A waveform concatenation technique for text-to-speech synthesis

Designing text-to-speech systems capable of producing natural sounding speech segments in different Indian languages is a challenging and ongoing problem. Due to the large number of possible pronunciations in different Indian languages, a number of speech segments are needed to be stored in the speech database while a concatenative speech synthesis technique is used to achieve highly natural speech segments. However, the large speech database size makes it unusable for small hand held devices or human computer interactive systems with limited storage resources. In this paper, we proposed a fraction-based waveform concatenation technique to produce intelligible speech segments from a small footprint speech database. The results of all the experiments performed shows the effectiveness of the proposed technique in producing intelligible speech segments in different Indian languages even with very less storage and computation overhead compared to the existing syllable-based technique.     

Semantic web reasoners and languages

Semantic web reasoners and languages enable the semantic web to function. Some of the latest reasoning models developed in the last few years are: DLP, FaCT, RACER, Pellet, MSPASS, CEL, Cerebra Engine, QuOnto, KAON2, HermiT and others. Some software tools such as Protégé, Jena and others also have been developed, which provide inferencing as well as ontology development and management environments. These reasoners usually differ in their inference procedures, supporting logic, completeness of reasoning, expressiveness and implementation languages. Various semantic web languages with increasing expressive power continue to be developed for describing web services. We survey the some of the more recent languages like OWL-S (Ontology Web Language-Schema), WSML (Web Service Modeling Language), SWRL (Semantic Web Rule Language) and others that have been tested in early use. We also survey semantic web reasoners and their relationship to these languages.     

Data structures for order-sensitive predicates in parallel nondeterministic systems

We study the problem of guaranteeing correct execution semantics in parallel implementations of logic programming languages in presence of built-in constructs that are sensitive to order of execution. The declarative semantics of logic programming languages permit execution of various goals in any arbitrary order (including in parallel). However, goals corresponding to extra-logical built-in constructs should respect the sequential order of execution to ensure correct semantics. Ensuring this correctness in presence of such built-in constructs, while efficiently exploiting maximum parallelism, is a difficult problem. In this paper, we propose a formalization of this problem in terms of operations on dynamic trees. This abstraction enables us to: (i) show that existing schemes to handle order-sensitive computations used in current parallel systems are sub-optimal; (ii) develop a novel, optimal scheme to handle order-sensitive goals that requires only a constant time overhead per operation. While we present our results in the context of logic programming, they will apply equally well to most parallel non-deterministic systems. Received: 20 April 1998 / 3 April 2000     

An efficient deconvolution algorithm for estimating oxygen consumption during muscle activities

The reconstruction of an unknown input function from noisy measurements in a biological system is an ill-posed inverse problem. Any computational algorithm for its solution must use some kind of regularization technique to neutralize the disastrous effects of amplified noise components on the computed solution. In this paper, following a hierarchical Bayesian statistical inversion approach, we seek estimates for the input function and regularization parameter (hyperparameter) that maximize the posterior probability density function. We solve the maximization problem simultaneously for all unknowns, hyperparameter included, by a suitably chosen quasi-Newton method. The optimization approach is compared to the sampling-based Bayesian approach. We demonstrate the efficiency and robustness of the deconvolution algorithm by applying it to reconstructing the time courses of mitochondrial oxygen consumption during muscle state transitions (e.g., from resting state to contraction and recovery), from the simulated noisy output of oxygen concentration dynamics on the muscle surface. The model of oxygen transport and metabolism in skeletal muscle assumes an in vitro cylindrical structure of the muscle in which the oxygen from the surrounding oxygenated solution diffuses into the muscle and is then consumed by the muscle mitochondria. The algorithm can be applied to other deconvolution problems by suitably replacing the forward model of the system.     

Creep fracture in Al-SiC metal-matrix composites

Creep fracture behaviour of pure aluminium-matrix composites with 10–30 vol% SiC particulates at 623 K is reported. A comparison of tensile and compression creep data shows the existence of a transition stress. Above this transition stress no steady state creep is observed in tension. This transition stress is related to a transition from intergranular to transgranular fracture. The origin of transition stress is perhaps associated with the diffusional relaxation of stress concentration at the matrix/particle interface by lattice diffusion. The intergranular creep fracture of composites appears to be similar to that of unreinforced aluminium and it is power-law creep controlled. The transgranular creep fracture occurs by void nucleation and growth. The nucleation strain for voids is quite small and hence the tertiary stage starts before the end of the primary stage. The ductile fracture models overestimate the strain to fracture and do not predict the observed stress dependence of strain to fracture.     

Application of polymeric flocculant for enhancing settling of the pond ash particles and water drainage from hydraulically stowed pond ash

Delayed settling of the ash particles and poor drainage of water from the pond ash are the major problems faced during the hydraulic stowing of pond ash. In this study the effect of polymeric flocculant on settling of the ash particles and drainage of water during pond ash stowing are investigated. In addition, the parameters, viz. drainage and absorption of water during pond ash stowing are quantified by stowing a mine goaf model with pond ash slurries of five different concentrations added with and without flocculant. The study revealed that addition of only 5 × 10^?6 of Sodium Carboxymethyl Cellulose (Na-CMC) flocculant with the pond ash slurries during stowing offers best result in terms of quicker settling of the ash particles and enhanced water drainage from the hydraulically stowed pond ash. Besides, it resulted in drainage of more than 85% of the total water used in the initial 45 min of stowing. The improvement in drainage is caused due to coagulation and flocculation of the pond ash particles because of charge neutralization and particle–particle bridging. This study may provide a basis for estimating the drainage and absorption of water during the real pond ash stowing operation in underground mines.     

Electron microscopic observations on the alterations of tegumental surface of Raillietina echinobothrida treated with root-peel extract of Potentilla fulgens

Potentilla fulgens, a member of the family Rosaceae, has been known since ancient times in Northeast India for its antiparasitic, antitumour and antidiabetic properties. The crude ethanolic extract of the plant was assayed against Raillietina echinobothrida, the intestinal cestode parasite of domestic fowl to authenticate the putative anthelmintic efficacy and cestocidal potential in particular of the plant. Treatment of the worm in-vitro with 25, 50 and 100 mg of crude extract per ml of phosphate buffered saline caused paralysis leading to death taking 4.02-4.20, 3.05-3.75 and 2.05-2.83 h respectively. Scanning electron microscopic observations on treated worms revealed deformation of surface architecture, particularly in scolex and surface microtriches. Severe distortion and disorganization of the tegumental and subtegumental layer along with cytoplasmic organelle was also observed under transmission electron microscope. The possible use of the plant as a potential anthelmintic against cestode parasite is discussed.     

Analyzing collective behavior from blogs using swarm intelligence

With the rapid growth of the availability and popularity of interpersonal and behavior-rich resources such as blogs and other social media avenues, emerging opportunities and challenges arise as people now can, and do, actively use computational intelligence to seek out and understand the opinions of others. The study of collective behavior of individuals has implications to business intelligence, predictive analytics, customer relationship management, and examining online collective action as manifested by various flash mobs, the Arab Spring (2011) and other such events. In this article, we introduce a nature-inspired theory to model collective behavior from the observed data on blogs using swarm intelligence, where the goal is to accurately model and predict the future behavior of a large population after observing their interactions during a training phase. Specifically, an ant colony optimization model is trained with behavioral trend from the blog data and is tested over real-world blogs. Promising results were obtained in trend prediction using ant colony based pheromone classier and CHI statistical measure. We provide empirical guidelines for selecting suitable parameters for the model, conclude with interesting observations, and envision future research directions.     

引领新一代高级封装的光刻技术

在当今飞速发展的电子环境中，芯片制造商和封装技术供应商们发现传统的前段制造设备，诸如光刻步进器等，可能会实现成本高效的后段工艺流程（BEOL）器件封装。尽管高级封装市场的发展空间最初是被PCs行业的蓬勃发展带动起来的，但是现在它们已经不再是主要的增长催化因素。通信以及手持设备，如手机、PDAs（个人数字助理）、便携式游戏机以及个人通讯系统正在成为新增长阶段的推动因素。随着数字消费应用的爆炸式发展一陛能和波形系统成为必须启用高级封装（AP）技术的必要条件。在未来五年内，预计通讯芯片组、图形处理器、集成无源元件以及高速PC内存元件将成为AP技术的主要诉求。随着领先的逻辑芯片制造商们需求量的不断增大，我们共同见证了AP市场的成长过程。然而，这一细分市场的另一个转折点可能会来自高速PC内存元件对高级封装技术的诉求。     

Two-stage quasi-class-E power amplifier in GaN HEMT technology

This letter presents a two-stage quasi-class-E monolithic microwave integrated circuit power amplifier at 2.0GHz, which is based on field-plated GaN high electron mobility transistor technology. It consists of a driver stage and a power stage. The circuit schematic is described. The amplifier achieves an output power of 37.5dBm into a 50-/spl Omega/ load, a power added efficiency (PAE) of 50%, and a gain of 18.2dB. A power density of 5.6W/mm is achieved.