Sex-specific fundamental and formant frequency patterns in a cross-sectional study

An extensive developmental acoustic study of the speech patterns of children and adults was reported by Lee and colleagues [Lee et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 105, 1455-1468 (1999)]. This paper presents a reexamination of selected fundamental frequency and formant frequency data presented in their report for 10 monophthongs by investigating sex-specific and developmental patterns using two different approaches. The first of these includes the investigation of age- and sex-specific formant frequency patterns in the monophthongs. The second, the investigation of fundamental frequency and formant frequency data using the critical band rate (bark) scale and a number of acoustic-phonetic dimensions of the monophthongs from an age- and sex-specific perspective. These acoustic-phonetic dimensions include: vowel spaces and distances from speaker centroids; frequency differences between the formant frequencies of males and females; vowel openness/closeness and frontness/backness; the degree of vocal effort; and formant frequency ranges. Both approaches reveal both age- and sex-specific development patterns which also appear to be dependent on whether vowels are peripheral or non-peripheral. The developmental emergence of these sex-specific differences are discussed with reference to anatomical, physiological, sociophonetic and culturally determined factors. Some directions for further investigation into the age-linked sex differences in speech across the lifespan are also proposed

Performance Modeling of Multithreaded Programs for Mobile Asymmetric Chip Multiprocessors

Abstract—Asymmetric chip multiprocessors (ACMPs) have multiple core types that are instruction-set compatible but op-timized differently to trade performance and power in mobile devices. The challenge for ACMPs is to map the program to the best core type and thread count to achieve performance require-ments under power constraints. This paper describes an empirical strategy, MONARCH, to automatically build estimation models that capture how a multithreaded program’s performance scales with thread count and core type. We show that MONARCH’s models are accurate and useful to find mappings that achieve performance goals while minimizing power. I

Ecosystem resistance in the face of climate change: a case study from the freshwater marshes of the Florida Everglades

Shaped by the hydrology of the Kissimmee-Okeechobee-Everglades watershed, the Florida Everglades is composed of a conglomerate of wetland ecosystems that have varying capacities to sequester and store carbon. Hydrology, which is a product of the region’s precipitation and temperature patterns combined with water management policy, drives community composition and productivity. As shifts in both precipitation and air temperature are expected over the next 100 years as a consequence of climate change, CO2 dynamics in the greater Everglades are expected to change. To reduce uncertainties associated with climate change and to explore how projected changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration and climate can alter current CO2 exchange rates in Everglades freshwater marsh ecosystems, we simulated fluxes of carbon among the atmosphere, vegetation, and soil using the DAYCENT model. We explored the effects of low, moderate, and high scenarios for atmospheric CO2 (550, 850, and 950 ppm), mean annual air temperature (þ1, þ2.5, and þ4.28C) and precipitation (2, þ7, and þ14%), as predicted by the IPCC for the year 2100 for the region, on CO2 exchange rates in short- and long-hydroperiod wetland ecosystems. Under 100 years of current climate and atmospheric CO2 concentration, Everglades freshwater marsh ecosystems were estimated to be CO2-neutral. As atmospheric CO2 concentration increased and under climate change projections, there were slight shifts in the start and length of the wet season (1 to þ7 days) and a small enhancement in the sink capacity (by 169 to 573 g C m2 century1 ) occurred at both short- and longhydroperiod ecosystems compared to CO2 dynamics under the current climate regime. Over 100 years, rising temperatures increased net CO2 exchange rates (þ1 to 13 g C m2 century1 ) and shifts in precipitation patterns altered cumulative net carbon uptake by þ13 to 46 g C m2 century1 . While changes in ecosystem structure, species composition, and disturbance regimes were beyond the scope of this research, results do indicate that climate change will produce small changes in CO2 dynamics in Everglades freshwater marsh ecosystems and suggest that the hydrologic regime and oligotrophic conditions of Everglades freshwater marshes lowers the ecosystem sensitivity to climate change. Key word

Applications of Two-Body Dirac Equations to the Meson Spectrum with Three versus Two Covariant Interactions, SU(3) Mixing, and Comparison to a Quasipotential Approach

In a previous paper Crater and Van Alstine applied the Two Body Dirac equations of constraint dynamics to the meson quark-antiquark bound states using a relativistic extention of the Adler-Piran potential and compared their spectral results to those from other approaches, ones which also considered meson spectroscopy as a whole and not in parts. In this paper we explore in more detail the differences and similarities in an important subset of those approaches, the quasipotential approach. In the earlier paper, the transformation properties of the quark-antiquark potentials were limited to a scalar and an electromagnetic-like four vector, with the former accounting for the confining aspects of the overall potential, and the latter the short range portion. A part of that work consisted of developing a way in which the static Adler-Piran potential was apportioned between those two different types of potentials in addition to covariantization. Here we make a change in this apportionment that leads to a substantial improvement in the resultant spectroscopy by including a time-like confining vector potential over and above the scalar confining one and the electromagnetic-like vector potential. Our fit includes 19 more mesons than the earlier results and we modify the scalar portion of the potential in such a way that allows this formalism to account for the isoscalar mesons {\eta} and {\eta}' not included in the previous work. Continuing the comparisons made in the previous paper with other approaches to meson spectroscopy we examine in this paper the quasipotential approach of Ebert, Faustov, and Galkin for a comparison with our formalism and spectral results.Comment: Revisions of earlier versio

Whole Earth Telescope observations of the pulsating subdwarf B star PG 0014+067

PG 0014+067 is one of the most promising pulsating subdwarf B stars for seismic analysis, as it has a rich pulsation spectrum. The richness of its pulsations, however, poses a fundamental challenge to understanding the pulsations of these stars, as the mode density is too complex to be explained only with radial and nonradial low degree (l < 3) p-modes without rotational splittings. One proposed solution, for the case of PG 0014+067 in particular, assigns some modes with high degree (l=3). On the other hand, theoretical models of sdB stars suggest that they may retain rapidly rotating cores, and so the high mode density may result from the presence of a few rotationally-split triplet (l=1), quintuplet (l=2) modes, along with radial (l=0) p-modes. To examine alternative theoretical models for these stars, we need better frequency resolution and denser longitude coverage. Therefore, we observed this star with the Whole Earth Telescope for two weeks in October 2004. In this paper we report the results of Whole Earth Telescope observations of the pulsating subdwarf B star PG 0014+067. We find that the frequencies seen in PG 0014+067 do not appear to fit any theoretical model currently available; however, we find a simple empirical relation that is able to match all of the well-determined frequencies in this star.Comment: 19 pages, preprint of paper accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Heuristic Models of Two-Fermion Relativistic Systems with Field-Type Interaction

We use the chain of simple heuristic expedients to obtain perturbative and exactly solvable relativistic spectra for a family of two-fermionic bound systems with Coulomb-like interaction. In the case of electromagnetic interaction the spectrum coincides up to the second order in a coupling constant with that following from the quantum electrodynamics. Discrepancy occurs only for S-states which is the well-known difficulty in the bound-state problem. The confinement interaction is considered too. PACS number(s): 03.65.Pm, 03.65.Ge, 12.39.PnComment: 16 pages, LaTeX 2.0

Search for flavor-changing neutral currents and lepton-family-number violation in two-body D0 decays

Results of a search for the three neutral charm decays, D0 -> mu e, D0 -> mu mu, and D0 -> e e, are presented. This study was based on data collected in Experiment 789 at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory using 800 GeV/c proton-Au and proton-Be interactions. No evidence is found for any of the decays. Upper limits on the branching ratios, at the 90% confidence level, are obtained.Comment: 28 pages, 18 figures. Submitted to Physical Review

Two Dimensional Pseudo-Wiener Filtering in Ultrasonic Imaging for Nondestructive Evaluation Applications

This paper deals with the use of a two dimensional pseudo-Wiener filter for ultrasonic image enhancement. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the technique for the improvement of the lateral resolution and image enhancement of ultrasonic images in materials such as graphite/epoxy composites and stainless steel. The difficulties encountered in the implementation of the filter will be delineated. Methods of overcoming some of these ‘implementational hurdles’ will be suggested

The Effect Of Breastfeeding On Child Development At 5 Years: A Cohort Study

Objective It is uncertain to what degree the relationship between breastfeeding and later cognitive development is a true biological effect, or is confounded by psychosocial factors. The study aim was to further investigate this relationship and the effect of duration of breast feeding on cognitive development. Methods A total of 3880 children were followed from birth. Breastfeeding duration was measured by questionnaire at 6 months of age and a Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test Revised (PPVT-R) was administered at 5 years. PPVT-R scores were adjusted for the effects of a large array of biological and psychosocial confounders. The relationship between breastfeeding and the mean PPVT-R scores were examined using analysis of variance and multiple linear regression. Results A strong positive relationship was demonstrated between breastfeeding and the PPVT-R scores with increasing scores with increased duration of breastfeeding. After adjusting for a wide range of biological and social factors, the adjusted mean for those breastfed for 6 months or more was 8.2 points higher for females and 5.8 points for males when compared to those never breastfed. Conclusion These findings suggest a significant benefit to child development is conferred by breastfeeding and is related independently to longer periods of breastfeeding