LANDMARK-BASED SPEECH RECOGNITION: REPORT OF THE 2004 JOHNS HOPKINS SUMMER WORKSHOP.

Three research prototype speech recognition systems are described, all of which use recently developed methods from artificial intelligence (specifically support vector machines, dynamic Bayesian networks, and maximum entropy classification) in order to implement, in the form of an automatic speech recognizer, current theories of human speech perception and phonology (specifically landmark-based speech perception, nonlinear phonology, and articulatory phonology). All three systems begin with a high-dimensional multiframe acoustic-to-distinctive feature transformation, implemented using support vector machines trained to detect and classify acoustic phonetic landmarks. Distinctive feature probabilities estimated by the support vector machines are then integrated using one of three pronunciation models: a dynamic programming algorithm that assumes canonical pronunciation of each word, a dynamic Bayesian network implementation of articulatory phonology, or a discriminative pronunciation model trained using the methods of maximum entropy classification.

Slow motion, trapping, and sorting of water- and chloroform-soluble porphyrins in nanowells.

A two-step self-assembly procedure on smooth, aminated silica particles established holey monolayers. At first, single, flat-lying porphyrin tetraamides (A) were bound covalently, followed by the build-up of a rigid monolayer made of diamido bolaamphiphiles (bolas) around the porphyrin islands. "Nanowells" around porphyrin (A) bottoms with a uniform diameter of 2.

Aminoglycoside antibiotics aggregate to form starch-like fibers on negatively charged surfaces and on phage lambda-DNA.

The water-soluble (> 200 mg/mL) antibiotics tobramycin, kanamycin, and neomycin spontaneously produce rigid fibers on negatively charged surfaces (mica, graphite, DNA). Atomic force microscopy showed single strands of tobramycin on mica at pH 7 with a length of several hundred nanometers and a diameter of 0.5 nm and double helices with a diameter of 1.

Porphyrin-acetylene-thiophene polymer wires.

5,15-Bis[acetylene-4-(ethylenedioxy)thiophene]-10,20-bis(4-carboxyphenyl)porphyrin was synthesized by a Sonogashira coupling and polymerized to fibres; TEM and AFM images show uniform porphyrin wires with a length of several micrometers and a thickness of less than 4 nm.

Nanowells on silica particles in water containing long-distance porphyrin heterodimers.

Smooth and nonswelling spherical silica particles with a diameter of 100 nm and an aminopropyl coating are soluble in water at pH 11, coagulate quickly at pH 3, and redissolve at pH 9. Electron microscopy as well as visible spectra of covalently attached porphyrins indicate the aggregation state of the particles. Long-chain alpha,omega-dicarboxylic acids with a terminal oligoethyleneglycol (=OEG)-amide group were attached in a second self-assembly step to the remaining amine groups around the porphyrins.

[Effect of bilirubin derivative on HIV-1 in vitro].

Background: To study the effect of DTB against HIV-1, for developing anti-HIV drugs.

Methods: Different concentration of DTB was added to cell culture system after viral inoculation, MTT staining method for viable cells (MTT assay) and p24 (ELISA) were used as markers to monitor the viral replication.

Results: The inhibition rates of DTB at concentrations 160, 80, and 40mg/ml were 93.

An isoleucine-leucine substitution in chloroplastic acetyl-CoA carboxylase from green foxtail (Setaria viridis L. Beauv.) is responsible for resistance to the cyclohexanedione herbicide sethoxydim.

The cDNAs encoding chloroplastic acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACCase, EC 6.4.1.