Variations In Tone Research Articles

Efecto de mordientes sobre la variación de diámetro y tono de color en hilos de fibra de alpaca teñidos con flores de colli (Buddleja coriacea)

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of mordants on the variation of mean fibre diameter (MFD), spinning fineness (SF), and colour tone in alpaca fibre threads dyed with colli flowers (Buddleja coriacea). The dye was extracted using boiling water, followed by immersion of the thread in 160 ml of extract and post-mordanting with collpa, alum, and lemon salt at boiling temperature. MFD was measured using S-Fiber Med equipment. Colorimetry parameters were obtained using a spectrometer, and FT-IR spectrophotometer was used for identification of functional groups. MFD in colli-dyed and post-mordanted threads significantly increased with the addition of mordants, with the highest change observed with lemon salt (30.09 μm). The same trend was observed for SF. Dyeing with colli flower extract and subsequent mordant application produced different shades and hues of yellow colour in alpaca thread with significant variations in colorimetry parameters and FT-IR spectrum intensity. The reflectance spectrum R (%) showed a typical yellow colour curve with small differences in intensity due to the mordants used. In conclusion, MFD in colli-dyed thread increased by 0.44 µm; collpa mordanted by 2.78 µm; alum by 3.31 µm, and lemon salt by 3.51 µm compared to white thread, also producing different shades and hues of yellow colour with significant variations in colorimetry parameters and K/S. The sample dyed with colli without mordant presented the highest intensity, and lower intensity was observed in post-mordanted samples in FT-IR.

Cross-Language Perception of Lexical Tones by Nordic Learners of Mandarin Chinese

While existing cross-language studies on the perception of non-native tones primarily focus on naïve listeners, this study addresses an obvious gap by investigating learners from diverse language backgrounds. Specifically, it investigates Mandarin tone perception in two groups of learners from Nordic languages, Swedish (a pitch-accent language), and Danish (a non-tonal language), as well as in a group of native Chinese speakers. Analysis of their performance in tone identification task revealed a slight advantage for Swedish learners, implying the influence of their pitch accent background in learning Mandarin tones. However, both Swedish and Danish learners who excelled in the tone identification task exhibited similar perception of within-category tonal variations but differed from native Chinese speakers. Additionally, the study found that the presence of length contrast, a prosodic feature in the learners’ native languages, significantly influences their perception of Mandarin tones.

Tone in politics is not systematically related to macro trends, ideology, or experience

What explains the variation in tone in politics? Different literatures argue that changes in the tone of politicians reflect changes in the economy, general language, well-being, or ideology. So far, these claims have been empirically tested only in isolation, in single country studies, or with a small subset of indicators. We offer an overarching view by modelling the use of tone in European national parliaments in 7 countries across 30 years. Using a semi-supervised sentiment-topic model to measure polarity and arousal in legislative debates, we show in a preregistered multiverse analysis that the tone in legislative debates is not systematically related to previously claimed factors. We also replicate the absence of such systematic relationships using national leader speeches and parties’ election manifestos. There is also no universal trend towards more negativity or emotionality in political language. Overall, our results highlight the importance of multi-lingual and cross-country multiverse analyses for generalizing findings on emotions in politics.

A Csigolya fiú esete Pató Sárival

The oeuvre of Sándor Petőfi is one of the most well-researched one, still it has parts which are – paradoxically – lesser-known in the literary consciousness. The prose of Petőfi can be seen as a “blind spot” which has not been integrated into the curriculum of public education and it was hardly ever discussed in the professional discourse as this corpus was considered to have a marginal status. Petőfi, who oŸen declared his versatility in the 1840s, translated prose and experimented with different narrative techniques in his novel and short stories. Petőfi’s short stories are strongly connected to the financial aspects of publishing, however, they should not be viewed simply as “fillers” since these texts can be analysed from a literary perspective, considering the variation of genre conventions, narrative styles and tones in these experimental short stories which interact with the other texts of the oeuvre, as well. This paper reviews Petőfi’s latest published short story regarding the reality effects of the text.

SleepyWheels: An ensemble model for drowsiness detection leading to accident prevention

<p>Approximately 30% of traffic accidents in the world are attributed to driver drowsiness. Various approaches have been suggested by different research teams to detect drowsiness, but their methods have drawbacks. Some involve invasive techniques that cause driver discomfort, some involve too many false positives that cause distractions while driving while others rely on complex models that are too resource-intensive. In this paper, we present SleepyWheels, a novel drowsiness detection system. Our key insight is the combined use of two lightweight neural networks: a binary classifier and a facial landmark detector. This innovative approach minimizes false positives and proves resilient across diverse testing scenarios, such as different camera positions, variations in skin tone and when there is obscurement of facial features by objects like eyewear. Research outcomes include a working prototype of the system, a custom dataset for training the classifier and a trained model, which attains an impressive 97% accuracy rate. Deployment and testing were performed on Windows 10 but the system can be deployed on edge devices like Raspberry Pi. The lightweight nature of the models unlocks possibilities of deployment on mobile and embedded devices for use in vehicles.</p>

土库曼斯坦留学生上声变调的实验研究

土库曼斯坦留学生上声变调的实验研究

Photomechanical crossroads - Comparing 19th-Century Chromocupography and Charles Eckstein’s method from a Printmaker’s Perspective

Chromocupography is a photo-etching technique developed in 19th-century Portugal under the supervision of chemist José Júlio Rodrigues (1843-1923). Very scarce literature is associated with the process, and it doesn’t seem to have been widely used after being made public. At the time, the technique was presented as a variant of Charles Eckstein’s (1840-1913) method, working in Hague, Holland. Eckstein’s technique consisted of hatching the lithograph stone with very fine delicate multiple-point needles to produce tone variations. Chromocupography substitutes the stone for a copper plate and the needles for a special coating with resin, thus creating a granular reservation protecting the metal from the etching bath.With this paper, we aim to present how the technical entanglements which are felt from a practical experience of the contemporary printmaker. We will be showing the various results we obtained conducting research following the descriptions found in literature around the subject of Portuguese process chromocupography, at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Porto within the project of Pure Print Archaeology (i2ADS/FBAUP)

A novel end-to-end deep convolutional neural network based skin lesion classification framework

Background:Skin diseases are reported to contribute 1.79% of the global burden of disease. The accurate diagnosis of specific skin diseases is known to be a challenging task due, in part, to variations in skin tone, texture, body hair, etc. Classification of skin lesions using machine learning is a demanding task, due to the varying shapes, sizes, colors, and vague boundaries of some lesions. The use of deep learning for the classification of skin lesion images has been shown to help diagnose the disease at its early stages. Recent studies have demonstrated that these models perform well in skin detection tasks, with high accuracy and efficiency. Objective:Our paper proposes an end-to-end framework for skin lesion classification, and our contributions are two-fold. Firstly, two fundamentally different algorithms are proposed for segmenting and extracting features from images during image preprocessing. Secondly, we present a deep convolutional neural network model, S-MobileNet that aims to classify 7 different types of skin lesions. Methods:We used the HAM10000 dataset, which consists of 10000 dermatoscopic images from different populations and is publicly available through the International Skin Imaging Collaboration (ISIC) Archive. The image data was preprocessed to make it suitable for modeling. Exploratory data analysis (EDA) was performed to understand various attributes and their relationships within the dataset. A modified version of a Gaussian filtering algorithm and SFTA was applied for image segmentation and feature extraction. The processed dataset was then fed into the S-MobileNet model. This model was designed to be lightweight and was analyzed in three dimensions: using the Relu Activation function, the Mish activation function, and applying compression at intermediary layers. In addition, an alternative approach for compressing layers in the S-MobileNet architecture was applied to ensure a lightweight model that does not compromise on performance. Results:The model was trained using several experiments and assessed using various performance measures, including, loss, accuracy, precision, and the F1-score. Our results demonstrate an improvement in model performance when applying a preprocessing technique. The Mish activation function was shown to outperform Relu. Further, the classification accuracy of the compressed S-MobileNet was shown to outperform S-MobileNet. Conclusions:To conclude, our findings have shown that our proposed deep learning-based S-MobileNet model is the optimal approach for classifying skin lesion images in the HAM10000 dataset. In the future, our approach could be adapted and applied to other datasets, and validated to develop a skin lesion framework that can be utilized in real-time.

Sensitising natural wool with green and brown coffee using a facile extraction method to optimise dye process parameters

Green coffee powder is the raw powder of coffee cherries and all coffee’s potential components are held within this green powder. A new natural colourant was extracted from Green Coffee using water as an extractant. To obtain a green-colored solution, a specific amount of green coffee was mixed with distilled water and left for 24 h at room temperature. Furthermore, the colouring performance of extracted colour has been studied using the conventional exhaust dyeing method on wool fabric. Different parameters viz. concentration of Green coffee powder, the temperature of the dye bath, the period for immersion, and solution pH were made to set to obtain a fine tone of green colour. The dyeing parameters (amount of the coffee: 2 g, 100 °C, 70 min & 6.7 pH) were optimised and selected to draw a comparison with the conventional Brown coffee powder. In experiments on wool, this potential solution of Green coffee offered rich green hues with good tonal variation. In addition, the colour fastness to washing was found superior in the case of both Green and Brown coffee and colour fastness to light, rubbing as well as perspiration also showed good performance. In this study, our main focus was to obtain the true and fast green tone of the fabric using Green Coffee and compare it with brown coffee using the same conditions used for dyeing with green coffee. The application of these dyes as natural dyes results in obtaining innovative natural fast colour with remarkable dyeing properties and a new inclusion to the existing commercial spectra of natural dyes.

Data Augmentation for Semantic Segmentation Using a Real Image Dataset Captured Around the Tsukuba City Hall

We are exploring the use of semantic scene understanding in autonomous navigation for the Tsukuba Challenge. However, manually creating a comprehensive dataset that covers various outdoor scenes with time and weather variations to ensure high accuracy in semantic segmentation is onerous. Therefore, we propose modifications to the model and backbone of semantic segmentation, along with data augmentation techniques. The data augmentation techniques, including the addition of virtual shadows, histogram matching, and style transformations, aim to improve the representation of variations in shadow presence and color tones. In our evaluation using images from the Tsukuba Challenge course, we achieved the highest accuracy by switching the model to PSPNet and changing the backbone to ResNeXt. Furthermore, the adaptation of shadow and histogram proved effective for critical classes in robot navigation, such as road, sidewalk, and terrain. In particular, the combination of histogram matching and shadow application demonstrated effectiveness for data not included in the base training dataset.

Central vs peripheral vascular factors determining risk of aortic dissection

Hypertension is the commonest cause of “central” aortic dissection, despite being an “peripheral” arteriole disease. We hypothesised that known regional variations in peripheral organ perfusion, due to variation in arteriole tone, via its effect on differential head and neck vessel flows can alter the risk and location of central aortic dissection. This might help to explain why some hypertensive patients dissect their aorta and others don't despite having similar aortic geometry. We utilised a simple 2D computational fluid dynamic model to test our hypothesis. We hypothesise (1) that variations in “peripheral” organ flow can alter the site of “central” aortic dissection, despite the blood pressure and cardiac output being identical, (2) variations in cardiac output at rest may also help to explain the risk of dissection but not the site of the initial intimal tear, and (3) atrial fibrillation, a known factor for aortic dissection, increases the risk via stroke volume variation. MRI scanning, via regional aortic branch flow quantification, may help to identify individuals who have a family history of dissection/aneurysm, who are normotensive with normal aortic anatomy that have a high potential risk for dissection due to calculated high wall velocity/shear stresses. This may allow selective beta blocker prescriptions in an asymptomatic patient population that is at a predicted high risk of aortic dissection – a hither to unidentified patient subpopulation.

The Wancho language of Kamhua Noknu village

Abstract This article compares the word list collected by and published in LTBA 21.2 by the late Robbins Burling and Mr Mankai Wangsu in 1998, a word list that represents ‘Lower Wancho’, with a word list collected from Mr Banwang Losu of Kamhua Noknu village, in the Upper Wancho area. Along with the word list and a brief discussion of the phonology of this Upper Wancho variety, we introduce the Wancho script, created by Banwang Losu, now included in Unicode and being used for teaching in the Wancho area. The article includes an introduction presenting information about the diversity of clans and linguistic varieties with what we now term Wancho, and also contains a brief phonological overview with script included and some grammatical information relating to verb stem alternation found in Wancho, and mostly expressed by tone variation between the stems.

Phonetic Tonal Manifestations and Trends in Tone Change: A Case Study of the Yong-Deng Dialect in Northwest China

This study takes the Yong-deng dialect as a case study to investigate the phenomenon of tonal merging observed in Northwest Chinese dialects. It begins by examining the various monosyllabic tone patterns of the Yong-deng dialect, then supplements this with a review of the relevant literature, comparisons with the tone patterns of the neighbouring dialects, and an analysis of its tone sandhi in disyllabic and trisyllabic combinations. Each step of the dialect’s tonal variation is scrutinised, allowing for the identification of pertinent phonetic biases and the derivation of associated phonological rules. The central argument advanced here is that both synchronic tonal variation and diachronic tone change are governed by specific phonological rules. Despite the ostensibly variable phonetic manifestations, these rules can enable the prediction of the trajectory of tone change. The paper contributes to the understanding of tone merger and highlights its systemic and rule-bound nature.

A sociophoentic study of intergenerational differences in Kemie language

Previous sociophonetic studies have primarily concentrated on European languages or other dominant languages, with Chinese dialects and minority languages receiving less attention. This article aims to examine the phonetic variations of vowels, stops and tones emerged owing to age differences in Kemie Language, an Austroasiatic language in China. 18 speakers were categorized by age into young, middle-aged and older groups with 6 speakers in each group. Acoustic parameters such as formants, VOT, f0 and duration were extracted, and linear mixed effects model and repeated measures ANOVA in R were employed to test whether the above parameters were significantly different across the groups. Results show that: (1) The monophthongs /ɛ/ /a/ /ɔ/ manifest significant variations through tongue height or frontness or both. (2) VOT values of /b/ in the above three groups are significantly different and inverse with age, while no consistent conclusions can be reached in terms of /d/ /ɡ/. (3) Low-rising (13) and high-rising (35) tones with stop codas (cu yun wei) haven’t merged across the groups, but pitch range of the two tones become narrower with decreasing age; Low-rising (13) and mid-level (33) tones with sonorant codas (shu yun wei) have merged across groups.

The origins of colour patterns in fossil insects revealed by maturation experiments.

Many fossil insects show monochromatic colour patterns that may provide valuable insights into ancient insect behaviour and ecology. Whether these patterns reflect original pigmentary coloration is, however, unknown, and their formation mechanism has not been investigated. Here, we performed thermal maturation experiments on extant beetles with melanin-based colour patterns. Scanning electron microscopy reveals that melanin-rich cuticle is more resistant to degradation than melanin-poor cuticle: with progressive maturation, melanin-poor cuticle regions experience preferential thinning and loss, yet melanin-rich cuticle remains. Comparative analysis of fossil insects with monotonal colour patterns confirms that the variations in tone correspond to variations in preserved cuticle thickness. These preserved colour patterns can thus be plausibly explained as melanin-based patterning. Recognition of melanin-based colour patterns in fossil insects opens new avenues for interpreting the evolution of insect coloration and behaviour through deep time.

Does musicianship influence the perceptual integrality of tones and segmental information?

This study investigated the effect of musicianship on the perceptual integrality of tones and segmental information in non-native speech perception. We tested 112 Cantonese musicians, Cantonese non-musicians, English musicians, and English non-musicians with a modified Thai tone AX discrimination task. In the tone discrimination task, the control block only contained tonal variations, whereas the orthogonal block contained both tonal and task-irrelevant segmental variations. Relative to their own performance in the control block, the Cantonese listeners showed decreased sensitivity index (d') and increased response time in the orthogonal block, reflecting integral perception of tones and segmental information. By contrast, the English listeners performed similarly across the two blocks, indicating independent perception. Bayesian analysis revealed that the Cantonese musicians and the Cantonese non-musicians perceived Thai tones and segmental information equally integrally. Moreover, the English musicians and the English non-musicians showed similar degrees of independent perception. Based on the above results, musicianship does not seem to influence tone-segmental perceptual integrality. While musicianship apparently enhances tone sensitivity, not all musical advantages are transferrable to the language domain.

Advance Care Planning in the United Kingdom – A snapshot from the four UK nations

The United Kingdom (UK) as a whole has a long-established decades-old history as an early adopter of the concepts of Advance Care Planning (ACP), with significant integration into mainstream national policy and widespread implementation. The ACP term itself, its processes, means, inclusions and implementations vary considerably within the UK and between its four nations, but the overall impression is of a strongly uniting consensus on the positive impact, value and vital importance of ACP in enabling better care for people in the final years of life, and at earlier life stages. Though there is always more work to do and more lessons to learn, those of us who have watched this world-wide movement grow over recent decades, find the overall direction of travel of commitment to mainstreaming ACP in the UK to be inspiring and encouraging, and gives us hope for the future. Across the UK, there is much shared history, policy, objectives, and regulation related to ACP, and at the same time, many variations in approach, tone, emphasis and detail within and between the four nations of the UK. The 2022 Office of National Statistics reports that the four nations of the UK have a combined population of 67 million (England 56.5 million, Scotland 5.5 million, Wales 3.1 million, Northern Ireland 1.9 million). All four nations are prioritising ACP as part of national policy, aiming to deliver more personalised care, particularly but not exclusively for those nearing the end of life, with a wide variety of best practice examples. Here we describe some common areas and variations across the UK history, policy and legal perspectives, some examples of best practice, resources, and exciting developments across all four nations which, although not exhaustive and within the limitations of our brief, reflect the flavour of our shared commitment. We are most grateful to all the contributing authors.

The Role Visual Resources and Improvised Techniques Play in the Actualization of Bukusu Circumcision Songs

The study is an analysis of visual resources and improvised techniques in actualization of the Bukusu circumcision songs. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role visual resources and improvised techniques play in the actualization of Bukusu circumcision songs. The study employed Performance Theory because it was performance-centered approach and more adequate to analyze visual resources and improvised techniques employed in Bukusu circumcision songs in a more effective way. The study relied on fieldwork methods like note taking, video recording, interviews, and questionnaire and participant observation. It also employed purposive sampling procedures that used to obtain a maximum number possible of informants from whom data was collected, analyzed and documented. Both primary and secondary sources were utilized in data collection. The quantitative data was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) in which, the rating scale was as follows: Strongly Disagree (SD) = 1; Disagree (D) = 2; Agree (A) = 3; Strongly Agree (SA) = 4. While the qualititative data was analysed thematically then subjected to the rating scale. The researcher concluded that, visual resources and improvised techniques play a role in the actualization of Bukusu circumcision songs in regard to; composition, aesthetics and performance. The findings in table 2 showed that, majority of respondents 106 (56.7%) strongly agreed that composition of visual resources and improvised techniques played a role in the actualization of Bukusu circumcision songs. Elements like gestures, costumes and dramatic elements like body movements, facial expressions and tonal variations. VR and IT turned a boring song into an interesting and memorable song. Facial expression showed feelings of the performer and audiences, the costumes of the performers, all combined reveled the beauty and the semantic content of the song and the performance. The findings on aesthetics in table 3 established that, women’s personal interest in aesthetics in BSC had a role on use of visual resources and improvised techniques, ululation brought in a happy mood of the mother and aunties of a circumcision candidate at 15 (76.9%). Youth at 20 (66.3%) believed that aesthetics had a role on VR and IT like costumes was associated with seriousness of the initiation process. Men liked aesthetics of visual resources and improvised techniques at 35 (70.7%). These implied that, men just like women and youth had an interest in aesthetics exhibited in BCS through VR and IT made the song exciting. VR and IT in BCSs had its messages as well as its aesthetics which were learned through the language of drum, the clapping of hands, the characterization and body movements of the performers; the participation of audience and their imitation of the other audience-performers and the ululations by aunties and mothers made the songs enjoyable. Concerning the performance of VT and IT, the study in table 4 established that, 113 (60.6%) strongly agreed that, during performance of BSC, visual resources and improvised techniques were employed by the both the performer and audience-performer that made a song lively. The study recommends that, the roles of visual resources and improvised techniques in Bukusu circumcision songs cannot be ignored; there is need for the government of Kenya and other cultural stakeholders to appreciate these components and initiate programs that promotes traditional circumcision songs as a sources of tourist attraction activities in Kenya.

Anar Phali (Opuntia ficus) juice extract as a novel pollution-free source of natural betalain dye for wool yarn.

Green products such as plant pigments in all filed are gaining fame globally due to their excellent ayurvedic and biological characteristics. In this study, microwave rays have been employed for the isolation of colorants from Anar Phali while bio-mordant have been included to get color-fast shades. The colorant was isolated in an acidic medium before and after microwave rays for 2min. For getting darker shades with different tints, sustainable chemical and plant-based extracts as bio-mordant have been employed before and after bio coloration of wool yarn at given conditions. CIE Lab system computed in Colori-spectrophotometer (CS-410) was used to observe the change in color depth and tonal variation of dyed fabrics, and ISO standard methods have been employed to rate the colorfastness to light, washing, and rubbing at grey scale. It is concluded that microwave rays have an excellent sustainable efficacy to isolate colorant from Anar Phali powder for wool dyeing, whereas the addition of bio-mordants has made the process more sustainable and eco-friendly.

Enhancing Human-Machine Interaction: Real-Time Emotion Recognition through Speech Analysis

Humans, as intricate beings driven by a multitude of emotions, possess a remarkable ability to decipher and respond to socio-affective cues. However, many individuals and machines struggle to interpret such nuanced signals, including variations in tone of voice. This paper explores the potential of intelligent technologies to bridge this gap and improve the quality of conversations. In particular, the authors propose a real-time processing method that captures and evaluates emotions in speech, utilizing a terminal device like the Raspberry Pi computer. Furthermore, the authors provide an overview of the current research landscape surrounding speech emotional recognition and delve into our methodology, which involves analyzing audio files from renowned emotional speech databases. To aid incomprehension, the authors present visualizations of these audio files in situ, employing dB-scaled Mel spectrograms generated through TensorFlow and Matplotlib. The authors use a support vector machine kernel and a Convolutional Neural Network with transfer learning to classify emotions. Notably, the classification accuracies achieved are 70% and 77%, respectively, demonstrating the efficacy of our approach when executed on an edge device rather than relying on a server. The system can evaluate pure emotion in speech and provide corresponding visualizations to depict the speaker's emotional state in less than one second on a Raspberry Pi. These findings pave the way for more effective and emotionally intelligent human-machine interactions in various domains.