EmoMix: Emotion Mixing via Diffusion Models for Emotional Speech Synthesis

There has been significant progress in emotional Text-To-Speech (TTS) synthesis technology in recent years. However, existing methods primarily focus on the synthesis of a limited number of emotion types and have achieved unsatisfactory performance in intensity control. To address these limitations, we propose EmoMix, which can generate emotional speech with specified intensity or a mixture of emotions. Specifically, EmoMix is a controllable emotional TTS model based on a diffusion probabilistic model and a pre-trained speech emotion recognition (SER) model used to extract emotion embedding. Mixed emotion synthesis is achieved by combining the noises predicted by diffusion model conditioned on different emotions during only one sampling process at the run-time. We further apply the Neutral and specific primary emotion mixed in varying degrees to control intensity. Experimental results validate the effectiveness of EmoMix for synthesizing mixed emotion and intensity control.Comment: Accepted by 24th Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association (INTERSPEECH 2023

QI-TTS: Questioning Intonation Control for Emotional Speech Synthesis

Recent expressive text to speech (TTS) models focus on synthesizing emotional speech, but some fine-grained styles such as intonation are neglected. In this paper, we propose QI-TTS which aims to better transfer and control intonation to further deliver the speaker's questioning intention while transferring emotion from reference speech. We propose a multi-style extractor to extract style embedding from two different levels. While the sentence level represents emotion, the final syllable level represents intonation. For fine-grained intonation control, we use relative attributes to represent intonation intensity at the syllable level.Experiments have validated the effectiveness of QI-TTS for improving intonation expressiveness in emotional speech synthesis.Comment: Accepted by ICASSP 202

Dynamic Alignment Mask CTC: Improved Mask-CTC with Aligned Cross Entropy

Because of predicting all the target tokens in parallel, the non-autoregressive models greatly improve the decoding efficiency of speech recognition compared with traditional autoregressive models. In this work, we present dynamic alignment Mask CTC, introducing two methods: (1) Aligned Cross Entropy (AXE), finding the monotonic alignment that minimizes the cross-entropy loss through dynamic programming, (2) Dynamic Rectification, creating new training samples by replacing some masks with model predicted tokens. The AXE ignores the absolute position alignment between prediction and ground truth sentence and focuses on tokens matching in relative order. The dynamic rectification method makes the model capable of simulating the non-mask but possible wrong tokens, even if they have high confidence. Our experiments on WSJ dataset demonstrated that not only AXE loss but also the rectification method could improve the WER performance of Mask CTC.Comment: Accepted by ICASSP 202

PI-3K and Akt are mediators of AP-1 induction by 5-MCDE in mouse epidermal Cl41 cells

5-Methylchrysene has been found to be a complete carcinogen in laboratory animals. However, the tumor promotion effects of (±)-anti-5-methylchrysene-1,2-diol-3,4-epoxide (5-MCDE) remain unclear. In the present work, we found that 5-MCDE induced marked activator protein-1 (AP-1) activation in Cl41 cells. 5-MCDE also induced a marked activation of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI-3K). Inhibition of PI-3K impaired 5-MCDE–induced AP-1 transactivation, suggesting that PI-3K is an upstream kinase involved in AP-1 activation by 5-MCDE. Furthermore, we found that Akt is a PI-3K downstream mediator for 5-MCDE–induced AP-1 transactivation, whereas another PI-3K downstream kinase, p70S6K, was not involved in AP-1 activation by 5-MCDE. Moreover, inhibition of Akt activation blocked 5-MCDE–induced activation of extracellular signal–regulated protein kinases (ERKs) and c-Jun NH2-terminal kinases (JNKs), whereas it did not affect p38K activation. Consistently, overexpression of a dominant-negative mutant of ERK2 or JNK1 blocked the AP-1 activation by 5-MCDE. These results demonstrate that 5-MCDE is able to induce AP-1 activation, and the AP-1 induction is specifically through a PI-3K/Akt–dependent and p70S6K-independent pathway

Research on Control of Intelligent Vehicle Human-Simulated Steering System Based on HSIC

The experienced drivers with good driving skills are used as objects of learning, and road steering test data of skilled drivers are collected in this article. First, a nonlinear fitting was made to the driving trajectory of skilled driver in order to achieve human-simulated control. The segmental polynomial expression was solved for two typical steering conditions of normal right-steering and U-turn, and the hp adaptive pseudo-spectral method was used to solve the connection problem of the vehicle segmental driving trajectory. Second, a new Electric Power Steering (EPS) system was proposed, and the intelligent vehicle human-simulated steering system control model based on human simulated intelligent control (HSIC) was established in Simulink/Carsim joint simulation environment to simulate and analyze. Finally, in order to further verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in this article, an intelligent vehicle steering system test bench with a steering resistance torque simulation device was built, and the dSPACE rapid prototype controller was used to realize human-simulated intelligent control law. The results show that the human-simulated steering control algorithm is superior to the traditional proportion integration differentiation (PID) control in the tracking effect of the steering characteristic parameters and passenger comfort. The steering wheel angle and torque can better track the angle and torque variation curve of real vehicle steering experiment of the skilled driver, and the effectiveness of the intelligent vehicle human-simulated steering control algorithm based on HSIC proposed in this article is verified

Optimization of Energy Management Strategy for the EPS with Hybrid Power Supply Based on PSO Algorithm

The traditional vehicle power supply is unable to meet the power requirement of electric power steering system (EPS) in heavy-duty vehicles at low speeds. A novel EPS with hybrid power supply (HP-EPS) is constructed in this paper, and a new optimized rule-based energy management strategy of hybrid power supply system is designed. The strategy determines the power distribution of the vehicle power supply (VPS) and super capacitor (SC), as well as the charging or discharging of SC. Furthermore, to minimize the output current fluctuation of the VPS, the optimization model of parameters in the strategy is established and the particle swarm optimization algorithm (PSO) algorithm is applied to optimize the rules in the energy management strategy. The verification for the designed energy management strategy is carried out in MATLAB/Simulink and results show that the output current peak of VPS decreases by 33% and its fluctuation depresses significantly. In addition, the SC is charged timely and fast, which is beneficial to guarantee enough state of charge (SOC) of SC. In conclusion, the optimized rule-based energy management strategy used for the HP-EPS system can meet the current requirement of EPS and effectively reduce the peak and fluctuation of the VPS output current

Dynamic Lane Tracking Control of the Commercial Vehicle Based on RMPC Algorithm Considering the State of Preceding Vehicle

In order to improve the adaptability of the lane keeping control system to complex environments, a dynamic lane tracking control strategy of the commercial vehicle based on the robust model predictive control (RMPC) algorithm is proposed considering the state of the preceding vehicle. An RMPC controller is designed with path deviation and control increment as the objective function. The model predictive control problem is transformed into a min–max optimization problem. The linear matrix inequality (LMI) is used for the optimal solution to obtain the optimal control quantity. The strategy to improve the safety and comfort dynamically in the process of lane keeping is designed by adjusting the weight coefficient matrix of RMPC based on fuzzy theory. The results of the simulation and HiL test show that the RMPC controller can meet the requirement of adjusting the lane tracking process dynamically according to the state of the preceding vehicle, which keeps the balance between safety and comfort

Study on Low-Speed Steering Resistance Torque of Vehicles Considering Friction between Tire and Pavement

Electric power steering (EPS) systems under existing vehicle power systems cannot provide enough power for heavy-duty commercial vehicles under pivot or low-speed steering conditions. To solve this problem, the paper proposes an EPS system that is based on the hybrid power system constituted by the vehicle power system and the supercapacitor in parallel. In order to provide a theoretical basis for the intervention and withdrawal mechanisms of a super-capacitor in the new EPS, the law of steering resistance torque at a low or extremely low vehicle speed should be explored. Firstly, the finite element model of tire/pavement was established to conduct the simulation and calculation of the low-speed steering friction force between the tire and pavement, and to obtain the fitting expression of the equivalent steering friction coefficient with the running speed of the tire. Secondly, the expression of the steering friction torque was deduced based on the calculus theory and mathematical model of the low-speed steering resistance torque, including the steering friction torque and aligning torques, established to conduct the simulation of the equivalent resistance torque applied on a steering column under low-speed condition. Subsequently, the real vehicle experiments were carried out and comparisons of the experimental results and simulation results was performed. The consistency indicated that the model of low-speed steering resistance torque had a high accuracy. Finally, the law of low-speed steering resistance torque with a vehicle speed and steering wheel angle were analyzed according to the 3D surface plot drawn from the simulation results

Dilation Eustachian Tuboplasty with Visual Eustachian Tube Endoscope and Supporting Balloon

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility and safety of employing a visual Eustachian tube endoscope (VETE) with a supporting balloon as a viable treatment and examination option for patients with Eustachian tube dysfunction (ETD). Methods: A study involving 9 fresh human cadaver heads was conducted to investigate the potential of balloon dilation Eustachian tuboplasty (BET) utilizing the supporting balloon catheter, and the ET cavity was examined using VETE during the procedure, which involved the dilation of the cartilaginous portion of the ET with the supporting balloon catheter. Results: The utilization of VETE in conjunction with the supporting balloon catheter demonstrated technical ease during the procedure, with no observed damage to essential structures, particularly the ET cavity. Conclusion: This newly introduced method of dilation and examination of the ET cavity using VETE and the supporting balloon is a feasible, safe procedure