Mechanical construction of a human vocal system for singing voice production

Various ways of vocal sound production are being actively studied. We are constructing a phonetic machine with a vocal chord and a vocal tract based on mechatronics technology. Mechanical construction of a human vocal system is considered to generate natural voice so that it can be advantageously applied to singing voice production. In voice generation, analysis and mechanical realization of the behaviors of the vocal chords and vocal tract are required. Furthermore, the fluid mechanical system is less stable, thus making control more difficult. Several motors are employed to manipulate the mechanical vocal system. Mappings between motor positions and the produced vocal sounds are automatically established in the learning phase. In the singing performance, the system is able to sing while vocal pitches and phonemes are adaptively controlled by an auditory feedback process. This paper presents the latest mechanisms of our mechanical vocal system together with adaptive tuning algorithms of the physical mechanism with an auditory system.     

Reactions,accuracy and response complexity of numerical typing on touch screens

Touch screens are popular nowadays as seen on public kiosks, industrial control panels and personal mobile devices. Numerical typing is one frequent task performed on touch screens, but this task on touch screen is subject to human errors and slow responses. This study aims to find innate differences of touch screens from standard physical keypads in the context of numerical typing by eliminating confounding issues. Effects of precise visual feedback and urgency of numerical typing were also investigated. The results showed that touch screens were as accurate as physical keyboards, but reactions were indeed executed slowly on touch screens as signified by both pre-motor reaction time and reaction time. Provision of precise visual feedback caused more errors, and the interaction between devices and urgency was not found on reaction time. To improve usability of touch screens, designers should focus more on reducing response complexity and be cautious about the use of visual feedback.

Practitioner Summary: The study revealed that slower responses on touch screens involved more complex human cognition to formulate motor responses. Attention should be given to designing precise visual feedback appropriately so that distractions or visual resource competitions can be avoided to improve human performance on touch screens.     

Adaptive variable universe of discourse fuzzy control for a class of nonlinear systems with unknown dead zones

In this paper, based on an adaptive nonbackstepping design algorithm, we proposed a novel variable universe of discourse fuzzy control (VUDFC) approach for a class of single‐input–single‐output strict‐feedback nonlinear systems with unknown dead‐zone inputs. Firstly, we convert the form of system into a normal form on the basis of some new state variables and coordinate transformation; at the same time, state‐feedback control is changed to output‐feedback control. Secondly, we design observers to estimate the new unmeasurable states. Then, different from considering the traditional backstepping‐based fuzzy control scheme, we introduce a direct VUDFC scheme, which is mainly based on changing of contraction‐expansion factors to modify the universe of discourse online, and fuzzy rules can automatically reproduce to develop the control performance; thus, the size of initial rule base is greatly reduced. This new algorithm can alleviate tracking error, improve the accuracy of the system, and strengthen robustness. Lastly, according to Lyapunov theorem analysis, we prove that all the signals in the closed‐loop system can be guaranteed to be stable, and the output can track the reference signal very well. Simulation results illustrated the effectiveness of the proposed VUDFC approach.     

Noise Feedback Coding Revisited： Refurbished Legacy Codecs and New Coding Models

Noise feedback coding(NFC) has attracted renewed interest with the recent standardization of backward-compatible enhancements for ITU-T G.711 and G.722.It has also been revisited with the emergence of proprietary speech codecs,such as BV16,BV32,and SILK,that have structures different from CELP coding.In this article,we review NFC and describe a novel coding technique that optimally shapes coding noise in embedded pulse-code modulation(PCM) and embedded adaptive differential PCM(ADPCM).We describe how this new technique was incorporated into the recent ITU-T G.711.1,G.711 App.III,and G.722 Annex B(G.722B) speech-coding standards.     

Development of an embedded solar tracker for the enhancement of solar energy utilization

An embedded two‐axis solar tracking system using Laboratory Virtual Instrumentation Engineering Workbench to write the operation and control algorithms was developed for enhancing solar energy utilization. The system consists of a real‐time processor, two motion‐control modules, two step drives, two step motors, feedback devices, and other accessories needed for functional stability. The real‐time processor allows the solar tracker to be used as a stand‐alone, real‐time system that can operate automatically without any external control. The system combines two different solar tracking methods: the optical method and the astronomical method. Cadmium Sulfide (CdS) sensors are employed to continuously generate feedback signals to the controller, ensuring high‐precision solar tracking even under adverse conditions. The CdS sensor is a resistor whose electric resistance decreases with increasing incident light intensity. A database of solar altitude, azimuth, and sunrise and sunset times is provided by this solar tracking system. Other solar trackers operating in an astronomical method may access and use this database over the Internet. Solar position and sunrise and sunset times in the database were compared with those of the Astronomical Applications Department of the U.S. Naval Observatory. The differences were found to be negligible. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Microbubble generator excited by fluidic oscillator's third harmonic frequency

Efficient generation of sub-millimetre microbubbles was recently made possible by pulsating the flow of gas supplied into a parallel-exits aerator, using a fluidic oscillator for the purpose. Without moving parts, it can generate oscillation at high frequency, an important factor due to bubble natural frequency rapidly increasing with the desirable decrease of their size. This paper discusses development of an unusual oscillator – a part of an integral oscillator/aerator unit – capable of generating a particularly high driving frequency, in the kilohertz range, in a layout that promotes a strong third harmonic frequency of the basic oscillation.     

Stabilization of persistently excited linear systems by delayed feedback laws

This paper considers the stabilization to the origin of a persistently excited linear system by means of a linear state feedback, where we suppose that the feedback law is not applied instantaneously, but after a certain positive delay (not necessarily constant). The main result is that, under certain spectral hypotheses on the linear system, stabilization by means of a linear delayed feedback is indeed possible, generalizing a previous result already known for non-delayed feedback laws.     

Comparative analysis of relevance feedback methods based on two user studies

Rigorous analysis of user interest in web documents is essential for the development of recommender systems. This paper investigates the relationship between the implicit parameters and user explicit rating during their search and reading tasks. The objective of this paper is therefore three-fold: firstly, the paper identifies the implicit parameters which are statistically correlated with the user explicit rating through user study 1. These parameters are used to develop a predictive model which can be used to represent users’ perceived relevance of documents. Secondly, it investigates the reliability and validity of the predictive model by comparing it with eye gaze during a reading task through user study 2. Our findings suggest that there is no significant difference between the predictive model based on implicit indicators and eye gaze within the context examined. Thirdly, we measured the consistency of user explicit rating in both studies and found significant consistency in user explicit rating of document relevance and interest level which further validates the predictive model. We envisage that the results presented in this paper can help to develop recommender and personalised systems for recommending documents to users based on their previous interaction with the system.     

Control of a chain of integrators subject to actuator saturation and disturbances

In this paper, we study control of a chain of integrators under actuator saturation and non‐additive disturbances. We shall show that boundedness of the states can be ensured if the disturbances are matched and integral‐bounded, misaligned and magnitude‐bounded, or a combination of the two, using either a static or a dynamic low‐gain state feedback. This result is an extension of our earlier work on double integrator. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

西门子整流回馈单元的预充电和主回路控制

本文作者结合热轧机的设计和调试工作,以西门子公司S120交流多传动控制系统为例,阐述了西门子S120整流回馈单元(SLM)的主要控制特点;结合实际调试工作,叙述了控制预充电和主断路器的要求。