Full Tone Research Articles

Indexical meaning of Mandarin full tone in the construction of femininity: Evidence from social perceptual data

This paper examines the indexical association between Mandarin full tone and a newly emergent cute feminine style. Prior work has identified full tone as a component of cosmopolitanism in mainland China, but we argue that the influence of Taiwanese pop culture and social media phenomena has resulted in expanded indexical boundaries for this variable. A matched guise task was conducted to examine the connection between Mandarin full tone and social meanings, traits, and other symbolic resources for mainland Chinese listeners. The full tone stimuli were perceived as feminine and youthful, explicitly linked to Taiwan, influencer, and stereotypical “cute-coded” behaviors that typify a stylized femininity. We argue that both speaker traits and the more abstract social meanings are attached to full tone and can be activated during social perception.

The contribution of full tone marking to oral reading fluency and comprehension in Yoruba and Ife

Abstract Orthographic depth is a key concept in literacy acquisition and can be measured separately for completeness, simplicity and consistency. The first of these is pertinent to discussions about whether tone should be marked in African orthographies, because a zero tone representation is relatively incomplete and deep whereas a full tone orthography is relatively complete and shallow. We undertook a series of literacy experiments in ten Niger-Congo languages to test the extent to which full tone marking contributes to reading and writing skills. In a within-subject design that closely follows Bird (1999b), participants orally read two full tone and two zero tone texts and also added tone accents to unmarked versions of two of the texts. Speed, accuracy, comprehension, as well as a range of linguistic, ethno-literacy, demographic and L2 literacy variables were tracked. The present article narrows the scope of the wider research project (Roberts & Walter 2021) to two of the languages, Yoruba and Ife, which are linguistically similar, yet have highly dissimilar results. In Yoruba, full tone marking does not contribute to any improvement in reading measurements, and tone writing skills are generally poor. In Ife, on the other hand, full tone marking contributes to speed, accuracy and comprehension, and tone writing is the most accurate of all the languages. The results suggest that the social profile of the participant and the ethno-literacy profile of the language community are more predictive of reading and writing performance than is the linguistic profile of the language.

Boundary-conditioned anticipatory tonal coarticulation in Standard Mandarin

The goal of this study is to examine (1) whether and how the F0 contour of a sequence of neutral tones in Standard Mandarin is affected by the following full tone due to anticipatory tonal coarticulation, (2) whether and how the degree of anticipatory tonal coarticulation varies as a function of the strength of an intervening boundary, and (3) whether boundary-conditioned anticipatory tonal coarticulatory variations can be accounted for by boundary-induced durational changes. By using generalized additive mixed models to analyze time-varying F0 contours of neutral-tone sequence, we are able to formally detect anticipatory tonal coarticulation effects across different boundary conditions while simultaneously taking into account individual variations of 20 speakers. Results show that (a) F0 contours of neutral-tone sequence can be affected by both assimilatory and dissimilatory anticipatory effects and anticipation could spread to non-adjacent neutral tones, that (b) anticipatory tonal coarticulation becomes weaker when crossing a strong boundary than when crossing a weak boundary, and that (c) boundary-induced anticipatory tonal coarticulation reduction cannot be simply accounted for by boundary-induced lengthening effect. Based on the results, we argue that the anticipatory tonal coarticulation patterns reported in this study are more consistent with the soft template mark-up language (Stem-ML) model than with the parallel encoding and target approximation (PENTA) model, and that boundary-induced anticipatory tonal coarticulation reduction is primarily the result of active speech planning.

Investigating the Lexical Representation of Mandarin Tone 3 Phonological Alternations.

Phonological alternations pose challenges for models of spoken word recognition in how surface information is mapped onto stored representations in the lexicon. In the current study, an auditory-auditory priming lexical decision experiment was conducted to investigate the alternating representations of Mandarin Tone 3 in both half-third and third tone sandhi contexts. In Mandarin, a full Tone 3 (213) is reduced to an abridged tone (21) when followed by Tone 1, Tone 2, or Tone 4 (half-third tone sandhi), and Tone 3 is replaced by Tone 2 when followed by another Tone 3 (third tone sandhi). In the half-third sandhi block, disyllabic targets with a half-third (21) or full-third (213) tone FIRST syllable and a Tone 2 (35) or Tone 4 (51) second syllable were preceded by either a half-third prime, a full-third prime, or a control prime. In the third tone sandhi block, third-tone sandhi disyllabic targets with a half-third or full-third SECOND syllable were preceded by either a half-third prime, a full-third prime, or a control prime. Results showed that both half-third and full-third primes elicited significantly faster reaction times relative to the control Tone 1 condition. The size of the facilitation was not influenced by prime condition, target frequency, targets' first syllable tone or targets' second syllable tone. These data suggest that Mandarin T3 may be a more abstract tone and stored as the first syllable for both types of sandhi words.

Starch films as an environmentally friendly packaging material: Printing performance

Starch films can be a great alternative for non-degradable conventional plastic films as packaging materials. Packaging material, besides relevant properties such as mechanical or barrier properties, should also be characterised by a good printability to provide some required information about the product. The aim of this work was to show possibility of printing of starch films. Potato starch films with 20%, 40%, 60% and 80% of glycerol as a plasticiser were obtained. The tensile strength, water vapour transition rate, and moisture content of the film were determined and compared with the literature values. Next, the surface free energy of the starch films was determined by the Owens−Wendt and van Oss–Chaudhury–Good approaches. The values of surface free energy are in the range of 59.10 to 46.10 mJ m−2, which are higher than the surface free energy of conventional plastic films used for packaging purposes. The wettability of the obtained films was investigated by the analysis of the water droplet contact angle. The values of the water contact angle decreased when the glycerol content increased, which is related to the presence of hydroxyl groups. Finally, the films were overprinted with biodegradable printing ink and the print quality of the obtained prints was determined. The optical density of full tone areas and colour parameters were measured. The optical density increased with the increasing content of glycerol in the starch film, which is related with the wettability of the starch film. The printing performance was compared with biodegradable commercially available PLA and paper. The naked human eye control of the prints revealed that the prints on the starch-based films are poorer quality than overprinted PLA or paper samples. Despite the poorer quality of overprinted starch-based films, the results of this study show the strong potential of using starch films as a biodegradable, environmentally friendly packaging materials.

Influence of Some Flexographic Printing Process Conditions on the Optical Density and Tonal Value Increase of Overprinted Plastic Films

The print quality of prints performed with flexographic printing technology is influenced by various parameters such as viscosity of the printing inks, printing substrates, plates, anilox rolls, etc. The aim of this work is to analyze the influence of ink viscosity, printing plate and printing base on selected properties of print quality, such as optical density of full tone area and the increase of tonal value (TVI). Additionally, the printed dots on 5, 15, 30, 50 and 75% of half tone area were investigated using digital microscopy. The least square fitting method in a matrix form was successfully used in order to confirm the influence of printing process parameters on print quality. The results obtained reveal the significant influence of the printing plate and printing substrate characteristics and the lesser influence of printing ink viscosity for 40–100% coverage area. The values of the optical densities of full tone areas are mainly influenced by the properties of the printing plate and the printing base. Furthermore, the optical density decreases when the value of flow time decreases, which is related to the lower thickness of dried ink film. The TVI on light tones (0 to 20%) is mainly influenced by the ink viscosity.

Inkjet Printing of Self‐Supporting and Self‐Contained Structured Objects Onto Liquid Surfaces

Some applications in miniaturized fabrication like valves or force sensors require self‐supporting structures. These may be generated on top of a solid substrate and separated from it afterwards, but this separation is an additional manufacturing step and may stress the structure. Therefore, it may be of advantage to create the desired objects directly on top of a liquid. Here, it is shown that self‐supporting and self‐contained structures including lines of defined width, full tone squares and delicate structures with non‐uniform line width, edges and openings can be prepared by inkjet printing of a photo‐curable ink onto a water surface followed by irradiation with ultraviolet light and lift‐off. To make this feasible, convection, spreading, and dewetting of the ink from the water surface has to be suppressed by controlling the timing of the irradiation, the mobility of the water surface and the long and short range interactions between the printed ink and the water substrate. These tasks may be achieved via addition of soluble amphiphiles or via spreading of water insoluble amphiphiles or hydrophobized particles onto the water surface prior to printing. Best results are obtained by printing the desired structures onto a water surface that bears a monolayer of hydrophobized particles.

P‐206: Late-News Poster: The LCD Technology Development and Application with an Improved Black Photo Spacer Structure

A novel Black Photo Spacer (BPS) structure is demonstrated. Using the BPS technology BM (Black Mask) can be integrated into the PS. which saves material, mask, machine and time cost. To improve stability, we use a full tone mask design. A 28‐inch display using BPS technology is demonstrated.

39.3: The LCD Technology Development and Application with an Improved Black Photo Spacer Structure

A novel Black Photo Spacer (BPS) structure is demonstrated in this present work. The black BPS material supports the substitution of black matix (BM) to realize shading function. Thus the BPS technology can integrate BM into PS process, which saves the material, mask, machine and time cost. In order to improve stability, we use full tone mask design. Different height (ΔH) of Main PS and Sub PS are generated by color filter stacking. Polymer film on array (PFA) is used to reduce the excessive primary height between Main PS and Sub PS. In addition, all the patterns included color filter, BM and PS are on array side, which can effectively avoid the backlight leakage and enhance contrast ratio (CR). More discussions of the designs, process and optical performances about 1‐tone BPS such as Data line BM less (DBS) are demonstrated in this paper, and a 28 inch demon with this BPS technology is shown at the end.

HUMAN MORBIDITY IN THE CONDITIONS OF NATURAL GEOCHEMICAL ANOMALY THAT CAUSES NO ENDEMIC DISEASES

Geochemical and medical ecology studies were conducted in the areas of natural geochemical anomalies with excessive content of heavy metals (Ni, Cr, Co, Cu, Pb) in the Sverdlovsk region (the Middle Urals). The purpose of the work was to study the human morbidity rate in the natural geochemical anomalies (biogeochemical province), which, along with abnormally high content of heavy metals in the soil did not cause endemic diseases. Morbidity data were analyzed by generalized linear model device. The interpretable variable is arcsine-converted value of the cases number ratio to the study area population size. In the course of morbidity average data analysis covering five-year period it's statistically significant increase was stated on the territory of the natural geochemical anomaly (p < 0.001) in comparison with full tone. The main contribution to the morbidity rate increase in the geochemical anomaly make infectious and parasitic diseases, diseases of the circulatory system, respiratory, digestive. As s reason for the increase of morbidity rate is proposed the weakening of immunity under the influence of high concentrations of the chemical elements. Fixed non-specific effect of the natural geochemical factor is probably universal for abnormal areas of the earth's surface, characterized by the endemia absence.

Improvement of light fastness of water‐based printing inks with addition of glycerol derivative containing thiol groups

The aim of this work was to study the influence of a glycerol derivative with thiol groups, 3,6‐dithia‐1,8‐octanediol (DTO), on light fastness of prints overprinted with water‐based flexographic printing inks. Laboratory printing was performed on various plastic films (BOPP and PE). The effect of a small amount of DTO on printing ink colour was examined by studying the optical density of a full tone area, relative printing contrast and the colour values (CIELAB), and the total colour difference, . Artificial ageing was applied in order to investigate DTO influence on colourfastness of CMY printing inks. Densitometry and spectrophotometric parameters were measured during artificial ageing by irradiation. Additionally, FTIR spectroscopy was used to observe the changes in ink film on printing bases before and after ageing. The print quality of investigated prints is widely discussed. In general, DTO addition influenced the printability of the plastic film and the optical density of a full tone area with an acceptable total colour difference . Furthermore, printing inks with added DTO exhibited higher optical density and smaller changes of during artificial ageing. Moreover, the FTIR spectra of printing ink films with added DTO after ageing did not exhibit any perceptible changes in contrast with the original printing ink.

Flexographic ink-coating interactions: effects of latex variations in coating layers

The effect of coating structure variations on flexographic print quality was studied using pilot-coated paperboard samples with different latex content and latex particle sizes. Two latexes, with particle sizes of 120 nm and 160 nm, were added at either 12 parts per hundred (pph) or 18 pph to the coating formulation. The samples were printed with full tone areas at print forces of 25 N and 50 N in a laboratory flexographic printing press using a waterbased ink. A high ratio of uncovered areas (UCAs) could be detected for the samples that contained 18 pph latex printed at a print force of 25 N. UCAs decreased with increased print force and with decreased amounts of latex in the coating formulation. The fraction of latex covered area on the coating surface was estimated to be 0.35–0.40 for the 12 pph, and 0.70–0.75 for the 18 pph samples. The ink penetration depth into the coating layer could be linked to the fraction of latex-free areas on the coating surface. Optical cross section microscopy indicated that a higher printing force did not increase the depth of penetrated ink to any greater extent. Higher printing force did increase contact between plate and substrate, leading to an improved distribution of the ink. This, in turn, increased print density and decreased UCAs. On closer inspection, the UCAs could be categorized as being induced by steep topographic changes. When appearing at other locations, they were more likely to be caused by poor wetting of the surface. To understand the wetting behavior of the coating surface, observed contact angles were compared with calculated contact angles on surfaces of mixed composition.

Correlation between plastic films properties and flexographic prints quality

The article presents a preliminary study of the correlation between films properties and flexographic print quality defined as the optical density of full tone. It is also an attempt to answer the question whether traditional plastic films can be replaced by biodegradable and compostable films as printing substrates and as materials for packaging. Four kinds of films were used in the experiments – two plastic films (PP and PET) and two biodegradable films (PLA and cellulose). The permeability to water vapour and oxygen, as well as the tensile strength and elongation at break of the material were investigated for all samples. The measurements of the contact angle with water, diiodomethane and printing ink were also conducted for these films, and their surface free energy was determined. All samples were printed on laboratory equipment by a flexographic technique using water-based inks and the optical density of copies was measured. It has been found that the print quality was determined by the type of film used. Furthermore, the correlation between optical density and wettability defined as the contact angle between film and water or printing ink turned out to be significant. Other important parameter is surface free energy, albeit to a little lesser extent. The barrier and mechanical properties of the material have an even weaker impact on optical density. In addition, it is possible to choose the biodegradable film with properties corresponding to conventional, commonly used films which enable high quality prints

Prominence from Complexity: Capturing Tianjin Ditonal Patterns

This paper explores the six ditonal sandhi that spawn from an inventory of four tones (Low, High, Rising, and Falling) in an attempt to provide an account for why only certain ditonal combinations trigger alternation but not others. Earlier accounts have relied on Obligatory Contour Principle (OCP) applying to adjacent syllables both at the level of the full tone contour and also of the tonal features that comprise the contour. Another account has explained sandhi in terms of leveling across syllables so that excessive contours are avoided. A careful exploration reveals that neither of these approaches is adequate, nor are some of their stipulations necessary. Instead, a more viable solution might be found if we accept that Tianjin prosody is right-headed such that prosodic prominence is reflected through tone complexity. To this end, I propose the Head Tone Complexity (HTC) constraint that partners with OCP to generate the attested ditonal sandhi patterns.

Syllabic tone articulation influences the identification and use of words during Chinese sentence reading: Evidence from ERP and eye movement recordings.

In two experiments, we examined the contribution of articulation-specific features to visual word recognition during the reading of Chinese. In spoken Standard Chinese, a syllable with a full tone can be tone-neutralized through sound weakening and pitch contour change, and there are two types of two-character compound words with respect to their articulation variation. One type requires articulation of a full tone for each constituent character, and the other requires a full- and a neutral-tone articulation for the first and second characters, respectively. Words of these two types with identical first characters were selected and embedded in sentences. Native speakers of Standard Chinese were recruited to read the sentences. In Experiment 1, the individual words of a sentence were presented serially at a fixed pace while event-related potentials were recorded. This resulted in less-negative N100 and anterior N250 amplitudes and in more-negative N400 amplitudes when targets contained a neutral tone. Complete sentences were visible in Experiment 2, and eye movements were recorded while participants read. Analyses of oculomotor activity revealed shorter viewing durations and fewer refixations on-and fewer regressive saccades to-target words when their second syllable was articulated with a neutral rather than a full tone. Together, the results indicate that readers represent articulation-specific word properties, that these representations are routinely activated early during the silent reading of Chinese sentences, and that the representations are also used during later stages of word processing.

Syllable articulation influences foveal and parafoveal processing of words during the silent reading of Chinese sentences

• We examine effects of articulation duration on eye movements during silent reading. • Target words with shorter articulation durations are fixated more briefly. • More parafoveal information is acquired with longer articulated foveal words. • Readers use mentally simulated articulation during silent reading of Chinese. The current study examined effects of syllable articulation on eye movements during the silent reading of Chinese sentences, which contained two types of two-character target words whose second characters were subject to dialect-specific variation. In one condition the second syllable was articulated with a neutral tone for northern-dialect Chinese speakers and with a full tone for southern-dialect Chinese speakers (neutral-tone target words) and in the other condition the second syllable was articulated with a full tone irrespective of readers’ dialect type (full-tone target words). Native speakers of northern and southern Chinese dialects were recruited in Experiment 1 to examine the effect of dialect-specific articulation on silent reading. Recordings of their eye movements revealed shorter viewing durations for neutral- than for full-tone target words only for speakers of northern but not for southern dialects, indicating that dialect-specific articulation of syllabic tone influenced visual word recognition. Experiment 2 replicated the syllabic tone effect for speakers of northern dialects, and the use of gaze-contingent display changes further revealed that these readers processed an upcoming parafoveal word less effectively when a neutral- than when a full-tone target was fixated. Shorter viewing duration for neutral-tone words thus cannot be attributed to their easier lexical processing; instead, tonal effects appear to reflect Chinese readers’ simulated articulation of to-be-recognized words during silent reading.

If I Had Possession over Judgment Day: Augmenting Robert Johnson

If I Had Possession over Judgment Day: Augmenting Robert Johnson

Quality of electrophotographic prints on foil substrates

Electrophotographic printing uses many types of substrates, our study focuses on plastic substrates. Six types of regular and self-adhesive foil substrates were chosen to be printed using two electrophotographic presses: Xerox Colour 1000 Press and Canon imagePress C7000VP. A test chart containing tone value scales and a set of samples for profiling was created, spectrophotomety and densitometry was applied to obtain the optical and colorimetric properties of the substrates investigated. Xerox Color 1000 Press produced larger densities and tone value increase on every type of substrate. The largest TVI values and reproducible colour gamut was observed on the smoothest foil in case of both presses. Large colour differences were found between patches of full tone process colors on the different substrates investigated.

Microscopic Color Measurements of Halftone Prints

Modeling halftone print reproduction is difficult, mainly because of light scattering, causing optical dot gain. Most available models are based on macroscopic color measurements, integrating the reflectance over an area that is large relative the halftone dot size. The reflectance values for the full tone and the unprinted paper are used as input, and these values are assumed to be constant. An experimental imaging system, combining the accuracy of color measurement instruments with a high spatial resolution, allows us to measure the individual halftone dots, as well as the paper between them. Microscopic color measurements reveal that the micro-reflectance of the printed dots and the paper is not constant, but varies with the dot area fraction. By incorporating the varying reflectance of the ink and paper in an expanded Murray-Davies model, the resulting prediction errors are smaller than for the Yule-Nielsen model. However, unlike Yule-Nielsen, the expanded Murray-Davies model preserves the linear additivity of reflectance, thus providing a better physical description of optical dot gain. The microscopic color measurements further show that the color shift of the ink and paper depends on the halftone geometry and the print resolution. In this study, we measure and characterize the varying micro-reflectance of ink and paper with respect to properties of the halftones, using AM and FM prints of various print resolutions.

Application of imaging reflectometry to studies of print mottle on commercially printed coated papers

It has been well documented that homogeneous coating structures are necessary for obtaining good, mottle-free printed papers. Methods such as mercury intrusion porosimetry are widely used in the paper industry, but will deliver a bulk porosity measure, which contains contributions from both the surface layers and the bulk of the coating. One way of assessing the surface porosity is to measure its effective refractive index (RI) because the RI measured is a combination of the material RI and air. In this work three papers coated with PCC, kaolin, and GCC were RI mapped using an imaging reflectometer. The data were then treated with a mathematical transform in order to be able to quantify the degree of variation that was taking place at each length scale. These results were then compared to the print mottle, which was evident after both lab scale printing and full scale sheetfed printing of the pilot coated papers. The commercial mottle was quantified both visually and using image analysis and there was a reasonable correlation between these two methods. In the halftone printed area, the propensity for mottle correlated with the degree of porosity variation of the coating. However, the rankings for the full tone print areas better correlated with the short time water absorbency of the coatings. FFT band-pass analysis confirmed that the same spatial distribution of unevenness occurred in the basepaper, coating layer and printed areas.