Showing papers on "Naturalness published in 2000"

Multi-TeV Scalars are Natural in Minimal Supergravity

Abstract: For a top quark mass fixed to its measured value, we find natural regions of minimal supergravity parameter space where all squarks, sleptons, and heavy Higgs scalars have masses far above 1 TeV and are possibly beyond the reach of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. This result is simply understood in terms of ``focus point'' renormalization group behavior and holds in any supergravity theory with a universal scalar mass that is large relative to other supersymmetry breaking parameters. We highlight the importance of the choice of fundamental parameters for this conclusion and for naturalness discussions in general.

The Natural Imperative for Biological Conservation

Abstract: To contribute significantly to environmnentalpolicy of the next century, conservationists wi.ll need to reach a consensus on their fundamental values and goals and to persuade society to adopt tbem. Resolu- tion of the debate over the continued role of naturalness as a guiding concept bas imnportant implications for how conservation is practiced and the future of the discipline. I examine five aspects of naturalness in the context of biological conservation: (1) its utility, (2) its assessment, (3) its relation to values and ethics, (4) al- ternative imperatives,, and (5) implications of adopting it as a guiding concept. Naturalness can be viewed as a continuous gradient with comnpletely natural and completely artificial extremes. Human actions are unnat- ural to the extent that they rely on technology to transform natural ecosystems. The ecological consequences of technological transformnation often overwhelm the capacity of other biota to adapt and are a root cause of biodiversity loss. The naturalness of most ecosystems or ecosystem alterations can be assessed objectively de- spite imperfect knowledge if evolutionary limits and natural ranges of variability are carefaully considered. Most conservationists value naturally evolved biotic elements such as genomes and communities over artifi- cial elements. This judgment, which is not shared by society at large, is based on intrinsic and instrumental

The `LEP paradox'

Abstract: Is there a Higgs? Where is it? Is supersymmetry there? Where is it? By discussing these questions, we call attention to the `LEP paradox', which is how we see the naturalness problem of the Fermi scale after a decade of electroweak precision measurements, mostly done at LEP.

Indicators of Wildness: Using Attributes of the Land to Assess the Context of Wilderness

Abstract: Land can be described in a space defined by two funda- mental qualities: naturalness and freedom. The axis of naturalness describes the wholeness of the ecosystem relative to a historical norm, while the axis of freedom describes the degree to which land remains outside of human control. Some land can be natural but not free, and vice versa, but the most natural and free are the most wild — they are the lands we recognize as wilderness. These concepts are illustrated through the mapping of indicators of wildness, derived from readily available data in a Geographic Information System.

Natural Quintessence

Abstract: We formulate conditions for the naturalness of cosmological quintessence scenarios The quintessence lagrangian is taken to be the sum of a simple exponential potential and a non-canonical kinetic term This parameterization covers most variants of quintessence and makes the naturalness conditions particularly transparent Several ``natural'' scalar models lead, for the present cosmological era, to a large fraction of homogeneous dark energy density and an acceleration of the scale factor as suggested by observation

The 'LEP paradox'

Abstract: Is there a Higgs? Where is it? Is supersymmetry there? Where is it? By discussing these questions, we call attention to the `LEP paradox', which is how we see the naturalness problem of the Fermi scale after a decade of electroweak precision measurements, mostly done at LEP.

Correlation between Emotive, Descriptive and Naturalness Attributes in Subjective Data Relating to Spatial Sound Reproduction

Abstract: In an experiment, inspired by aspects of the Repertory Grid Technique, to find the dimensions forming the perceived spatial impression of a sound reproducing system, subjects frequently described their experiences as being either natural or artificial These results are analyzed using multivariate methods to investigate the correlation between attributes relating to naturalness and other more descriptive attributes

Viable supersymmetric models with an inverted scalar mass hierarchy at the grand unified theory scale

Abstract: Supersymmetric models with an inverted mass hierarchy (IMH: multi-TeV first and second generation matter scalars, and sub-TeV third generation and Higgs scalars) have been proposed to ameliorate phenomenological problems arising from flavor changing neutral currents and CP violating processes, while satisfying conditions of naturalness. Models with an IMH already in place at the grand unified theory (GUT) scale have been shown to be constrained in that, for many model parameter choices, the top squark squared mass is driven to negative values. We delineate regions of parameter space where viable models with a GUT scale IMH can be generated. We find that larger values of GUT scale first and second generation scalar masses act to suppress third generation scalars, leading to acceptable solutions if GUT scale gaugino masses are large enough. We show examples of viable models and comment on their characteristic features. For example, in these models the gluino mass is bounded from below, and effectively decouples, whilst third generation scalars remain at sub-TeV levels. While possibly fulfilling criteria of naturalness, these models present challenges for detection at future pp and e{sup +}e{sup -} collider experiments.

Predicting the usefulness and naturalness of color reproductions

Abstract: We present algorithms for predicting the usefulness and naturalness of color reproductions of natural scenes. The algorithms are based on a computational model of the stages that lead to an observer's impression of the usefulness and naturalness of an image. These stages are (1) the perception, or internal quantification, of color; (2) the construction of a memory standard for an object's color based on its color as observed in the past; and (3) matching of observed object colors with memory standards. In the first of the above stages, the internal quantification of color, the concept of (partially) flexible metrics plays a central role. To test the usefulness algorithm, it was used to predict the discrimination of detail in black and white images of which the contrast was manipulated by applying an s-shaped transform on CIE 1976 lightness L * . The naturalness algorithm was tested by using it to predict the naturalness of the grass, skin, or sky areas of images of which the color was manipulated by shifting CIE 1976 hue angle h uv and scaling CIE 1976 saturation s uv of the grass, skin, or sky areas of the images. The predictions produced in these tests correspond quite well to experimentally obtained judgments of human subjects.

Improving naturalness of Thai text-to-speech synthesis by prosodic rule.

Abstract: This paper presents a method to improve the naturalness of Thai Text-to-speech synthesis, in 4 main parts. In the pausing module, its main function is to determine the break location when synthesizing a Thai text which has no explicit sentence/phrase/word boundary. In the syllable duration and tone generation, a set of rules is provided to generate proper prosodic parameters for synthesizing more natural speech. The syllable duration rule is applied using the Klatt’s method to handle the task in syllabic frame. The tonal rule considers the effect of tonal coarticulation and F0 downdrift in generating the F0 contour parameter. In the demisyllable concatenation, the TD-PSOLA technique is applied to modify the waveform for obtaining the required prosody. The LSP-based concatenated boundary smoothing is also included to imitate the crosssyllable coarticulation effect. The result of comparative quality test shows a significant improvement in our proposed method.

A "natural" lexicalization model for language generation

Abstract: We propose a general lexicalization model which accounts for how lexical units are selected and introduced in linguistic utterances during language generation. This model aims at “naturalness” by being based on actual lexical knowledge used in speech; consequently, it should be compatible with standard patterns of behavior shown by humans when they speak (flexibility in computing both content and form of linguistic utterances, prototypical types of mistakes and backtracking, etc.). The main advantage of our model, once implemented in automatic language generation, is that it takes into account fundamental differences that exist between lexical units, with regard to why and how they are used in texts. This is achieved by means of a stratificational approach to lexicalization, where each type of lexical unit is introduced at a proper level of representation, according to the role it plays in the enunciation. Section 1 offers a general characterization of the approach and makes explicit its main assumptions. Sections 2 to 4 successively examine the three levels of transition implied by the stratificational structuring of the model. Section 5 concludes with an examination of its relevance to the design of text generation systems.

Segmentation of prosodic phrases for improving the naturalness of synthesized Mandarin Chinese speech.

Abstract: It is noticed that i n natural speech sentences are breaked into breath groups. Some words seem to be more closely grouped with adjacent words: we call these groups prosodic phrases. In order to improve the naturalness of synthesized speech, prosodic processing in both text-processing component and speech generation component is needed. The text-processing component is more important because the performance of speech generation component is dependent on the ability of the previous one. This paper discussed how to break sentences into prosodic phrases. At first, for segmentation of prosodic phrases, the text is segmented into Chinese words. Then these words are annotated with an automatic Part-of-Speech tagger. Adjacent words which have close syntactic relation are grouped to form prosodic phrases using the POS tags and syntactic phrase structure information. When breaking prosodic phrases other factors must be taken into consideration, such as speech velocity, pragmatic knowledge, the context, and the speaker's feeling. The POS tagging algorithm is based on integration of the statistical method and rule method.2-Gram Markov language model is used in the algorithm. The most likely POS sequence for a given sentence is found by searching through the language model and picking the most likely path. Then the rule method is used to correct the errors caused by statistical method, which identifies a word's category using context information. Through experiments the tagger correctly tagged 94% of words in an independent test set of 1.2 thousand Chinese characters. Based on rules, the lexical information and phrase structure information will be used to form prosodic phrases. Through experiments we obtained a break-correct figure of 86% and a recall rate of 90%. After segmentation of prosodic phrases, these grouped words are read continuously when the text is converted to speech. And the naturalness of synthesized speech is improved.

Assessment of naturalness in the ProSynth speech synthesis project

Abstract: This paper describes the approach to the assessment of the naturalness of synthetic speech taken within the ProSynth collaborative speech synthesis project. The view expressed is that an important aspect of naturalness is ease of understanding, and the consequences are that this leads to a means for the evaluation of scientific hypotheses through perceptual tests. The premise within ProSynth is that listeners' processing of synthetic speech will be faster and more accurate when the signal includes phonetic fine detail that systematically varies with the linguistic structure. Four perceptual experiments are outlined which demonstrate both the application of the approach and the effectiveness of the basic principle. 1. Introduction: What is Naturalness? What would it mean to say that synthetic speech was 'natural' sounding? A naive answer would be that such a signal 'could have been produced' by a human being; a more stringent answer that the signal 'is indistinguishable' from human speech; an operational answer that the speech is 'typical' of human production of that sentence.

Naturalness: the scale formats >sem (+1-A, -A) and >sem (+1-A, +A)

Abstract: The subject-matter of my paper is a (language-universal) theory developed in Slovenia by a small group of linguists (under my guidance), who mainly use English, German, and Slovenian language material as the base of verification. Our work owes much to, and exploits, the (linguistic) Naturalness Theory as elaborated especially at some Austrian and German universities; cf. Mayerthaler 1981, Wurzel 1984, Dressler et al. 1987, Stolz 1992. Naturalness Theory has also been applied to syntax, notably at the University of Klagenfurt; the basic references are Dotter 1990, Mayerthaler & Fliedl1993, Mayerthaler et al. 1993, 1995, 1998. Within the natural syntax ofthe Kla­ genfurt brand, the Slovenian work group has built an extension, which will henceforth be referred to as "the Slovenian Theory."

Criticism of naturalness: naturalness or frequency of occurrence?

Abstract: Frequenzargumente lassen sich unseres Erachtens in der morphologietheoretischen Diskussion... kaum argumentativ einsetzen. Statistik ist für den Linguisten... von unbestrittenem heuristischen Wert, spielt aber in der einmal nachkonstruierten, postheurischen Grammatik keine Rolle mehr, bzw. ist nicht mögliches Element der Strukturbeschreibung irgendwelcher grammatischer Regeln... Keinerlei Statistik erlaubt den Nachweis implikationaler Pattern, es scheinen aber gerade Implikationspattern zu sein, die erworben werden. Auch im Bereich der Sprachvariation ist Frequenz oder dgl... weitgehend ein Epiphänomen ohne explanative Funktion.

Hybrid Inflation and Supergravity

Abstract: Hybrid inflation is a natural scenario in the absence of supersymmetry. In the context of supergravity, however, it has to face the naturalness problems of the initial conditions and of the adequate suppression of the inflaton mass. Both can be successfully addressed in a class of models involving Kaehler potentials associated with products of SU(1,1)/U(1) Kaehler manifolds and "decoupled" fields acquiring large vacuum expectation values through D-terms.

Toward Chiral Theory of NN interactions in nuclear matter

Abstract: The effective chiral theory of the in-medium NN interactions is considered. The shallow bound states, which complicate the effective field theory analysis in vacuum do not exist in matter. We show that the next-to-leading order terms in the chiral expansion of the effective Lagrangian can be interpreted as corrections so that the expansion is systematic. The Low Energy Effective Constants of this Lagrangian are found to satisfy the concept of naturalness. The potential energy per particle is calculated. The problems and challenges in constructing the chiral theory of nuclear matter are outlined.

Toward Chiral Theory of NN interactions in nuclear matter

Abstract: The effective chiral theory of the in-medium NN interactions is considered. The shallow bound states, which complicate the effective field theory analysis in vacuum do not exist in matter. We show that the next-to-leading order terms in the chiral expansion of the effective Lagrangian can be interpreted as corrections so that the expansion is systematic. The Low Energy Effective Constants of this Lagrangian are found to satisfy the concept of naturalness. The potential energy per particle is calculated. The problems and challenges in constructing the chiral theory of nuclear matter are outlined.