1 The Prosodic Marking of Phrase Boundaries: Expectations and Results

ABSTRACT Using sentence templates and a stochastic context-free grammar a large corpus (10,000 sentences) has been created, where prosodic phrase boundaries are labeled in the sentences automatically during sentence generation. With perception experiments on a subset of 500 utterances we verified that 92 % of the automatically marked boundaries were perceived as prosodically marked. In initial automatic classification experiments for three levels of boundaries recognition rates up to 81 % could be achieved. 1.1 Introduction and Material A successful automatic detection of phrase boundaries can be of great help for parsing a word hypotheses graph in an automatic speech understanding (ASU) system. Our recognition paradigm lies within the statistical approach; we therefore need a large training database, i.e. a corpus with reference labels for prosodically marked phrase boundaries. In this paper we wil

Test of Lorentz Symmetry by using a 3He/129Xe Co-Magnetometer

To test Lorentz symmetry we used a 3He/129Xe co-magnetometer. We will give a short summary of our experimental setup and the results of our latest measurements. We obtained preliminary results for the equatorial component of the background field interacting with the spin of the bound neutron: b_n < 3.72 x 10^(-32) GeV (95 C.L.).Comment: Presented at the Fifth Meeting on CPT and Lorentz Symmetry, Bloomington, Indiana, June 28 - July 2, 201

Automatic classification of prosodically marked phrase boundaries in German

A large corpus has been created automatically and read by speakers. Phrase boundaries were labeled in the sentences automatically during sentence generation. Perception experiments on a subset of 500 utterances showed a high agreement between the automatically generated boundary markers and the ones perceived by listeners. Gaussian distribution and polynomial classifiers were trained on a set of prosodic features computed from the speech signal using the automatically generated boundary markers. Comparing the classification results with the judgments of the listeners yielded in a recognition rate of 87%. A combination with stochastic language models improved the recognition rate to 90%. We found that the pause and the durational features are most important for the classification, but that the influence of F0 is not neglectable

The Increase in Hemoglobin Concentration With Altitude Differs Between World Regions and Is Less in Children Than in Adults

To compensate for decreased oxygen partial pressure, high-altitude residents increase hemoglobin concentrations [Hb]. The elevation varies between world regions, posing problems in defining cutoff values for anemia or polycythemia. The currently used altitude adjustments (World Health Organization [WHO]), however, do not account for regional differences. Data from The Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) Program were analyzed from 32 countries harboring >4% of residents at altitudes above 1000 m. [Hb]-increase, (ΔHb/km altitude) was calculated by linear regression analysis. Tables show 95% reference intervals (RIs) for different altitude ranges, world regions, and age groups. The prevalence of anemia and polycythemia was calculated using regressions in comparison to WHO adjustments. The most pronounced Δ[Hb]/km was found in East Africans and South Americans while [Hb] increased least in South/South-East Asia. In African regions and Middle East, [Hb] was decreased in some altitude regions showing inconsistent changes in different age groups. Of note, in all regions, the Δ[Hb]/km was lower in children than in adults, and in the Middle East, it was even negative. Overall, the Δ[Hb]/km from our analysis differed from the region-independent adjustments currently suggested by the WHO resulting in a lower anemia prevalence at very high altitudes. The distinct patterns of Δ[Hb] with altitude in residents from different world regions imply that one single, region-independent correction factor for altitude is not be applicable for diagnosing abnormal [Hb]. Therefore, we provide regression coefficients and reference-tables that are specific for world regions and altitude ranges to improve diagnosing abnormal [Hb]