Suchergebnisse

In this paper, we present a comparative study of several state-of-the-art F0 trackers applied to the context of query-by-singing-humming (QBSH). This study has been carried out using the well known, freely available, MIR-QBSH dataset in different conditions of added pub-style noise and smartphone-style distortion. For audio-to-MIDI melodic matching, we have used two state-of-the-art systems and a simple, easily reproducible baseline method. For the evaluation, we measured the QBSH performance for 189 different combinations of F0 tracker, noise/distortion conditions and matcher. Additionally, the overall accuracy of the F0 transcriptions (as defined in MIREX) was also measured. In the results, we found that F0 tracking overall accuracy correlates with QBSH performance, but it does not totally measure the suitability of a pitch vector for QBSH. In addition, we also found clear differences in robustness to F0 transcription errors between different matchers. ; Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech. This work has been funded by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of the Spanish Government under Project No. TIN2013-47276-C6-2-R and by the Junta de Andalucía under Project No. P11-TIC-7154.

Em que pese sua limitação, a frequência fundamental sempre foi amplamente utilizada como parâmetro forense e, de acordo com os resultados da primeira pesquisa internacional sobre práticas de Comparação Forense de Locutor, é utilizada por quase todos os foneticistas forenses que realizam algumas análises que não são puramente auditivas. Essa importância se reflete em inúmeras produções científicas sobre distribuições de F0 de longo termo descritas nas mais diversas línguas. Na medida em que inexistem tais publicações para falantes do português brasileiro, este artigo visa a preencher tal lacuna, descrevendo estatisticamente as medidas mais utilizadas por peritos em uma distribuição de frequência fundamental de longo termo em um corpus de 100 falantes do Português Brasileiro da variedade subpadrão, em registro modal falada na capital do Estado de São Paulo.

A measurement of the ratio of the branching fractions of the Bs0 meson to J/?f0(980) and to J/??(1020) is presented. The J/?, f0(980), and ?(1020) are observed through their decays to ?+?-, ?+?-, and K+K-, respectively. The f0 and the ? are identified by requiring |M?+?--974 MeV|>50 MeV and |MK+K--1020 MeV|>10 MeV. The analysis is based on a data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.3 fb-1. The measured ratio is B(Bs0?J/?f0)B(f0??+?-)/B(Bs0?J/??)B(??K+K-) = 0.140±0.008(stat) ± 0.023(syst), where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic ; Science and Technology Facilities Council: CMS Science and Technology Facilities Council: GRIDPP Science and Technology Facilities Council: PP/E000479/1 Science and Technology Facilities Council: PP/E002803/1 Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/H000925/1 Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/H000925/2 Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/I000305/1 Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/I003622/1 Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/J004871/1 Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/J005479/1 Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/K001256/1 Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/K001531/1 Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/K001639/1 Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/K003542/1 Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/L005603/1 Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/M002020/1 Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/M004775/1 Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/N000242/1 Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/N000250/1 Science and Technology Facilities Council: ST/N001273/1 ; We congratulate our colleagues in the CERN accelerator departments for the excellent performance of the LHC and thank the technical and administrative staffs at CERN and at other CMS institutes for their contributions to the success of the CMS effort. In addition, we gratefully acknowledge the computing centres and personnel of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid for delivering so effectively the computing infrastructure essential to our analyses. Finally, we acknowledge the enduring support for the construction and operation of the LHC and the CMS detector provided by the following funding agencies: BMWFW and FWF (Austria); Fonds De La Recherche Scientifique – FNRS and FWO (Belgium); CNPq, CAPES, FAPERJ, and FAPESP (Brazil); MES (Bulgaria); CERN; CAS, MoST, and NSFC (China); COLCIENCIAS (Colombia); MSES and CSF (Croatia); RPF (Cyprus); MoER, ERC IUT and ERDF (Estonia); Academy of Finland, MEC, and HIP (Finland); CEA and CNRS/IN2P3 (France); BMBF, DFG, and HGF (Germany); GSRT (Greece); OTKA and NIH (Hungary); DAE and DST (India); IPM (Iran); SFI (Ireland); INFN (Italy); MSIP and NRF (Republic of Korea); LAS (Lithuania); MOE and UM (Malaysia); CINVESTAV, CONACYT, SEP, and UASLP-FAI (Mexico); MBIE (New Zealand); PAEC (Pakistan); MSHE and NSC (Poland); FCT (Portugal); JINR (Dubna); MON, RosAtom, RAS and RFBR (Russia); MESTD (Serbia); SEIDI and CPAN (Spain); Swiss Funding Agencies (Switzerland); MST (Taipei); ThEPCenter, IPST, STAR and NSTDA (Thailand); TUBITAK and TAEK (Turkey); NASU and SFFR (Ukraine); STFC (United Kingdom); DOE and NSF (USA).Individuals have received support from the Marie-Curie programme and the European Research Council and EPLANET (European Union); the Leventis Foundation; the A.P. Sloan Foundation; the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation; the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office; the Fonds pour la Formation à la Recherche dans l''Industrie et dans l''Agriculture (FRIA-Belgium); the Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie (IWT-Belgium); the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) of the Czech Republic; the Council of Science and Industrial Research, India; the HOMING PLUS programme of Foundation for Polish Science, cofinanced from European Union, Regional Development Fund; the Compagnia di San Paolo (Torino); the Consorzio per la Fisica (Trieste); MIUR project 20108T4XTM (Italy); the Thalis and Aristeia programmes cofinanced by EU-ESF and the Greek NSRF; and the National Priorities Research Program by Qatar National Research Fund.

The paper aims to compare the main features in Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's speech in the context of a celebrity interview, and a political speech. ; I analysed AOC's speech focusing on 6 variables: F0 mean and range, F0 variation, pauses, elongated final -s, creaky voice, and HRT. Results confirm that the celebrity interview context has a fast-paced, high-pitched speech and continuous pitch shifts while political speech favours a slow-paced, although with a wider F0 range. Creaky voice and elongated final -s are comparable in both contexts whereas the four remaining variables vary. ; Este artículo compara las principales características del discurso de Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez en el contexto de una entrevista y un discurso político. Analicé 6 variables: media y rango de F0, variación de F0, pausas, -s final alargada, voz rota y HRT. Los resultados confirman que el contexto de la entrevista tiene un ritmo rápido, un discurso agudo y cambios de tono continuos, y el discurso político favorece un ritmo lento, aunque con un rango de F0 más amplio. La voz rota y la -s final alargada son equiparables en ambos contextos, mientras que las cuatro variables restantes varían. ; Aquest article compara les principals característiques del discurs de Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez en el context d'una entrevista i un discurs polític. Vaig analitzar 6 variables: Mitjana i rang de F0, variació de F0, pauses, -s final allargada, veu cruixidora i HRT. Els resultats confirmen que el context de l'entrevista té un ritme ràpid, un discurs agut i canvis de to continus, i el discurs polític afavoreix un ritme lent, encara que amb un rang de F0 més ampli. La veu cruixidora i la -s final allargada són equiparables en tots dos contextos, mentre que les quatre variables restants varien.

High vowels tend to have higher intrinsic F0 (pitch) than low vowels (e.g. Lehiste, 1970; Whalen and Levitt, 1995). Higher intrinsic F0 occurs on vowels which follow voiceless consonants, lower intrinsic F0 occurs on vowels which follow voiced consonants. When high vowels follow voiced consonants and low vowels follow voiceless consonants, the voicing of initial consonants has been found to counterbalance the intrinsic F0 value of high and low vowels. In other words, voiced consonants will lower F0 values of high vowels, and voiceless consonants will raise F0 values of low vowels to the extent that the average F0 of these high vowels is actually lower than the average F0 of the low vowels under examination (Clark and Yallop, 1990; House and Fairbanks, 1953; Lehiste, 1970; Lehiste and Peterson, 1961; Laver, 1994). To test whether this counterbalance finding is applicable to Southeast Asian languages, the F0 values of high and low vowels following voiceless and voiced consonants were studied in a Malay dialect of the Austronesian language family spoken in Pathumthani Province, Thailand.

In this study, we examined changes in the voice quality of a transgender client who had previously undergone male-to-female (MtF) transition. We conducted a longitudinal phonetic analysis after obtaining recordings from our client before and after undergoing laser-assisted voice adjustment (LAVA) surgery. The following acoustic parameters were compared: fundamental frequency (F0) measures, local jitter, shimmer, harmonic to noise ratio, phonation time, and long-term average spectrum. We assumed that the voice would not change significantly as a result of previous hormonal and vocal therapy, and that its timbre would be closer to female values after LAVA surgery. Since the client was on hormone therapy before the surgery, the average values of F0 corresponded to the values of a normal female voice (190.1 Hz), and, after surgery, the voice became significantly higher in phonation (235.6 Hz). Before surgery, the voice was high for a male voice during reading (mean F0 = 150.19 Hz for non-fricative text (NT) and mean F0 = 158.06 Hz for fricative text (FT)). After surgery, the voice exhibited higher F0 values (F0 = 184.72 Hz for NT and F0 = 191.87 Hz for FT). Before surgery, the voice was average high for a male voice during spontaneous speech (F0 = 119.90 Hz), while after surgery the F0 was 161.33 Hz during spontaneous speech, which is somewhat lower than the average pitch values of the female voice, but its timbral quality is more feminine. Since spontaneous speech is very important for comparison vocal timbre, we can conclude that the 42 Hz difference observed is notable.
Although the minimal and maximal values of F0 based on phonation were significantly higher after surgery (p < 0.001), the range was limited. The total results of the F0 measures are higher than expected, while the shortened phonation time points to the need for voice therapy. Considering all our results, we can conclude that it is important to discuss a client's profession before considering LAVA surgery.

Small and midcap companies are the backbone of the German economy with respect to employment, contribution to GDP, tax payments, share at world market, innovation – to mention just a few. Hence, it is important that economic and political conditions are favorable for small and midsize enterprises. The article takes a closer look at the funding conditions for companies of the non-financial sector using data starting 2002 analyzing the usage of bank loans and turnover. The statistical outcome suggests that there is often a strong correlation between bank loans and turnover. However, it also suggests the traditional funding from banks is becoming less important and direct funding instruments using capital markets becoming more important.

Comparação forense de locutor (CFL) é um exame de determinação de fonte no qual são comparadas amostras de fala de origem conhecida, provenientes de um suspeito, com amostras de fala presentes em um ou mais áudios questionados, cuja autoria se deseja determinar, produzindo uma prova pericial que pode reforçar ou se contrapor à hipótese de que o suspeito é o autor da fala questionada. Em levantamento realizado em 2011 por pesquisadores da Universidade de York entre peritos de treze países, incluindo o Brasil, a metodologia mais usada nos exames de CFL se baseava em análises perceptuais e acústicas. Entre as medidas acústicas, a Frequência Fundamental (F0) era utilizada por quase 70 % dos entrevistados. F0 possui características importantes para a área forense, como a robustez em áudios de baixa qualidade e, em medidas de longo termo, a independência do conteúdo das falas. Conforme estudos recentes, a medida estatística valor de base de F0 é menos afetado pelo estilo e conteúdo da fala, pelo canal utilizado na gravação e exige menor quantidade de áudio para obter uma medida estável, comparada às medidas de F0 comumente utilizadas, entre elas, a média aritmética e o desvio padrão. Neste trabalho é analisado o poder discriminante do valor de base de F0 aplicado ao Corpus Forense do Português Brasileiro (CFPB), obtendo-se uma Taxa de Erro Igual, do inglês Equal Error Rate (EER) 5,9 % melhor que o segundo parâmetro mais discriminativo, a média aritmética. A combinação do valor de base de F0 a outras medidas de longo termo de F0 por meio da estatística de densidade do núcleo de multivariáveis, do inglês Multivariate Kernel-Density (MVKD), resultou, em todas as simulações, em ganho de poder discriminativo, sendo a combinação entre as medidas do valor de base com a mediana de F0 aquela que obteve o melhor resultado, com uma EER de 13 %, superando valores relatados em pesquisas recentes. Os resultados obtidos demonstram que o valor de base de F0 é o melhor parâmetro a ser utilizado em análises de F0.

Abstract
2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD), a potent AhR ligand, is an environmental contaminant that is known for mediating toxicity across generations. However, whether TCDD can induce multigenerational changes in the expression of microRNAs (miRs) has not been previously studied. In the current study, we investigated the effect of administration of TCDD in pregnant mice (F0) on gestational day 14, on the expression of miRs in the thymus of F0 and subsequent generations (F1 and F2). Of the 3200 miRs screened, 160 miRs were dysregulated similarly in F0, F1, and F2 generations, while 46 miRs were differentially altered in F0 to F2 generations. Pathway analysis revealed that the changes in miR signature profile mediated by TCDD affected the genes that regulate cell signaling, apoptosis, thymic atrophy, cancer, immunosuppression, and other physiological pathways. A significant number of miRs that showed altered expression exhibited dioxin response elements (DRE) on their promoters. Focusing on one such miR, namely miR-203 that expressed DREs and was induced across F0 to F2 by TCDD, promoter analysis showed that one of the DREs expressed by miR-203 was functional to TCDD-mediated upregulation. Also, the histone methylation status of H3K4me3 in the miR-203 promoter was significantly increased near the transcriptional start site in TCDD-treated thymocytes across F0 to F2 generations. Genome-wide chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing study suggested that TCDD may cause alterations in histone methylation in certain genes across the three generations. Together, the current study demonstrates that gestational exposure to TCDD can alter the expression of miRs in F0 through direct activation of DREs as well as across F0, F1, and F2 generations through epigenetic pathways.

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESES. Charismatic leaders use vocal behavior to persuade their audience, achieve goals, arouse emotional states, and convey personality traits and leadership status. This study investigates voice fundamental frequency (f0) and sound pressure level (SPL) in female and male French, Italian, Brazilian, and American politicians to determine which acoustic parameters are related to cross-gender and cross-cultural common vocal abilities, and which derive from culture-, gender-, and language-specific vocal strategies used to adapt vocal behavior to listeners' culture-related expectations. STUDY DESIGN. Speech corpora were collected for two formal communicative contexts (leaders address followers or other leaders) and one informal communicative context (dyadic interaction), based on the persuasive goals inherent in each context and on the relative status of the listeners and speakers. Leaders' acoustic voice profiles were created to show differences in f0 and SPL manipulation with respect to speakers' gender and language in each communicative context. RESULTS. Cross-gender and cross-language similarities in manipulation of average f0 and in f0 and SPL ranges occurred in all communicative contexts. Patterns of f0 manipulation were shared across genders and cultures, suggesting this dimension might be biologically based and is exploited by leaders to convey dominance. Ranges for f0 and SPL seemed to be affected by the communicative context, being wider or narrower depending on the persuasive goal. Results also showed language- and speaker-specific differences in the acoustic manipulation of f0 and SPL over time. CONCLUSIONS. These findings are consistent with the idea that specific charismatic leaders' vocal behaviors depend on a fine combination of vocal abilities that are shared across cultures and genders, combined with culturally- and linguistically-filtered vocal strategies.

Abstract
While recent work in sociophonetics has focused on the speech of gay men (Gaudio 1994; Podesva 2007; Podesva, Roberts & Campbell-Kibler 2002), lesbian women (Camp 2009; Van Borsel Vandaele & Corthals 2013), and transgender people (Zimman 2017a), the speech styles of asexual individuals remain understudied. This study analyzes an
interview with a graysexual and homoromantic cisgender student at a research university in California, examining the segmental and
prosodic characteristics of three voices he uses to construct and position his graysexual identity: a questioning voice, a
judgmental voice, and a non-desiring voice. The analysis finds that the questioning voice is characterized by decreased speech
rate, high F0, and modal phonation; the judgmental voice, by low F0; and the non-desiring voice, by low F0, narrow F0 range, low
intensity, reduced gesture, flat facial expression, and a centralized vowel space. The results emphasize the importance of
stylistic reticence to the construction of graysexuality.