Synthesizing English emphatic speech for multimodal corrective feedback in computer-aided pronunciation training

Emphasis plays an important role in expressive speech synthesis in highlighting the focus of an utterance to draw the attention of the listener. We present a hidden Markov model (HMM)-based emphatic speech synthesis model. The ultimate objective is to synthesize corrective feedback in a computer-aided pronunciation training (CAPT) system. We first analyze contrastive (neutral versus emphatic) speech recording. The changes of the acoustic features of emphasis at different prosody locations and the local prominences of emphasis are analyzed. Based on the analysis, we develop a perturbation model that predicts the changes of the acoustic features from neutral to emphatic speech with high accuracy. Further based on the perturbation model we develop an HMM-based emphatic speech synthesis model. Different from the previous work, the HMM model is trained with neutral corpus, but the context features and additional acoustic-feature-related features are used during the growing of the decision tree. Then the output of the perturbation model can be used to supervise the HMM model to synthesize emphatic speeches instead of applying the perturbation model at the backend of a neutral speech synthesis model directly. In this way, the demand of emphasis corpus is reduced and the speech quality decreased by speech modification algorithm is avoided. The experiments indicate that the proposed emphatic speech synthesis model improves the emphasis quality of synthesized speech while keeping a high degree of the naturalness.     

Quantum immune clonal coevolutionary algorithm for dynamic multiobjective optimization

The existing algorithms to solve dynamic multiobjective optimization (DMO) problems generally have difficulties in non-uniformity, local optimality and non-convergence. Based on artificial immune system, quantum evolutionary computing and the strategy of co-evolution, a quantum immune clonal coevolutionary algorithm (QICCA) is proposed to solve DMO problems. The algorithm adopts entire cloning and evolves the theory of quantum to design a quantum updating operation, which improves the searching ability of the algorithm. Moreover, coevolutionary strategy is incorporated in global operation and coevolutionary competitive operation and coevolutionary cooperative operation are designed to improve the uniformity, the diversity and the convergence performance of the solutions. The results on test problems and performance metrics compared with ICADMO and DBM suggest that QICCA has obvious effectiveness and advantages which shows great capability of evolving convergent, diverse and uniformly distributed Pareto fronts.     

Edible oil evaluation by room odor tests: A preliminary report

Room odors developed on heating edible fats in open vessels were evaluated and characterized by a 20 member odor panel. Edible fats tested were: special soybean salad and cooking oils, hydrogenated soybean oil and some commercial salad and cooking oils. Factors were investigated that affect reliability and reproducibility of the test and the acuity of the panel members. The effects of fry temperature and size of sample were investigated. The method has been applied to a study of hydrogenated and unhydrogenated soybean oil samples. Presented at the AOCS Meeting, Chicago, September 1970. No. Market. Nutr. Res. Div., ARS, USDA.     

Immune clonal coevolutionary algorithm for dynamic multiobjective optimization

In this paper, a new evolutionary algorithm, called immune clonal coevolutionary algorithm (ICCoA) for dynamic multiobjective optimization (DMO) is proposed. On the basis of the basic principles of artificial immune system, the proposed algorithm adopts the immune clonal selection to solve DMO problems. In addition, the theory of coevolution is incorporated in ICCoA in global operation to preserve the diversity of Pareto-fronts. Moreover, coevolutionary competitive and cooperative operation is designed to enhance the uniformity and the diversity of the solutions. In comparison with NSGA-II, immune clonal algorithm for DMO and direction-based method, the simulation results obtained on 5 difficult test problems and on related performance metrics suggest that ICCoA can achieve better distributed solutions and be very effective in maintaining the uniformity of Pareto-fronts.     

Studies on syntheses and properties of novel CeO2/polyimide nanocomposite films from Ce(Phen)3 complex

A series of cerium dioxide (CeO₂)/polyimide (PI) nanocomposites were successfully prepared from Ce(Phen)₃ and polyamic acid (PAA) via the solution direct-dispersing method, followed by a step thermal imidization process. TGA and XPS studies showed that the cerium complex decomposed to form CeO₂ during the thermal imidization process at 300 °C. SEM observation showed that the formed CeO₂ as nanoparticles was well dispersed in polyimide matrix with a size of about 50-100 nm for samples with different contents of CeO₂. Thermal analysis indicated that the introduction of CeO₂ decreased the thermal stability of nanocomposite films due to the decomposition of Ce(Phen)₃ in the imidization process, while the glass transition temperature (T_g) increased obviously, especially nanocomposite films with high loading of CeO₂ exhibited a trend of disappearance of T_g. DMTA and static tensile measurements showed that the storage modulus of nanocomposite films increased, while the elongation at break decreased with increasing CeO₂ content.     

二苯并噻吩合成方法的改进

对文献报道的由联苯和硫在AlCl3催化下反应合成二苯并噻吩(DBT方法中的提纯过程作了改进，大大简化了提纯步骤，使制备DBT的时间缩短了一半，产率为63．4％，经提纯后的成品含量达99．7％，其纯度、外观、晶相均优于进口试剂，但成本远低于进口试剂。产品用FT-IR、LRS、XRD和^1H NMR表征结果与文献报道完全相符合。     

2004年玻璃纤维质量分析和标准化工作进展

本文简述了我国玻璃纤维工业发展概况,分析了玻璃纤维产品的质量状况,介绍了玻璃纤维标准化工作的进展.     

Thermal and mechanical properties of the polymers synthesized by the sequential polymerization of propylene and 1‐hexadecene

The block copolymer of poly(1‐hexadecene) (PHD) and polypropylene (PP) was effectively synthesized by the sequential polymerization of propylene and 1‐hexadecene by using highly isospecific TiCl₃/Cp₂Ti(CH₃)₂ (Cp = cyclopentadienyl). The block copolymers had two separate melting temperatures of constituent blocks. The modulus of PHD–PP block copolymer was enhanced as the content of sequentially polymerized PP block was increased. The elongation at break showed positive deviation at the intermediate compositions from the simple additive values of constituent homopolymers. Shape memory effect which utilizes the crystalline PHD block as a reversible phase and the crystalline PP block as a fixed structure was examined. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 84: 1709–1715, 2002; DOI 10.1002/app.10551     

Identification of new components from anal glands ofTapinoma simrothi pheonicium

In addition to 2-methyl-4-heptanone, 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one, and iridodials, the anal gland exudate of the dolichoderine ant,Tapinoma simrothi, contains 4-heptanone and 4-hydroxy-4-methyl-2-pentanone. The secretion functions as an alarm pheromone.     

网络安全评估方法分析

近年来,网络攻击事件时有发生,给社会和企业带来巨大威胁和损失,对于网络安全评估方法的研究成为了热点,文中介绍了网络安全评估方法的研究现状,分析了网络安全评估相关技术,进而探析了网络安全评估方法。