Formant-Frequency Variation and Informational Masking of Speech by Extraneous Formants : Evidence Against Dynamic and Speech-Specific Acoustical Constraints

How speech is separated perceptually from other speech remains poorly understood. Recent research indicates that the ability of an extraneous formant to impair intelligibility depends on the variation of its frequency contour. This study explored the effects of manipulating the depth and pattern of that variation. Three formants (F1+F2+F3) constituting synthetic analogues of natural sentences were distributed across the 2 ears, together with a competitor for F2 (F2C) that listeners must reject to optimize recognition (left = F1+F2C; right = F2+F3). The frequency contours of F1 − F3 were each scaled to 50% of their natural depth, with little effect on intelligibility. Competitors were created either by inverting the frequency contour of F2 about its geometric mean (a plausibly speech-like pattern) or using a regular and arbitrary frequency contour (triangle wave, not plausibly speech-like) matched to the average rate and depth of variation for the inverted F2C. Adding a competitor typically reduced intelligibility; this reduction depended on the depth of F2C variation, being greatest for 100%-depth, intermediate for 50%-depth, and least for 0%-depth (constant) F2Cs. This suggests that competitor impact depends on overall depth of frequency variation, not depth relative to that for the target formants. The absence of tuning (i.e., no minimum in intelligibility for the 50% case) suggests that the ability to reject an extraneous formant does not depend on similarity in the depth of formant-frequency variation. Furthermore, triangle-wave competitors were as effective as their more speech-like counterparts, suggesting that the selection of formants from the ensemble also does not depend on speech-specific constraints.

Learning and change in interorganizational networks:the case for network learning and network change

The ALBA 2002 Call for Papers asks the question ‘How do organizational learning and knowledge management contribute to organizational innovation and change?’. Intuitively, we would argue, the answer should be relatively straightforward as links between learning and change, and knowledge management and innovation, have long been commonly assumed to exist. On the basis of this assumption, theories of learning tend to focus ‘within organizations’, and assume a transfer of learning from individual to organization which in turn leads to change. However, empirically, we find these links are more difficult to articulate. Organizations exist in complex embedded economic, political, social and institutional systems, hence organizational change (or innovation) may be influenced by learning in this wider context. Based on our research in this wider interorganizational setting, we first make the case for the notion of network learning that we then explore to develop our appreciation of change in interorganizational networks, and how it may be facilitated. The paper begins with a brief review of lite rature on learning in the organizational and interorganizational context which locates our stance on organizational learning versus the learning organization, and social, distributed versus technical, centred views of organizational learning and knowledge. Developing from the view that organizational learning is “a normal, if problematic, process in every organization” (Easterby-Smith, 1997: 1109), we introduce the notion of network learning: learning by a group of organizations as a group. We argue this is also a normal, if problematic, process in organizational relationships (as distinct from interorganizational learning), which has particular implications for network change. Part two of the paper develops our analysis, drawing on empirical data from two studies of learning. The first study addresses the issue of learning to collaborate between industrial customers and suppliers, leading to the case for network learning. The second, larger scale study goes on to develop this theme, examining learning around several major change issues in a healthcare service provider network. The learning processes and outcomes around the introduction of a particularly controversial and expensive technology are described, providing a rich and contrasting case with the first study. In part three, we then discuss the implications of this work for change, and for facilitating change. Conclusions from the first study identify potential interventions designed to facilitate individual and organizational learning within the customer organization to develop individual and organizational ‘capacity to collaborate’. Translated to the network example, we observe that network change entails learning at all levels – network, organization, group and individual. However, presenting findings in terms of interventions is less meaningful in an interorganizational network setting given: the differences in authority structures; the less formalised nature of the network setting; and the importance of evaluating performance at the network rather than organizational level. Academics challenge both the idea of managing change and of managing networks. Nevertheless practitioners are faced with the issue of understanding and in fluencing change in the network setting. Thus we conclude that a network learning perspective is an important development in our understanding of organizational learning, capability and change, locating this in the wider context in which organizations are embedded. This in turn helps to develop our appreciation of facilitating change in interorganizational networks, both in terms of change issues (such as introducing a new technology), and change orientation and capability.

Formant-frequency variation and informational masking of speech by extraneous formants:evidence against dynamic and speech-specific acoustical constraints

How speech is separated perceptually from other speech remains poorly understood. Recent research indicates that the ability of an extraneous formant to impair intelligibility depends on the variation of its frequency contour. This study explored the effects of manipulating the depth and pattern of that variation. Three formants (F1+F2+F3) constituting synthetic analogues of natural sentences were distributed across the 2 ears, together with a competitor for F2 (F2C) that listeners must reject to optimize recognition (left = F1+F2C; right = F2+F3). The frequency contours of F1 - F3 were each scaled to 50% of their natural depth, with little effect on intelligibility. Competitors were created either by inverting the frequency contour of F2 about its geometric mean (a plausibly speech-like pattern) or using a regular and arbitrary frequency contour (triangle wave, not plausibly speech-like) matched to the average rate and depth of variation for the inverted F2C. Adding a competitor typically reduced intelligibility; this reduction depended on the depth of F2C variation, being greatest for 100%-depth, intermediate for 50%-depth, and least for 0%-depth (constant) F2Cs. This suggests that competitor impact depends on overall depth of frequency variation, not depth relative to that for the target formants. The absence of tuning (i.e., no minimum in intelligibility for the 50% case) suggests that the ability to reject an extraneous formant does not depend on similarity in the depth of formant-frequency variation. Furthermore, triangle-wave competitors were as effective as their more speech-like counterparts, suggesting that the selection of formants from the ensemble also does not depend on speech-specific constraints. © 2014 The Author(s).

Examining links between cognitive markers, movement initiation and change, and pedestrian safety in older adults

Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which mobility indices (such as walking speed and postural sway), motor initiation, and cognitive function, specifically executive functions, including spatial planning, visual attention, and within participant variability, differentially predicted collisions in the near and far sides of the road with increasing age. Methods: Adults aged over 45 years participated in cognitive tests measuring executive function and visual attention (using Useful Field of View; UFoV®), mobility assessments (walking speed, sit-to-stand, self-reported mobility, and postural sway assessed using motion capture cameras), and gave road crossing choices in a two-way filmed real traffic pedestrian simulation. Results: A stepwise regression model of walking speed, start-up delay variability, and processing speed) explained 49.4% of the variance in near-side crossing errors. Walking speed, start-up delay measures (average & variability), and spatial planning explained 54.8% of the variance in far-side unsafe crossing errors. Start-up delay was predicted by walking speed only (explained 30.5%). Conclusion: Walking speed and start-up delay measures were consistent predictors of unsafe crossing behaviours. Cognitive measures, however, differentially predicted near-side errors (processing speed), and far-side errors (spatial planning). These findings offer potential contributions for identifying and rehabilitating at-risk older pedestrians.

Dialect variation

Relatively little research on dialect variation has been based on corpora of naturally occurring language. Instead, dialect variation has been studied based primarily on language elicited through questionnaires and interviews. Eliciting dialect data has several advantages, including allowing for dialectologists to select individual informants, control the communicative situation in which language is collected, elicit rare forms directly, and make high-quality audio recordings. Although far less common, a corpus-based approach to data collection also has several advantages, including allowing for dialectologists to collect large amounts of data from a large number of informants, observe dialect variation across a range of communicative situations, and analyze quantitative linguistic variation in large samples of natural language. Although both approaches allow for dialect variation to be observed, they provide different perspectives on language variation and change. The corpus- based approach to dialectology has therefore produced a number of new findings, many of which challenge traditional assumptions about the nature of dialect variation. Most important, this research has shown that dialect variation involves a wider range of linguistic variables and exists across a wider range of language varieties than has previously been assumed. The goal of this chapter is to introduce this emerging approach to dialectology. The first part of this chapter reviews the growing body of research that analyzes dialect variation in corpora, including research on variation across nations, regions, genders, ages, and classes, in both speech and writing, and from both a synchronic and diachronic perspective, with a focus on dialect variation in the English language. Although collections of language data elicited through interviews and questionnaires are now commonly referred to as corpora in sociolinguistics and dialectology (e.g. see Bauer 2002; Tagliamonte 2006; Kretzschmar et al. 2006; D'Arcy 2011), this review focuses on corpora of naturally occurring texts and discourse. The second part of this chapter presents the results of an analysis of variation in not contraction across region, gender, and time in a corpus of American English letters to the editor in order to exemplify a corpus-based approach to dialectology.

Adaptation and change in organizational learning research

To understand the role of organizational learning in the organization’s endeavor to overcome challenges, organizational learning research need to be spread out to the field of adaptation and change. This paper is the first part of a bigger empirical research, a literature review that examines the link between these topics and search for gaps in prior literature. However, these phenomena are closely related in the prior literature, the thinking about organizational learning is rather idealistic than reflective and there are still research gaps regarding the following questions: (1) Is there a need to examine internal organizational challenges from the organizational learning perspective? (2) How can the earlier organizational adaptation be characterized using the constructs of organizational learning? (3) Is the earlier adaptation process or organizational learning process always good and useful for the organization? Based on reviewing prior literature the author formulated an own organizational learning definition and identified future research directions in order to fill these gaps.

Variation and Uncertainty in Evaporation from a Subtropical Estuary: Florida Bay

Variation and uncertainty in estimated evaporation was determined over time and between two locations in Florida Bay, a subtropical estuary. Meteorological data were collected from September 2001 to August 2002 at Rabbit Key and Butternut Key within the Bay. Evaporation was estimated using both vapor flux and energy budget methods. The results were placed into a long-term context using 33 years of temperature and rainfall data collected in south Florida. Evaporation also was estimated from this long-term data using an empirical formula relating evaporation to clear sky solar radiation and air temperature. Evaporation estimates for the 12-mo period ranged from 144 to 175 cm yr21, depending on location and method, with an average of 163 cm yr21 (6 9%). Monthly values ranged from 9.2 to 18.5 cm, with the highest value observed in May, corresponding with the maximum in measured net radiation. Uncertainty estimates derived from measurement errors in the data were as much as 10%, and were large enough to obscure differences in evaporation between the two sites. Differences among all estimates for any month indicate the overall uncertainty in monthly evaporation, and ranged from 9% to 26%. Over a 33-yr period (1970–2002), estimated annual evaporation from Florida Bay ranged from 148 to 181 cm yr21, with an average of 166 cm yr21. Rainfall was consistently lower in Florida Bay than evaporation, with a long-term average of 106 cm yr21. Rainfall considered alone was uncorrelated with evaporation at both monthly and annual time scales; when the seasonal variation in clear sky radiation was also taken into account both net radiation and evaporation were significantly suppressed in months with high rainfall.

Hospitality Managers as Caretakers and Change Agents: A Reconceptualization of the Position

The unit manager in the hospitality organization is presented as a caretaker and a change agent in the organization, a caretaker in maintaining and nurturing the culture of the organization and a change agent in assisting the employees in the acceptance and demonstration of the desired image of the organization. The author reviews the traditional role of the manager and presents a reconceptualization of the position.

A colocação de pronomes clíticos em sentenças infinitivas preposicionadas na escrita brasileira dos séculos XIX e XX

In this work we present the description and analysis of the clitics collocation patterns in prepositional infinitive sentences within the Brazilian writing in the centuries XIX and XX. The corpus in analysis is comprised of letters of newspaper readers and newspaper writers, as well as of advertisements (ads) taken from Brazilian newspapers from different regions / states – Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Ceará and Pernambuco – and written in the Centuries XIX and XX. They belong to the common minimum corpus of the project named Projeto para a História do Português Brasileiro (PHPB or Project to the History of the Brazilian Portuguese, in English). Its analysis is based on theoreticalmethodological postulates of the Theory of Variation and Change (WEINREICH; LABOV; HERZOG, 1968[2006]; LABOV, 1972[2008]); on the Theory of Principles and Parameters (CHOMSKY, 1981, 1986) and on the model of Grammar Competition (KROCH, 1989; 2001). By trying to articulate those presuppositions from both the theories we present a proposition of theoretical interface between the Variation Theory and the Grammar one. Concerning the empirical results achieved by means of this research, we could figure that, in the context in which there were prepositional infinitive sentences, the most significant independent variable to the occurrence of the proclisis is the type of preposition that comes before the verb in the infinitive. Before that, we found out that there are prepositions which strongly direct the proclisis, as it is the case of the prepositions in Portuguese sem, por, de and para, with all of them presenting Relative Weights over 0,52. Another important result is the one attested in the data referring the state of Rio de Janeiro (RJ). This state is the only one of the sample which is located in the Southeastern region and also presents itself as the main proclisis conditioner amongst the localities pertaining to the sample. In order to explain those results, we raised the hypothesis that the proclisis implementation may be more advanced in the Southeastern than in the Northeastern Brazil, however that hypothesis must be confirmed or refuted in future works. We also present, in this work, a theoretical explanation about the clitics colocation in prepositional infinitive sentences within the Brazilian writing in the XIX and XX centuries. The theoretical explanation we found to interpret the achieved results associates Magro’s proposition (2005), regarding the existence of prepositions occupying the nucleus PP and the existence of prepositions which can play the role of a completer and occupy the nucleus CP, according to Galves (2000; 2001), regarding the existent relation between the clitic colocation and the association of traits-phi to the functional categories COMP, Tense and Person. Our proposition is that the occurrence of prepositions which occupy the nucleus CP causes changes in the values attributed to the traits-phi and to the strong Vtraits in the functional categories COMP, Tense and Person. Thus, we defend that proclisis in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) is derived from the movement of the verb to the functional category tense in which there is the association of traits +V and traits +AGR, what legitimates the proclisis according to Galves´s proposition (2000; 2001).

Os possessivos de segunda pessoa em cartas de leitores de jornais brasileiros dos séculos XIX e XX

Based on the theoretical and methodological presuppositions of the theory of language variation and change (cf. WEINREICH; LABOV; HERZOG, 2006 [1968]), it is described and analyzed in this article the process of variation/change concerning the second person possessive pronouns in letters from readers of Brazilian newspapers from the XIX and XX centuries. These letters feature a portrait of the Brazilian press from the South (Santa Catarina), Southeast (Rio de Janeiro) and Northeast (Bahia and Rio Grande do Norte) regions in each century and are part of the Project for Brazilian Portuguese History‘s (PHPB) printed common minimal corpus. The point of departure of this work is the idea that the use of variant forms of expressing second person possessive pronouns – teu and seu – results from the interaction characterizing the varied social roles performed by the letters‘ senders. Arranging communicative units, which gather elements/features denoting time and space, conditioned and determined by socio-historical and cultural aspects, the readers‘ letters, turn out to be a promising research field under the light of this paper. More specifically, In the row of presented results in studies about the pronominal system in the diachroneity of/in Brazilian Portuguese (PB) (FARACO, 2002; LORENGIAN-PENKAL, 2007; CALLOU; LOPES, 2003; LOPES; DUARTE, 2003; MENON, 2005; ARDUIN; COELHO, 2006; LOPES, 2009; MARCOTULIO, 2010), the results featured in here point at different usages of the possessives, noticing the coexistence of the forms teu/tua and seu/sua strongly conditioned by the socio-discursive nature of the readers‘ letters in the course of the centuries and through different regions.

Os possessivos de segunda pessoa em cartas de leitores de jornais brasileiros dos séculos XIX e XX

Based on the theoretical and methodological presuppositions of the theory of language variation and change (cf. WEINREICH; LABOV; HERZOG, 2006 [1968]), it is described and analyzed in this article the process of variation/change concerning the second person possessive pronouns in letters from readers of Brazilian newspapers from the XIX and XX centuries. These letters feature a portrait of the Brazilian press from the South (Santa Catarina), Southeast (Rio de Janeiro) and Northeast (Bahia and Rio Grande do Norte) regions in each century and are part of the Project for Brazilian Portuguese History‘s (PHPB) printed common minimal corpus. The point of departure of this work is the idea that the use of variant forms of expressing second person possessive pronouns – teu and seu – results from the interaction characterizing the varied social roles performed by the letters‘ senders. Arranging communicative units, which gather elements/features denoting time and space, conditioned and determined by socio-historical and cultural aspects, the readers‘ letters, turn out to be a promising research field under the light of this paper. More specifically, In the row of presented results in studies about the pronominal system in the diachroneity of/in Brazilian Portuguese (PB) (FARACO, 2002; LORENGIAN-PENKAL, 2007; CALLOU; LOPES, 2003; LOPES; DUARTE, 2003; MENON, 2005; ARDUIN; COELHO, 2006; LOPES, 2009; MARCOTULIO, 2010), the results featured in here point at different usages of the possessives, noticing the coexistence of the forms teu/tua and seu/sua strongly conditioned by the socio-discursive nature of the readers‘ letters in the course of the centuries and through different regions.

Emotions & Power:Habitus and Change in Late Modernity

(Under contract)

Process Selection Using Variation and Cost Relations

Variations are inherent in all manufacturing processes and can significantly affect the quality of a final assembly, particularly in multistage assembly systems. Existing research in variation management has primarily focused on incorporating GD&T factors into variation propagation models in order to predict product quality and allocate tolerances. However, process induced variation, which has a key influence on process planning, has not been fully studied. Furthermore, the link between variation and cost has not been well established, in particular the effect that assembly process selection has on the final quality and cost of a product. To overcome these barriers, this paper proposes a novel method utilizing process capabilities to establish the relationship between variation and cost. The methodology is discussed using a real industrial case study. The benefits include determining the optimum configuration of an assembly system and facilitating rapid introduction of novel assembly techniques to achieve a competitive edge.

Modeling long-term variability and change of soil moisture and groundwater level - from catchment to global scale

The water stored in and flowing through the subsurface is fundamental for sustaining human activities and needs, feeding water and its constituents to surface water bodies and supporting the functioning of their ecosystems. Quantifying the changes that affect the subsurface water is crucial for our understanding of its dynamics and changes driven by climate change and other changes in the landscape, such as in land-use and water-use. It is inherently difficult to directly measure soil moisture and groundwater levels over large spatial scales and long times. Models are therefore needed to capture the soil moisture and groundwater level dynamics over such large spatiotemporal scales. This thesis develops a modeling framework that allows for long-term catchment-scale screening of soil moisture and groundwater level changes. The novelty in this development resides in an explicit link drawn between catchment-scale hydroclimatic and soil hydraulics conditions, using observed runoff data as an approximation of soil water flux and accounting for the effects of snow storage-melting dynamics on that flux. Both past and future relative changes can be assessed by use of this modeling framework, with future change projections based on common climate model outputs. By direct model-observation comparison, the thesis shows that the developed modeling framework can reproduce the temporal variability of large-scale changes in soil water storage, as obtained from the GRACE satellite product, for most of 25 large study catchments around the world. Also compared with locally measured soil water content and groundwater level in 10 U.S. catchments, the modeling approach can reasonably well reproduce relative seasonal fluctuations around long-term average values. The developed modeling framework is further used to project soil moisture changes due to expected future climate change for 81 catchments around the world. The future soil moisture changes depend on the considered radiative forcing scenario (RCP) but are overall large for the occurrence frequency of dry and wet events and the inter-annual variability of seasonal soil moisture. These changes tend to be higher for the dry events and the dry season, respectively, than for the corresponding wet quantities, indicating increased drought risk for some parts of the world.

Temporal reasoning about action and change

Abstract not available