Rhythm-Flexible Voice Conversion without Parallel Data Using Cycle-GAN over Phoneme Posteriorgram Sequences

Speaking rate refers to the average number of phonemes within some unit time, while the rhythmic patterns refer to duration distributions for realizations of different phonemes within different phonetic structures. Both are key components of prosody in speech, which is different for different speakers. Models like cycle-consistent adversarial network (Cycle-GAN) and variational auto-encoder (VAE) have been successfully applied to voice conversion tasks without parallel data. However, due to the neural network architectures and feature vectors chosen for these approaches, the length of the predicted utterance has to be fixed to that of the input utterance, which limits the flexibility in mimicking the speaking rates and rhythmic patterns for the target speaker. On the other hand, sequence-to-sequence learning model was used to remove the above length constraint, but parallel training data are needed. In this paper, we propose an approach utilizing sequence-to-sequence model trained with unsupervised Cycle-GAN to perform the transformation between the phoneme posteriorgram sequences for different speakers. In this way, the length constraint mentioned above is removed to offer rhythm-flexible voice conversion without requiring parallel data. Preliminary evaluation on two datasets showed very encouraging results.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, Submitted to SLT 201

Nondestructive Measurement Material Characterization of Thermal Sprayed Nickel Aluminum Coatings by using Laser Ultrasound Technique

AbstractThis research focused on characterization of mechanical properties in Nickel-Aluminum coating with different thermal technique and processing parameters at high temperature environment up to 295°C. With the laser ultrasound technique (LUT), guided acoustic waves are generated to propagate on the Ni-Al sprayed coatings. By measuring dispersive phase velocity followed by SCE-UA inversion algorithm. The Young's modulus of coatings which fabricated by HVOF technique is higher than APS technique. This technique is potentially useful to probe the material characterization at high temperature environment in a remote and non-destructive way

Anthropomorphism of AI-based Intelligent Customer Service, and Its Affective and Behavioral Consequences

Recently, as many users turn to social media to interact with service providers, organizations apply Artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the operation. This type of customer service system is called intelligent customer service (ICS) which one of the most commonly adopted tools is chatbot. Since chatbot is AI-empowered, whether this system can effectively interact with customers and solve their problems is critical. However, the quality of ICS has received significant attention recently, and a lack of systematic study on the outcomes of anthropomorphism leaves this question unanswered in an ICS context. Based on a cognitive-affective-behavioral framework, this study attempts to understand whether anthropomorphism can promote desired behaviors (including usage and citizen-ship behaviors) through enhancing affective out-comes, such as satisfaction and identity. Data collected from 183 chatbot-ICS users, this study illustrates how anthropomorphism can increase quality, enhance satisfaction and identity. Furthermore, we also show that satisfaction and identity lead to further usage and citizenship behaviors. This highlights the importance of increasing anthropomorphism for the chatbot-ICS

Earthquake Doublet Sequences: Evidence of Static Triggering in the Strong Convergent Zones of Taiwan

Three earthquake sequences, each with two main earthquakes of almost the same magnitudes (ML from 5.9 to 7.0 with differences less than 0.1), have recently been observed in Taiwan. The two largest earthquakes in each sequence occurred with a short delay time between them, were strikingly similar in terms of magnitude, location and/or focal mechanism and are referred to as doublets. They were markedly distinct from typical single mainshock sequences. Our estimated static stress field generated by the first shock in the doublet shows that the second shock and most of their aftershocks were located within a region where static stress increased substantially. Thus, a possible explanation for earthquake doublet is that seismic energy for each shock had accumulated independently within adjacent crustal volumes, separated by an asperity, and that the second shock is triggered by the increased static stress after the first one. An important implication of doublet sequence is that works by emergency response teams after the first earthquake could be made more hazardous by the second

Discovery of Eurytrema Eggs in Sediment from a Colonial Period Latrine in Taiwan.

In this study we take a closer look at the diseases that afflicted Japanese police officers who were stationed in a remote mountainous region of Taiwan from 1921 to 1944. Samples were taken from the latrine at the Huabanuo police outpost, and analyzed for the eggs of intestinal parasites, using microscopy and ELISA. The eggs of Eurytrema sp., (possibly E. pancreaticum), whipworm and roundworm were shown to be present. True infection with Eurytrema would indicate that the policemen ate uncooked grasshoppers and crickets infected with the parasite. However, false parasitism might also occur if the policemen ate the uncooked intestines of infected cattle, and the Eurytrema eggs passed through the human intestines. These findings provide an insight into the diet and health of the Japanese colonists in Taiwan nearly a century ago

Ray Tracing Simulation in Nonspherically Symmetric Atmosphere for GPS Radio Occultation

A three-dimensional ray tracing model with aiming algorithms for global positioning system (GPS) signal is proposed to make simulations conform to the realistic radio occultation (RO) signal propagation. The two aiming algorithms used in this study ensure the initial and end point ray trajectories are located in the prescribed region. In past studies, the ray tracing techniques applied to the RO signal simulation usually assumed a spherically symmetrical atmosphere for simplicity. The exact GPS and low earth orbit (LEO) satellite locations are not considered in the simulation. These two assumptions make the simulation unrealistic for GPS signal propagation in the RO technique. In the proposed model, the shape of the earth is assumed as an ellipse. The information from European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) analysis is used to setup the atmosphere in the simulation. Two aiming algorithms are developed to determine the initial signal propagating direction to make the simulated signal start from the prescribed GPS satellite position and end in the close vicinity of the LEO satellite position. An ideal spherical symmetric atmospheric structure is used to verify the ray tracing model. The fractional difference between real and simulated refractivity results is less than 0.1%. Otherwise, the GPS and LEO satellite position in the Formosat-3/COSMIC observation and the ECMWF analysis, considering the earth¡¦s flattening, is also used to verify the aiming algorithms. All of the simulated signals end in close vicinity to the LEO satellite position in the simulation results

Ventricular divergence correlates with epicardial wavebreaks and predicts ventricular arrhythmia in isolated rabbit hearts during therapeutic hypothermia

INTRODUCTION: High beat-to-beat morphological variation (divergence) on the ventricular electrogram during programmed ventricular stimulation (PVS) is associated with increased risk of ventricular fibrillation (VF), with unclear mechanisms. We hypothesized that ventricular divergence is associated with epicardial wavebreaks during PVS, and that it predicts VF occurrence. METHOD AND RESULTS: Langendorff-perfused rabbit hearts (n = 10) underwent 30-min therapeutic hypothermia (TH, 30°C), followed by a 20-min treatment with rotigaptide (300 nM), a gap junction modifier. VF inducibility was tested using burst ventricular pacing at the shortest pacing cycle length achieving 1:1 ventricular capture. Pseudo-ECG (p-ECG) and epicardial activation maps were simultaneously recorded for divergence and wavebreaks analysis, respectively. A total of 112 optical and p-ECG recordings (62 at TH, 50 at TH treated with rotigaptide) were analyzed. Adding rotigaptide reduced ventricular divergence, from 0.13±0.10 at TH to 0.09±0.07 (p = 0.018). Similarly, rotigaptide reduced the number of epicardial wavebreaks, from 0.59±0.73 at TH to 0.30±0.49 (p = 0.036). VF inducibility decreased, from 48±31% at TH to 22±32% after rotigaptide infusion (p = 0.032). Linear regression models showed that ventricular divergence correlated with epicardial wavebreaks during TH (p<0.001). CONCLUSION: Ventricular divergence correlated with, and might be predictive of epicardial wavebreaks during PVS at TH. Rotigaptide decreased both the ventricular divergence and epicardial wavebreaks, and reduced the probability of pacing-induced VF during TH