531 research outputs found
MINERAL DUST ELEMENTAL COMPOSITION OVER THE LAST 220 KYR FROM THE EPICA-DOME C ICE CORE (EAST ANTARCTICA)
No full textMineral windblown aerosol (dust) represents a small fraction of the total mass of atmospheric aerosols. However, it may play an important role in climate and, in turn, it is itself sensitive to climatic changes.The investigation of the temporal variability of dust flux as well as the changes of its mineralogical composition within different climatic periods offers a unique way of assessing the source-related environmental changes, the variation in atmospheric circulation, and the potential influence of dust on biogeochemical cycles, for several key elements (such as Si and Fe). The mineral composition of dust found in ice cores is still poorly known, because few techniques are able to provide information on the chemical composition of the insoluble aerosol fraction, because of the very low mass of dust usually present in polar ice samples. Total volume of mineral content is provided by Coulter Counter measurements, and the dust record shows higher dust input during glacial periods than during interglacials (Delmonte et al., 2004). Sr and Nd isotopic tracers for identification of dust provenance to East Antarctica suggest southern South America as the dominant common source for dust in glacial periods of the late Pleistocene (Delmonte et al., 2004), whereas dust provenance during interglacials periods is still highly uncertain. Elemental composition of mineral dust from the Dome C ice core (75ø 06' S, 123ø 21' E) drilled in the framework of the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) is presented, showing measurements obtained by the Proton Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) technique applied on insoluble atmospheric dust in ice cores. Within this work, substantial improvements to the experimental set-up and data processing have been made, compared to previously presented works on the first 2200 m of the EDC ice core, corresponding to about 220 kyr of climatic history (Marino et al., 2004; Ghermandi et al., 2003). The PIXE technique, based on X-ray spectrometry, allows direct measurements on filters of the insoluble dust fraction without sample pre-treatment, with analytical detection limits less than 1 ppb. The minimum required mass density of sample material on the filter is about 0.1 microg cm-2. Improvements made here allowed us to obtain accurate records of 8 major and minor crustal elements (Si, Al, Fe, Ti, K, Ca, Mg, Na). The data for these 8 elements, as well as their proportions as oxides, are shown for different climatic periods. Because O, Si, Al, Fe, Ti, K, Ca, Mg, Na are the principal constituents (99.90 %
Interaction mining: The new frontier of customer interaction analytics
No full textIn this paper, we present our solution for argumentative analysis of call center conversations in order to provide useful insights for enhancing Customer Interaction Analytics to a level that will enable more qualitative metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) beyond the standard approach used in Customer Interaction Analytics. These metrics rely on understanding the dynamics of conversations by highlighting the way participants discuss about topics. By doing that we can detect relevant situations such as social behaviors, controversial topics, customer oriented behaviors, and also predict customer satisfaction
Transposing Meaning into Immanence: The Poetry of Francis Webb
No full textThis article will be focussing on Webb’s poetic style, and in particular on the use of words and the creation of metaphors. In the preface to his first Collected Poems, by the famous literary critic Herbert Read, we are told that “There is a remarkable coherence in this substantial body of work – published over sixteen years – a steady development of technical virtuosity and a deepening of intellectual and emotional content.”(ibid.,v) There are comparisons that are made with Rilke, (“bot not essential, for its stillness and intensity are quite unique”), for “A Death at Winson Green”, and at end of the preface this is his comment:
Browning and Hopkins are perhaps obvious influences, but we need not seek further for the sources of his prosody, which is not “modern” except in its psychological and metaphysical intensity. From the Beginning Webb has been concerned with the same tragic problems as Rilke, Eliot, Pasternak, and to mention a contemporary who presents a close parallel, Robert Lowell. I cannot, after long meditation on his verse, place his achievements on a level lower than that suggested by these names.”(ibid.,ix
An Automatic Text-to-Speech Prosodic Translator for the Synthesis of Italian
No full textA computer programme for automatic text to speech translation of the prosodic features of standard Italian is presented. The programme produces a complete phonemic transcription, exception made for voice/unvoiced discrimination in the pairs /s,z/ and /ts,dz/, as well as for open/closed pairs in vowels /e,o/. The Prosodic Translator (hence PT) assigns a series of 9 stress markers corresponding to primary stress /1,6,7/; secondary stress marker /2/; unstressed syllable /3/; semiconsonant /4/; strengthened long consonants in false diphthongs /*/; subphonemic variations at word boundaries produce destressing, demoting, or schwa-like effects with synaleopha, which are accounted for by previous figures plus /9,5/; elision by assimilation is marked /0/. Breath groups, pauses and pseudopauses are marked by /+, ++, -, --/. Sentence and text boundaries are marked by /#, §/. Carets /<, >/ mark potentially prominent syllables carrying the burden of the intonation pattern; /</ indicates a demotion of prominence. An alphabetic symbol /A,B/ appears at the beginning of the intonation string indicating interrogative or exclamative basical intonative pattern. Machine time required to process 1,000 words on a CDC 7600 has been surprisingly low: 0.250 cp seconds execution time, the programme being written in FORTRAN IV
Applications of microstructured fibre technology in aerospace and defence
No full textThe EMRS DTC project "Photonic Fibres for Active Sensor Systems" aimed to assess the potential impact of microstructured fibres for security and defence applications. Results achieved have suggested enormous potential for these novel fibre types to influence the next generation of photonic systems for security and defence applications. However, it is important to establish where the fibres can offer the greatest advantages and what research still needs to be done to drive the technology towards real platform solutions
IMMORTALE: Analizzatore Morfologico, Tagger e Lemmatizzatore per l'Italiano
No full textPresentiamo un sistema di analisi testuale per grandi corpora organizzato in quattro componenti principali: il tokenizzatore, i dizionari, l'analizzatore morfologico e il lemmatizzatore automatico, il disambiguatore sintattico. Il sistema utilizza regole linguistiche per generare le analisi sulla base di dizionari di morfemi e forme suppletive. Il punto di forza del sistema sta nella capacità di riconoscimento di parole sconosciute, cioè di parole non riconoscibili sulla base della sola morfologia flessionale. In questi casi, il sistema attiva i processi di derivazione per affissi che controllano la buona formazione della analisi con restrizioni linguistiche. Un'altra importante caratteristica del sistema, è costituita dalla sua capacità di costruire forme polirematiche o collocazioni di vario genere sulla base di una grammatica a stati finiti. Una serie di forme idiomatiche in cui la testa è costituita da un verbo leggero o "light verb" e da una sequenza fissa di parole viene riconosciuta grazie alla lemmatizzazione. Per finire, la fase finale di disambiguazione non viene basata con una fase di training e con metodo statistico, ma su basi strettamente linguistiche. Vengono utilizzate reti di transizione per costruire una analisi sintattica shallow, in cui il raggiungimento della testa coincide con la presenza di un arco di tipo POP o di tipo PUSH
A Computational Approach to Poetic Structure, Rhythm and Rhyme
No full textIn this paper we present SPARSAR, a system for the automatic analysis of English and Italian poetry. The system can work on any type of poem and produces a set of parameters that are then used to compare poems with one another, of the same author or of different authors. In this paper, we will concentrate on the second module, which is a rule-based system to represent and analyze poetic devices. Evaluation of the system on the basis of a manually created dataset - including poets from Shakespeare's time down to T.S.Eliot and Sylvia Plath - has shown its high precision and accuracy approximating 90%
Exploring Speech Technologies for Language Learning
No full textThe teaching of the pronunciation of any foreign language must encompass both segmental and suprasegmental aspects
of speech. In computational terms, the two levels of language learning activities can be decomposed at least into
phonemic aspects, which include the correct pronunciation of single phonemes and the co-articulation of phonemes into
higher phonological units; as well as prosodic aspects which include
the correct position of stress at word level;
the alternation of stress and unstressed syllables in terms of compensation and vowel reduction;
the correct position of sentence accent;
the generation of the adequate rhymth from the interleaving of stress, accent, and phonological rules;
the generation of adequate intonational pattern for each utterance related to communicative functions;
As appears from above, for a student to communicate intelligibly and as close as possible to native-speaker's
pronunciation, prosody is very important [3]. We also assume that an incorrect prosody may hamper communication
from taking place and this may be regarded a strong motivation for having the teaching of Prosody as an integral part of
any language course. From our point of view it is much more important to stress the achievement of successful
communication as the main objective of a second language learner rather than the overcoming of what has been termed
“foreign accent”, which can be deemed as a secondary goal. In any case, the two goals are certainly not coincident even
though they may be overlapping in some cases. We will discuss about these matter in the following sections.
All prosodic questions related to “rhythm” will be discussed in the first section of this chapter. In [4] the author argues
in favour of prosodic aids, in particular because a strong placement of word stress may impair understanding from the
listener’s point of view of the word being pronounced. He also argues in favour of acquiring correct timing of
phonological units to overcome the impression of “foreign accent” which may ensue from an incorrect distribution of
stressed vs. unstressed stretches of linguistic units such as syllables or metric feet. Timing is not to be confused with
speaking rate which need not be increased forcefully to give the impression of a good fluency: trying to increase
speaking rate may result in lower intelligibility. The question of “foreign accent” is also discussed at length in (Jilka M.,
1999). This work is particularly relevant as far as intonational features of a learner of a second language which we will
address in the second section of this chapter. Correcting the Intonational Foreign Accent (hence IFA) is an important
component of a Prosodic Module for self-learning activities, as categorical aspects of the intonation of the two languages
in contact, L1 and L2 are far apart and thus neatly distinguishable. Choice of the two languages in contact is determined
mainly by the fact that the distance in prosodic terms between English and Italian is maximal, according to (Ramus, F.
and J. Mehler, 1999; Ramus F., et al., 1999)
EFFECTS OF PHYSICAL EXERCISE AFTER ISLET TRANSPLANTATION: GLICEMIC CONTROL, PERFORMANCE AND AUTOIMMUNITY IN AN HALF MARATHON RUNNER
No full textEFFECTS OF PHYSICAL EXERCISE AFTER ISLET TRANSPLANTATION: GLICEMIC CONTROL, PERFORMANCE AND AUTOIMMUNITY IN AN HALF MARATHON RUNNER
Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) is a chronically progressive autoimmune disease in which the adverse immune response compromises the pancreatic β-cell function, impairing blood glucose control. In the worst case, when exogenous insulin therapy is not sufficient to manage the disorder, Islet transplantation (IT) could be a possible intervention for restoring the glycemic control. Anyway immunosuppressive therapy, autoimmune response and adverse events can lead to the progression of graft dysfunction and to several side effects. Physical activity might influence in a positive way the outcome of this clinical frame.
We will discuss the feasibility of physical activity in immunosuppressed patients, its possible helpful contribution to the management of diabetes after IT and its role for mitigating the side effects of chronic pharmacological regime with the mean to report a concrete example of physical training as complementary therapy in the managing of T1DM and graft dysfunction after IT.
We have monitored longitudinally a T1 DM amateur half-marathon runner (M, 44yrs) for autoimmunity markers, metabolic profile and physical performance in the 7 years since he received IT.
After a sedentary period of insulin independence post-transplantation (HbA1c, 48mmol/mol; 6.5%), he started a classical endurance training, culminated with a half-marathon performance of 1h45’ and accompanied by a reduction of HbA1c (41mmol/mol, 5.9%). Subsequently, because injured, he had to rest and his glycemia and HbA1c worsened (51mmol/mol, 6.8%) so that he had to reintroduce exogenous insulin (4-6U/day). When he could finally resume an ad hoc training (aerobic, anaerobic, interval) his HbA1c levels diminished (34mmol/mol, 5.3%) and he could suspend insulin therapy again. In this ultimate period, his performance time improved by 10.5% (1h34’). The markers of autoimmunity and inflammation were never affected by the training and remained stable during the entire follow up.
For this patient physical exercise plausibly act improving the insulin sensitivity and diabetic symptoms, mitigating the side effects of immunosuppression without interfering with the autoimmune profile.
Further studies are desirable to better orchestrate an ad hoc exercise regime associated with an optimal management of T1D, graft function and an ameliorated performance
Scaling up a NLU system from text to dialogue understanding
No full textIn this paper we will present work carried out to scale up the system for text understanding called GETARUNS, and port it to be used in dialogue understanding. We will present the adjustments we made in order to cope with transcribed spoken dialogues like those produced in the ICSI Berkely project. In a final section we present preliminary evaluation of the system on non-referential pronominals individuation
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