi.org/10.1021/jp307998t
Experimental evidence for direct insulator-quantum Hall transition in multi-layer graphene
We have performed magnetotransport measurements on a multi-layer graphene
flake. At the crossing magnetic field Bc, an approximately
temperature-independent point in the measured longitudinal resistivity, which
is ascribed to the direct insulator-quantum Hall (I-QH) transition, is
observed. By analyzing the amplitudes of the magnetoresistivity oscillations,
we are able to measure the quantum mobility of our device. It is found that at
the direct I-QH transition, the product of the quantum mobility and is about
0.37 which is considerably smaller than 1. In contrast, at Bc, the longitudinal
resistivity is close to the Hall resistivity, i.e., the product of the
classical mobility and the crossing field is about 1. Therefore our results
suggest that different mobilities need to be introduced for the direct I-QH
transition observed in multi-layered graphene. Combined with existing
experimental results obtained in various material systems, our data obtained on
graphene suggest that the direct I-QH transition is a universal effect in 2D.Comment: 4 figure
Transurethral resection for botryoid bladder rhabdomyosarcoma
The outcome of multimodal therapy for localized bladder rhabdomyosarcoma is quite good in terms of morbidity, and conservative surgery is generally recommended. However, in cases originating in the bladder neck, tumorectomy or partial cystectomy has adverse effects on bladder function. A 2-year-old girl underwent transurethral resection of a bladder tumor (TUR-BT), chemotherapy consisting of vincristine, actinomycin-D, and cyclophosphamide, and radiotherapy. She was in remission for 3 years when frequent urination became evident. Her bladder capacity and compliance were low; however, her urinary symptom was controlled using anticholinergic medication. Accordingly, TUR-BT could be an optional approach for bladder rhabdomyosarcoma
Bulk inflaton shadows of vacuum gravity
We introduce a -dimensional vacuum description of five-dimensional
bulk inflaton models with exponential potentials that makes analysis of
cosmological perturbations simple and transparent. We show that various
solutions, including the power-law inflation model recently discovered by
Koyama and Takahashi, are generated from known -dimensional vacuum
solutions of pure gravity. We derive master equations for all types of
perturbations, and each of them becomes a second order differential equation
for one master variable supplemented by simple boundary conditions on the
brane. One exception is the case for massive modes of scalar perturbations. In
this case, there are two independent degrees of freedom, and in general it is
difficult to disentangle them into two separate sectors.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures, revtex; v2: references adde
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