A Study of Segmental and Syllabic Intervals of Canonical Babbling and Early Speech*

( Xiaoxiang Chen ),( Yunnan Xiao ) 경희대학교 비교문화연구소 2012 비교문화연구 Vol.28 No.-

Interval or duration of segments, syllables, words and phrases is an important acoustic feature which influences the naturalness of speech. A number of cross-sectional studies regarding acoustic characteristics of children`s speech development found that intervals of segments, syllables, words and phrases tend to change with the growing age. One hypothesis assumed that decreases in intervals would be greater when children were younger and smaller decreases in intervals when older (Thelen ,1991 ), it has been supported by quite a number of researches on the basis of cross-sectional studies (Tingley & Allen, 1975; Kent & Forner, 1980; Chermark & Schnerderman, 1986), but the other bypothesis predicted that decreases in intervals would be smaller when children were younger and greater decreases in intervals when older (Smith, Kenney & Hussain, 1996). Researchers seem to come up with conflicting postulations and inconsistent results about the change trends concerning intervals of segments, syllables, words and phrases, leaving it as an issue unresolved. Most acoustic investigations of children`s speech production have been conducted via cross-sectional designs, which involves studying several groups of children, So far, there are only a few longitudinal studies, This issue needs more longitudinao investigations; moreover, the acoustic measures of the intervals of child speech are hardly available. All former studies focus on word stages excluding the babbling stages especially the canonical babbling stage, but we need to find out when concrete changes of intervals begin to occur and what causes the changes. Therefore, we conducted an acoustic study of interval characteristics of segments and words concerning Canonical Babble (CB) and early speech in an infant aged from 0;9 to 2;4 acquiring Mandarin Chinese, The current research addresses the following two questions: 1, Whether decreases in interval would be greater when children were younger and smaller when they were older or vice versa? 2. Whether the child speech concerning the acoustic features of interval drifts in the direction of the language they are exposed to? The female infant whose L1 was Southern Mandarin living in Changsha was audio- and video-taped at her home for about one hour almost on a weekly basis during her age range from 0;9 to 2;4 under natural observation by us investigators. The recordings were digitized. Parts of the digitized material were labeled. All the repetitions were excluded. The utterances were extracted from 44sessions ranging from 30 minutes to one hour. The utterances were divided into segments as well as syllable-sized units. Age stages are 0;9-1;0,1;1-1;5, 1;6-2;0,2;1-2;4. The subject was a monolingual normal child from parents with a good education. The infant was audio-and video-taped in her home almost every week. The data were digitized, segments and syllables from 44sessions spanning the transition from babble to speech were transcrtbed in narrow IPA and coded for analysis. Babble was coded from age 0;9-1;0 , and words were coded from 1;0 to 2;4, the data has been checked by two professionally trained persons who majored in phonetics. The present investigation is a longitudinal analysis of some temporal characteristics of the child speech during the age periods of 0;9-1;0, 1;1-1;5, 1;6-2;0, 2;1-2;4. The answer to Research Question 1 is that our results are in agreement with neither of the hypotheses. One hypothesis assumed that decreases in intervals would be greater when children were younger and smaller decreases in intervals when older (Theln ,1991); but the other hypothesis predicted that decreases in intervals would be smaller when children were younger and greater decreases in intervals when older (Smith, Kenney & Hussain, 1996). On the whole, there is a tendency of decrease in segmental and syllabic duration with the growing age, but the changes are not drastic and abrupt. For example, /a/ after /k/ in Table 1 has greater decrease during 1;1-1;5, while /a/ after /p/, /t/ and /w/ has greater decrease during 2;1-2;4. /ka/ has greater decrease during 1;1-1;5, while /ta/ and /na/ has greater decrease during 2;1-2;4. Across the age periods, interval change experiences lots of fluctuation all the time. The answer to Research Question 2 is yes. Babbling stage is a period in which the children`s acoustic features of intervals of segments, syllables, words and phrases is shifted in the direction of the language to be learned, babbling and children`s speech emergence is greatly influenced by ambient language. The phonetic changes in terms of duration would go on until as late as 10-12 years of ambient language, the variation, the variation would be less and less until they attain the adult-like competence. Via the analysis of the SPSS 15.0, the decrease of segmental and syllabic intervals across the four age periods to be of no significant is continuous. It reveals that the process of child speech development is gradual and cumulative.

Heterogeneous amino acid-based tungstophosphoric acids as efficient and recyclable catalysts for selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol

Xiaoxiang Han,Yingying Kuang,Chunhua Xiong,Xiujuan Tang,Qing Chen,Chin-Te Hung,Li-Li Liu,Shang-Bin Liu 한국화학공학회 2017 Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering Vol.34 No.7

A series of organic-inorganic composite catalysts, prepared by modifying tungstophosphoric acid (TPA; H3PW12O40) with different amino acids such as phenylalanine (Phe), alanine (Ala), and glycine (Gly) were synthesized. The physicochemical and acidic properties of these (MH)xH3−xPW12O40 (M=Phe, Ala, and Gly; x=1-3) composite materials were characterized by a variety of different analytical and spectroscopic techniques, namely TGA, XRD, FTIR, XPS, and NMR, and exploited as heterogeneous catalysts for selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol (BzOH) with hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). Among them, the [PheH]H2PW12O40 catalyst exhibited the best oxidative activity with an excellent BzOH conversion of 99.0% and a desirable benzaldehyde (BzH) selectivity of 99.6%. Further kinetic studies and model analysis by response surface methodology (RSM) revealed that the oxidation of BzOH with H2O2 follows a second-order reaction with an activation energy of 56.7 kJ·mol−1 under optimized experimental variables: BzOH/H2O2 molar ratio=1 : 1.5mol/mol, amount of catalyst=6.1 wt%, reaction time (x3)=3.8 h, and amount of water (x4)=30.2mL.

Effect of grinding depth on fatigue fracture behaviors of 40Cr steel

Jianzhi Chen,Guochao Li,Ning Li,Xiaoyan Guan,Yan Wang,Zhen Xu,Xiaoxiang Bai,Honggen Zhou 대한기계학회 2023 JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Vol.37 No.4

40Cr steel specimens were ground with different grinding depth (a p ) varied from 0 μm to 35 μm, and the rotary bending fatigue behaviors of ground specimens were investigated. Fatigue results show that the fatigue life of ground specimens exhibits an increasing first and then decreasing tendency with the increment of a p , the specimen with a p of 15 μm exhibits the highest fatigue life, and the effect of a p on fatigue damage behaviors of ground specimens were analyzed from aspects of surface roughness, work hardening and compressive residual stress. Multiple crack initiation of fatigue fractured specimens was observed, the number of crack initiation sites tends to increase first and then decrease with increasing a p . The relationship model between the fatigue striation width and the a p was established, and the prediction deviation of the model is ~2.08 %. It is expected that the model may provide new clues for optimizing the grinding process of mechanical parts.

Effects of compound traditional Astragalus and Salvia Miltiorrhiza extract on acute and chronic hepatic injury

Yan Yang,Xiaoxiang Zhang,Xin Liu,Chao Wu,Min-Zhu Chen 셀메드 세포교정의약학회 2013 셀메드 (CellMed) Vol.3 No.2

Previous reports showed that Compound Astragalus and Salvia miltiorrhiza extract (CASE), which was mainly composed of astragalosides, astragalus polysaccharide and salvianolic acids, inhibited hepatic fibrosis by mediating transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β)/Smad signaling. Our aim was to examine the effects of CASE on D-galactosamine (D-GalN) treated liver injury in mice and carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-induced liver fibrosis in rats. CASE was administered to mice with D-GalN-induced liver injury and to rats with CCl4-induced liver fibrosis, respectively. Liver injury was routinely evaluated by relative liver weight, serum levels of ALT, AST, hyaluronic acid (HA), hepatic malondialdehyde (MDA) content, superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity, hydroxyproline (HYP) and histopathologic changes. Treatment of mice with CASE (60, 120, and 240 mg/kg, ig) significantly lowered ALT, relative liver weight, and MDA levels when compared with D-GalN treated mice. CASE (120, 240 mg/kg) significantly lowered ALT, AST, HA, HYP, and MDA levels against CCl4 treated rats. Decreased SOD level was reversed with CASE treatment. Upon histopathological examination, CASE treatment had significantly inhibitory effect on the progression of hepatic fibrosis in rats. These results indicate that CASE might be effective in treatment and prevention of acute and chronic hepatic injury due to its antioxidant activity.

Curcumin attenuates renal ischemia reperfusion injury via JNK pathway with the involvement of p300/CBP-mediated histone acetylation

Lu Yang,Xiaoxiang Chen,Zirong Bi,Jun Liao,Weian Zhao,Wenqi Huang 대한생리학회-대한약리학회 2021 The Korean Journal of Physiology & Pharmacology Vol.25 No.5

Apoptosis is proved responsible for renal damage during ischemia/reperfusion. The regulation for renal apoptosis induced by ischemia/reperfusion injury (IRI) has still been unclearly characterized to date. In the present study, we investigated the regulation of histone acetylation on IRI-induced renal apoptosis and the molecular mechanisms in rats with the application of curcumin possessing a variety of biological activities involving inhibition of apoptosis. Sprague–Dawley rats were randomized into four experimental groups (SHAM, IRI, curcumin, SP600125). Results showed that curcumin significantly decreased renal apoptosis and caspase-3/-9 expression and enhanced renal function in IRI rats. Treatment with curcumin in IRI rats also led to the decrease in expression of p300/cyclic AMP response element-binding protein (CBP) and activity of histone acetyltransferases (HATs). Reduced histone H3 lysine 9 (H3K9) acetylation was found near the promoter region of caspase-3/-9 after curcumin treatment. In a similar way, SP600125, an inhibitor of c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK), also attenuated renal apoptosis and enhanced renal function in IRI rats. In addition, SP600125 suppressed the binding level of p300/CBP and H3K9 acetylation near the promoter region of caspase-3/-9, and curcumin could inhibit JNK phosphorylation like SP600125. These results indicate that curcumin could attenuate renal IRI via JNK/p300/CBP-mediated anti-apoptosis signaling.

Balance for relative homology with respect to semidualizing modules

Zhenxing Di,Xiaoxiang Zhang,Jianlong Chen 대한수학회 2015 대한수학회보 Vol.52 No.1

We derive in the paper the tensor product functor $-\otimes_R-$ by using proper $\mathcal {G}\mathcal {P}_C$-resolutions, where $C$ is a semidualizing module. After giving several cases in which different relative homologies agree, we use the Pontryagin duals of $\mathcal {G}_C$-projective modules to establish a balance result for such relative homology over a Cohen-Macaulay ring with a dualizing module $D$.

BALANCE FOR RELATIVE HOMOLOGY WITH RESPECT TO SEMIDUALIZING MODULES

Di, Zhenxing,Zhang, Xiaoxiang,Chen, Jianlong Korean Mathematical Society 2015 대한수학회보 Vol.52 No.1

We derive in the paper the tensor product functor -${\otimes}_R$- by using proper $\mathcal{GP}_C$-resolutions, where C is a semidualizing module. After giving several cases in which different relative homologies agree, we use the Pontryagin duals of $\mathcal{G}_C$-projective modules to establish a balance result for such relative homology over a Cohen-Macaulay ring with a dualizing module D.

Magnetic Field Model of Macro-motion of Coaxial Integrated Macro-micro Composite Actuator

Caofeng Yu,Zhuo Chen,Meijun Xiong,Yu Wang, Rui Shi,Xiaoxiang Sun 한국자기학회 2021 Journal of Magnetics Vol.26 No.1

Synthesis of novel Brønsted–Lewis acidic ionic liquid catalysts and their catalytic activities in acetalization

Yan Wei,Han Xiaoxiang,Chen Keke,Zhang Xiaofang,Kuang Yingying,Tang Xiujuan 한국공업화학회 2015 Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry Vol.29 No.-

Ionic liquid catalysts which combine the characters of the Brønsted–Lewis solid acids and the ionic liquidare prepared. The obtained composite materials were well characterized by FT-IR, TGA, 1H NMR, 13CNMR and investigated their performance for acetalization. The acid strength was determined by theHammett method combined with UV–vis spectroscopy. Response surface methodology (RSM) wasapplied to optimize the synthesis of benzaldehyde glycol acetal and the effects of various reactionconditions. A Box–Behnken experimental Design (BBD) was employed to search for the optimal yield. The kinetic study for the acetalization was performed under the optimum operating conditions

Physiological and omics analysis of maize inbred lines during late grain development

Jin Xining,Zhai Huijie,Wang Pingxi,Zhang Xiaoxiang,Wu Xiangyuan,Zhang Huaisheng,Chen Shilin,Huang Zhongwen 한국유전학회 2022 Genes & Genomics Vol.44 No.8

Background: There were significant differences in the change of moisture content and grain composition at the late stage of grain development among different maize varieties, but the regulation mechanism is not clear. Objective: To explore the key genes causing the variation in physiological traits of two typical maize inbred lines in late grain development. Methods: The grains at different development stages were selected as materials to determine the content of water, sucrose, starch and ABA. Transcriptomic and proteomic analysis of the materials were performed to screen relevant genes. Results: The grain dehydration rate and the content of sucrose, starch and ABA were showed significant differences between two varieties in the late stage of grain development. The enrichment analysis of common differentially expressed genes (proteins) showed that most of the genes (proteins) were enriched in the extracellular region. The downregulated genes were mainly concentrated in carbohydrate metabolism and lipid metabolism, while the upregulated genes were mainly in response to stress. Furthermore, this study also identified many key candidate genes (dehydrin genes, pathogenesis-related genes, sucrose synthase and secondary metabolites related genes) related to late grain development of maize. Conclusions: The suggested genes related to late grain development of maize can be candidates for further functional study.