Evidence for the stable use of uptalk in South Ontario English

Uptalk is the semantically bleached use of a rising intonation pattern over a declarative sentence. Uptalk runs counter to the cross-linguistic generalization that rising contours indicate interrogatives, uncertainty (Ohala 1983), or continuation (Ladd 1996). Although uptalk has been discussed extensively in academia and the media (Britain 1992; Cruttenden 1994; Fletcher et al. 2002; Gorman 1993; McLemore 1991; Warren 2005), there has been no precise phonetic examination of this contour in North American English, where it is used extensively. My work investigates rising contours in Southern Ontario English, examining their phonetic nature and semantic interpretation. Some findings of particular interest are a) women uptalk significantly more than men; b) the overall use of rising terminal contours appears stable; and c) men more readily interpret the traditional falling contour as an indicator of certainty and finality and rising contours as indicators of uncertainty and continuation, while women are less inclined to perceive the contours as having their traditional meanings. To study uptalk, I investigate the general use of rising terminal contours over declarative sentences to determine i) who uses rising terminals; ii) whether the use of rising contours is on the increase; iii) how rising intonation (L*H-H% and H*L-H%), opposed to the standard falling contour (H*L-L%), is interpreted. To examine the use of rising contours, I recorded 12 native speakers of Southern Ontario English drawn from two age groups (19-25 and 45-55) and balanced for gender as they performed a direction task, an activity designed to elicit a high proportion of sentences with continuation or uncertainty readings. DAMSL sentence tagging is used to categorize the semantic nature of each sentence (Allen and Core 1997) and ToBI labeling (Beckman and Ayers 1993) to notate the contours. To examine the interpretation of rising contours, I played tokens from the production study for participants selected from the same age and gender groups as the production study. They were asked to rate speakers\u27 certainty, finality, and confidence for tokens produced with falling contours (H*L-H%) and rising contours (L*H-H% and H*L-H%). The results of the production study show that women from both age groups use rising terminal contours extensively: younger women use rising contours on 67.3% of sentences and older women 63.2%. Men use rising contours much less (on 30.1% of tokens), but like the women, age does not affect contour use (32.7% for younger men and 27.3% for older men). According to this measure of apparent time, the use of rising terminal contours is not increasing. The perception study revealed that men interpret intonational contours as having a more traditional function than women do. Men reported that the falling contour conveyed finality and certainty and one of the rising contours, L*H-H%, conveyed continuation. Women did not interpret these contours to have their conventional readings, suggesting that women use these contours to convey other social functions. In addition to presenting the results of production and perception studies of rising terminal contours, this work addresses the larger question of how intonation can be examined in a variation framework

Increasing the bit density of a quantum confinement physically unclonable function

This dissertation presents work carried out in collaboration with the IMDEA nanoscience institute. We study the recently proposed quantum confinement physically unclonable function by Roberts, et al. that utilises resonant tunnelling diodes (physical representation of a quantum well) and atomic scale imperfections for applications in cryptography and identification. Presently such entities rely on their resonance peak position as the basis for a new approach to electronic identification systems.By solely relying on the resonance peak of these devices deconvolution outputs an average of 8 bits per device, concatenation of up to 16 devices outputs a satisfactory number of bits for applications in uniqueness. However we explore the possibility of increasing the bit density of such physically unclonable functions that range from tangibly modifying the heterostructure with the use of a focused ion beam to induce quantum effects of 1 dimension (quantum wire) and 0 dimension (quantum dot) that would manifest its self as multiple resonance peaks observed on the current/voltage characteristic.Our findings show multiple devices with consistent new features as a result of modification with the focused ion beam ultimately increasing the bit density. We carry out cryogenic measurements and comment on the fact that such features are not supported by previous work studying resonant tunnelling in the 1 & 0 states of double barrier heterostructures

Evaluation of Topical Capislow Extract and Long Pulsed Nd-YAG Laser in the Treatment of Idiopathic Hirsutism

Introduction: Hirsutism is a condition that affects 10% of women worldwide. In many cultures, hirsutism is regarded as loss of femininity and can be psychologically traumatizing to the suffering females. The aim of the present study was to evaluate how topical capislow would affect or enhance the efficacy of laser hair removal.Methods: A randomized, monoblinded, placebo controlled split face study of combined topical capislow and long pulsed Nd-YAG laser on one side of the face versus long pulsed Nd-YAG laser alone on the opposite side of the face. Laser sessions were done at 4 weeks interval for maximum seven sessions. Topical capislow and placebo were applied once daily from the day of the first laser session to the day of the last laser session. Patients were evaluated both subjectively and objectively in each laser session and for six months after the last laser session.Results: Both treatment modalities were well tolerated and accepted with significantly better results in combined capislow and laser group versus laser alone.Conclusion: Topical capislow can represent a safe and effective synergistic method for laser with faster results but this is a temporary effect retained only to the time of its application

Resistive Index in Obstructive Uropathy

The diagnosis of urinary tract obstruction is a difficult and perplexing problem particularly in children. Pyelocalyectasis is seen not only in obstruction but also in other conditions, such as residual dilatation afler relief of obstruction, vesicoureteral reflux and pyelonephritis. Grey-scale ultrasonography is of little value in this clinically impOliant distinction. The standard excretory urography (IVU), even with diuretic augmentation, does not permit the objective diagnosis or exclusion of urinary tract obstruction. The Whitaker test is considered by some authors to be the gold standard for the diagnosis of obstructive pyelocalyectasis but it is invasive and therefore has not gained wide use. Moreover, the intrinsic urine output of the kidney contributes an unknown volume to the total amount of fluid being infused, particularly in children, and the potential for false-positive results should be considered whenever the urine output of the corresponding kidney is high. Finally, the results are not always reproducible or consistent with surgical findings. Nowadays, diuretic renography is the most widely accepted non-invasive procedure to diagnose obstruction. However, it has the disadvantages of being expensive, using ionising radiation and having a 10% -15% rate of false-positive and indeterminate results (Kass et aI., 1985). Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (Thumher et aI., 1989) and various biochemical indicators of the response of the kidney to obstructive damage (Carr et aI., 1994) have recently been investigated. However, the clinical significance of such new approaches remains to be determined

Cavity-QED implementations for distributive quantum computation

The coupling of a single ion to an optical cavity is a promising route towards scalable quantum technologies. This study presents the design, initial construction and simulations of two different ion traps for quantum computation with novel capabilities. The first system is an end cap system that utilises Fabry Perot cavities formed by the facets of fibres. The small mode volumes (cavity length ~ 300 μm) of the fibre cavities are ideal to achieve high cooperativity and coupling strength. This trap features the novel ability to mechanically adjust the position of the ion by perturbing/distorting the trapping potential with grounded side electrodes. A capability crucial to maximising the ion-cavity coupling. The design incorporates a number of improvements over the previous iteration by Takahashi et al. such as increased optical access, increased mode matching and improved mechanical stability of the cavity. To verify and test the design modifications; Pound-Drever-Hall cavity locking was set up. The test set up failed to lock to an error signal due to a mechanically unstable translation stage. The other design presented is a linear micro trap intended to trap strings of ions and does not use fibre based cavities. This design features multiple different regions reserved for storage, computation and communication and aims to implement a shuttling scheme that will allow the selective loading of single ions from a reservoir of ions into the desired regions. The fabrication process would utilise methods in microfabrication. Simulations of the trapping dynamics were used to optimise the electrode geometries and splitting protocol