178 research outputs found
Computer aided conversation for severely physically impaired non-speaking people
Computer aided conversation for severely physically impaired non-speaking peopl
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
Inhomogeneous Superconductivity in Condensed Matter and QCD
Inhomogeneous superconductivity arises when the species participating in the
pairing phenomenon have different Fermi surfaces with a large enough
separation. In these conditions it could be more favorable for each of the
pairing fermions to stay close to its Fermi surface and, differently from the
usual BCS state, for the Cooper pair to have a non zero total momentum. For
this reason in this state the gap varies in space, the ground state is
inhomogeneous and a crystalline structure might be formed. This situation was
considered for the first time by Fulde, Ferrell, Larkin and Ovchinnikov, and
the corresponding state is called LOFF. The spontaneous breaking of the space
symmetries in the vacuum state is a characteristic feature of this phase and is
associated to the presence of long wave-length excitations of zero mass. The
situation described here is of interest both in solid state and in elementary
particle physics, in particular in Quantum Chromo-Dynamics at high density and
small temperature. In this review we present the theoretical approach to the
LOFF state and its phenomenological applications using the language of the
effective field theories.Comment: RevTex, 83 pages, 26 figures. Submitted to Review of Modern Physic
Epigenetics and developmental programming of welfare and production traits in farm animals
The concept that postnatal health and development can be influenced by events that occur in utero originated from epidemiological studies in humans supported by numerous mechanistic (including epigenetic) studies in a variety of model species. Referred to as the ‘developmental origins of health and disease’ or ‘DOHaD’ hypothesis, the primary focus of large-animal studies until quite recently had been biomedical. Attention has since turned towards traits of commercial importance in farm animals. Herein we review the evidence that prenatal risk factors, including suboptimal parental nutrition, gestational stress, exposure to environmental chemicals and advanced breeding technologies, can determine traits such as postnatal growth, feed efficiency, milk yield, carcass composition, animal welfare and reproductive potential. We consider the role of epigenetic and cytoplasmic mechanisms of inheritance, and discuss implications for livestock production and future research endeavours. We conclude that although the concept is proven for several traits, issues relating to effect size, and hence commercial importance, remain. Studies have also invariably been conducted under controlled experimental conditions, frequently assessing single risk factors, thereby limiting their translational value for livestock production. We propose concerted international research efforts that consider multiple, concurrent stressors to better represent effects of contemporary animal production systems
Pot, kettle: Nonliteral titles aren’t (natural) science
© 2020 The Author. Published by MIT Press. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence.
The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00078Researchers may be tempted to attract attention through poetic titles for their publications,
but would this be mistaken in some fields? Whilst poetic titles are known to be common in
medicine, it is not clear whether the practice is widespread elsewhere. This article
investigates the prevalence of poetic expressions in journal article titles 1996-2019 in 3.3
million articles from all 27 Scopus broad fields. Expressions were identified by manually
checking all phrases with at least 5 words that occurred at least 25 times, finding 149 stock
phrases, idioms, sayings, literary allusions, film names and song titles or lyrics. The
expressions found are most common in the social sciences and the humanities. They are also
relatively common in medicine, but almost absent from engineering and the natural and
formal sciences. The differences may reflect the less hierarchical and more varied nature of
the social sciences and humanities, where interesting titles may attract an audience. In
engineering, natural science and formal science fields, authors should take extra care with
poetic expressions, in case their choice is judged inappropriate. This includes interdisciplinary
research overlapping these areas. Conversely, reviewers of interdisciplinary research
involving the social sciences should be more tolerant of poetic licens
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