The synthesis of sound textures, such as flowing water, crackling fire, an applauding crowd, is impeded by the lack of a quantitative definition. McDermott and Simoncelli proposed a perceptual source-filter model using summary statistics to create compelling synthesis results for non-tonal sound textures. However, the proposed method does not work well with tonal components. Comparing the resid...

This study contributes to the issue of syntax-prosody-semantics interaction in child speech. It focuses on the prosodic realization of contextually-defined direct objects in a language allowing object scrambling. The empirical data are collected from 3-4-year-old children acquiring Ukrainian. The children’s speech samples were analyzed in order to find contrast between the prosody of sentences ...

Individual droplets can be isolated within microfluidic systems by use of an immiscible carrier layer. This type of two phase systems, often termed "digital microfluidics", find wide ranging applications in chemical synthesis and analysis. To conduct on-chip biochemical analysis, a key step is to be able to merge droplets selectively in order to initiate the required reactions. In this paper, a...

The goal of this workshop is to acquire conceptual and practical skills in developing thin, flexible and customizable physical user interfaces with printed electronics for interactive devices and objects. The workshop will cover personalized digital design of printed electronics, basics of different sensor types and actuators, and prototyping of printed electronics with conductive inkjet printi...

This paper investigates the influence of three factors on pronunciation accuracy of Chinese adult foreign language learners. Ten target sounds including phonemes and syllables are included in the pre-test, an analysis of which shows that the mispronunciation of the randomly chosen target sounds mainly results from L1 negative transfer. It is observed in intervention that some mispronounced targ...

As the dimensions of ULSI circuits shrink to 0.12 micron and below, to achieve the highest device performance and density many challenges are to be met in designing circuits with performance driven physical design and the wirability of sea of transistors of the order of 100 million. This particular tutorial intends to cover advances in technology, relevant circuit techniques, synthesis and phys...

Speakers can achieve a high degree of synchrony when reading a prepared text together. Under these constraints, there is necessarily a very tight coupling of production and perception. In a first experiment, we demonstrate that speakers can successfully synchronize with selected recordings of others obtained in a synchronous speaking condition. We then have speakers attempt to synchronize with ...

Speech is a vocalized form of human communication. Clarity of the voice is a major dependent factor for a good quality speech. It is necessary to have the means for measuring the clarity of the voice and train to improve it. In this paper, we describe the development of a system for measuring the speech quality through clarity of voice production. An Android system is built for the purpose wher...

Coarticulation, the influence of speech sounds on each other, is ubiquitous in speech. Such contextual effects in speech have been argued to be phonological in nature, given that coarticulation appears to be language-specific and planned. In this talk, I argue further for the phonological nature of coarticulation, using findings from recent behavioral and neurophysiological studies. In particul...

We review recent developments in single-molecule spectroscopy and microscopy. New optical methods provide access to the absorption, emission, or excitation spectra of single nano-objects and can determine either the positions of these objects with subwavelength accuracy or the full three-dimensional orientation of their transition dipole moments. Recent work aims at using single molecules as na...