Accent Patterning on Domain-Related Information in Swedish Travel Dialogues

Investigation of travel-domain dialogues reveals travel-agent (System) utterances with intonational contours characterized by late-timed focal accents on given information. These accents occur on content words in utterance-initial position. The accentuation can be assumed to be related to the interactive nature of the dialogue in which the travel agent links back to a domain-related concept introduced by the client (User) and comments on it in an engaged manner. A perception test using constructed human-machine dialogues in which the machine (synthesized) responses vary as to the type of accent pattern on the initial words was developed to test listeners' preference for accent type. Results indicate that i) focal accents on domain-related utterance-initial given concepts are indeed preferred to nonfocal accents and that ii) late-timed focal accents are preferred to early-timed focal accents. These results have implications for the design of the prosody-generating component of human-machine dialogue systems.     

Germanium-68 as a tracer for silicon fluxes in freshwater sediment

The sorption of Si may decisively influence the P dynamics in surface sediment through competitive ligand exchange mechanisms. Many aspects of the process, such as the impact of Si dissolving from diatoms, are both insufficiently known and difficult to monitor by quantitative analyses due to the ubiquitousness of Si in sediment. Since the radioactive isotopes of Si have impractical half-times, the applicability of 68Ge as a tracer for Si additions in both inorganic and biogenic form to freshwater sediment (Lake Vesij?rvi, Southern Finland) was studied in a 24-h laboratory experiment. The 68Ge-label was added to the sediment with either inorganic Si (940mg l(-1)) or diatoms (3.2 x 10(6) cellsl(-1)), and the distributions of the 68Ge-label and the different forms of added Si between the interstitial water and sequentially extracted, solid-phase sediment pools were critically examined. The inorganic Si addition significantly increased the amount of Si in the interstitial water and in the reversibly bound fraction, while the diatom addition had no discernible effects. The relative distribution of Si and 68Ge between the various sediment pools indicated that the first sorption phase of the added inorganic Si was similar to that reported for P. The high concentration of diatom-derived 68Ge-labelled Si in the interstitial water and in the easily soluble, reversibly bound pool indicated rapid dissolution of the added diatoms. The comparable distributions of the diatom-derived and inorganic Si-derived 68Ge-label within the studied pools indicated that the sorption of Si dissolving from diatoms in surface sediment closely resembles that of an inorganic addition of Si. Caution about the chemical speciation of the 68Ge-label is, however, advisable in sediment environments. Fractionation procedures designed for e.g. P may also be of limited use when applied to a different element, such as Si.     

Measuring users’ color preferences in CRUD operations across the globe: a new Software Ergonomics Testing Platform

While working with data, we typically utilize four basic operations: Create, Read, Update, and Delete. These functions, used altogether with a persistent storage, are encapsulated into the acronym CRUD. Although the data functions are easy for machines, people have to use them through a user interface and its components. Even though some of these components are standardized (for example, HTML forms), their visual representation is highly customized among devices and technologies. Concerning users, subjective preferences are taken into account as well. As a result, the efficiency of working with data can be affected by choosing appropriate components and their attributes, such as colors. Choosing the right colors, we can work with data faster and more effectively, utilizing users’ expectations, understanding, and perception. We developed a publicly accessible Software Ergonomics Testing Platform. Through running experiments worldwide, we found out that users have a prior expectation about colors used for CRUD operations. Results show that there is a strong consensus on the color preference for the delete operation with color red being voted by 64 % users worldwide. On the other hand, color preferences for update operation strongly differ among continents. The impact of temporary weather conditions to color preference seems to be negligible.     

Localizing and identifying living bacteria in an abiotic environment by a combination of Raman and fluorescence microscopy

A fast, easy, and reliable identification of microorganisms is indispensable in many fields such as medicine, food production, or the pharmaceutical industry. However, in native samples, biotic particles often appear together with abiotic particles. Therefore, it is a prerequisite that biotic particles can be differentiated from abiotic particles appearing in the identification setup. In addition, for many applications, not all microorganisms are of interest but only the living ones. Therefore, in this contribution, different bacteria species were stained with a live/dead staining kit (SYTO 9 and propidium iodide) prior to Raman spectroscopic identification. Since only living and dead microorganisms are getting stained by SYTO 9 or PI, biotic particles can easily be spotted and localized in-between abiotic particles. By using a Raman laser excitation wavelength outside the absorption band of the dye, fluorescence-free Raman spectra were obtained. The living cells were identified by means of Raman spectroscopy in combination with a support vector machine. Furthermore, the localization of bacterial cells in a mix of abiotic particles is demonstrated.     

Cellular dynamics of Ku: characterization and purification of Ku-eGFP

Ku is a predominantly nuclear protein that functions as a DNA double-strand-break (DSB) binding protein and regulatory subunit of the DNA-dependent protein kinase (DNA-PK). DNA-PK is involved in synapsis and remodeling of broken DNA ends during nonhomologous end-joining (NHEJ) of DNA DSBs. It has also recently been demonstrated that Ku plays roles in cytoplasmic and membrane processes, namely: interaction with matrix metalloproteinase 9, acting as a co-receptor for parvoviral infection, and also interacting with cell polarity protein, Par3. We present a method for creating stable expression of Ku-eGFP in CHO cells and extend the procedure to purify Ku-eGFP for in vitro assaying. We demonstrated that Ku-eGFP localizes to the nucleus of HeLa cells upon microinjection into the cytoplasm as well as localizing to laser induced DNA damage. We also characterized the diffusional dynamics of Ku in the nucleus and in the cytoplasm using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS). The FCS data suggest that whereas the majority of Ku (70%) in the nucleus is mobile and freely diffusing, in a cellular context, there also exists a significant slow process fraction (30%). Strikingly, in the cytoplasm, this immobile/slow moving fraction is even more pronounced (45%).     

Use of polar decomposition for the diagnosis of oral precancer

The Mueller matrix describes all the polarizing properties of a sample and, therefore, the optical differences between noncancerous and precancerous tissue that may be present within the matrix elements. A high-speed polarimetry system that generates 16 (4x4) full Mueller matrices to characterize tissues is presented. Feature extraction is done on the Mueller matrix elements resulting in depolarization and retardance images by polar decomposition. These are used to detect and classify early oral cancers and precancerous changes in epithelium such as dysplasia. These images are compared with orthogonal polarization images and analyzed in an attempt to identity useful factors for the differentiation between cancerous lesions and their benign counterparts. Our results indicate that polarimetry has potential as a method for the in vivo early detection and diagnosis of oral premalignancy.     

Liquid crystalline nanowires in porous alumina: geometric confinement versus influence of pore walls

Aligned liquid crystalline nanowires within ordered porous alumina templates show a pronounced texture on a macroscopic scale. We have investigated the influence of the geometric confinement and the nature of the pore walls on the mesophase formation by means of X-ray diffraction. The apparent texture is the result of a complex interplay of the pore geometry, interfacial phenomena, and the thermal history. Pores with a diameter of a few hundred nm guide the mesophase formation more efficiently than those with a diameter below 100 nm.