Abstract: According to one embodiment, a semiconductor device has a substrate comprising an element isolation area, a plurality of tetragonal active areas on the substrate separated by the element isolation area from each other, each of the active areas having an impurity diffusion area, a large active area comprising at least a part of the active areas, an outline of the large active area including a bump. Among the impurity diffusion areas of the active areas, impurity diffusion areas facing through the element isolation area are electrically connected.

Abstract: A signal processing method for converting a signal received via a transmission path or read from a storage medium into a first audible signal, and suppressing a noise other than a desired signal contained in the first audible signal based on predetermined audio quality adjustment information, comprising steps of: in suppressing a noise other than a desired signal contained in the first audible signal to generate an enhanced signal, receiving audio quality adjustment information for adjusting audio quality; and adjusting audio quality of the enhanced signal using the audio quality adjustment information

Abstract: In a noise suppression apparatus for suppressing noise contained in a speech signal, the speech signal is converted to a first vector of spectral speech components and a second vector of spectral speech components identical to the first vector. A vector of noise suppression coefficients is determined based on the first vector spectral speech components. A vector of estimated noise components is determined based on the first vector spectral speech components, and a speech section correction factor and a nonspeech section correction factor are calculated from the estimated noise components and the first-vector spectral speech components to produce a combined correction factor. The noise suppression coefficients are weighted by the combined correction factor to produce a vector of post-suppression coefficients. The second vector spectral speech components are weighted by the post-suppression coefficients to produce a vector of enhanced speech components.

Abstract: There is provided a laminated piezoelectric ceramic element manufacturing method, wherein, even when the number of internal electrode laminations is increased, the lamination and cutting steps can be simplified, to enhance cutting precision and make cutting cost low. A first laminated body having stripe-like internal electrodes is cut into a plurality of second laminated bodies so as to have a width-direction dimension W corresponding to a width dimension of a laminated piezoelectric ceramic element chip to be ultimately obtained. Two or more second laminated bodies are laminated in the laminating direction to obtain a third laminated body, and the third laminated body is cut in the laminating direction and parallel to the width direction W to obtain a laminated piezoelectric body.

Abstract: A first image forming unit includes a first developing unit that develops a latent image, and a second image forming unit includes a second developing unit that develops a latent image. A transfer unit transfers an image formed by at least one of the first and second image forming units onto a recording medium. A controller performs control to form a transfer image on the recording medium through at least one of a first operation and a second operation. In the first operation, images formed by the first and second image forming units are transferred onto the recording medium as transfer images. In the second operation, the image formed by the first image forming unit is transferred onto the recording medium as a transfer image. A stopping unit stops operation of the second developing unit when the number of transfer images formed through the second operation reaches a preset value.

Abstract: An image forming apparatus includes a latent image holder that holds a latent image; a developing unit that contains developer including toner particles and carrier particles, develops a latent image with the toner particles, and forms a toner image; a voltage applying unit that applies a voltage to the developing unit; a toner concentration detection unit that detects a toner concentration that is a proportion of the toner particles to the developer contained in the developing unit; and a setting unit that sets a setting value of the voltage on the basis of the toner concentration detected by the toner concentration detection unit, the voltage being applied by the voltage applying unit to the developing unit, wherein a difference between an upper limit and a lower limit of the set value increases as the toner concentration increases, the set value being set by the setting unit.

Abstract: When a system (100) is used for synthesizing speech having prosody serving as a reference, the system stores speech element information representing a speech element capable of synthesizing speech having a degree of naturalness indicating a degree of similarity to speech uttered by a human higher than a predetermined reference value (speech element information storage (115)). The system accepts requested prosody information representing prosody requested by the user (requested prosody information accepting part (113)). The system generates intermediate prosody information representing intermediate prosody between the reference prosody and the requested prosody (intermediate prosody information generator (114)). The system executes a speech synthesis process to synthesize speech based on the generated intermediate prosody information and the stored speech element information (speech synthesizer (116)).

Abstract: A speech synthesis system includes a server device and a client device. The server device stores speech element information and speech element identification information in association with each other so that, in a case that speech element information representing respective speech elements included in speech uttered by a speech registering user are arranged in the order of arrangement of the speech elements in the speech, at least one of speech element identification information identifying the respective speech element information has different information from information arranged in accordance with a predetermined rule. The client device transmits speech element identification information to the server device based on accepted text information. The client device executes a speech synthesis process based on the speech element information received from the server device.

Abstract: This speech synthesis system includes a server device and a client device. The client device accepts text information representing text, and transmits a speech element request to the server device. The server device stores speech element information. The server device receives the speech element request transmitted by the client device and, in response to the received speech element request, transmits speech element information to the client device so that the speech element information is received by the client device in a different order from an order of arrangement of speech elements in speech corresponding to the text. The client device executes a speech synthesis process by rearranging the speech element information so that speech elements represented by the received speech element information are arranged in the same order as the order of arrangement of the speech elements in the speech corresponding to the text.

Abstract: A method for producing a solid lubricant includes steps of preparing and coating. A phosphate aqueous solution prepared by the step of preparing is an aqueous solution containing at least one of aluminum dihydrogen phosphate and magnesium dihydrogen phosphate in an amount of 0.5 to 10% by mass. A graphite material is coated with a phosphate using the phosphate aqueous solution. The graphite material is used at a ratio of 40 to 50 parts by mass based on 100 parts by mass of the aqueous solution.

Abstract: There is provided a laminated piezoelectric ceramic element manufacturing method, wherein, even when the number of internal electrode laminations is increased, the lamination and cutting steps can be simplified, to enhance cutting precision and make cutting cost low. A first laminated body having stripe-like internal electrodes is cut into a plurality of second laminated bodies so as to have a width-direction dimension W corresponding to a width dimension of a laminated piezoelectric ceramic element chip to be ultimately obtained. Two or more second laminated bodies are laminated in the laminating direction to obtain a third laminated body, and the third laminated body is cut in the laminating direction and parallel to the width direction W to obtain a laminated piezoelectric body.

Abstract: It is possible to provide a speech synthesis device, speech synthesis method, and speech synthesis program which can improve a speech quality and reduce a calculation amount with a preferable balance between them. The speech synthesis device includes: a sub-score calculation unit (60/65) which calculates a segment selection sub-score for selecting an optimal segment; and a candidate narrowing unit (70/73) for narrowing the candidates according to the number of the candidate segments and the segment selection sub score. The speech synthesis device performs candidate narrowing by the sub score calculation unit (60/65) and the candidate narrowing unit (70/73) in the candidate selection process when generating a synthesized speech from an input text.

Abstract: An iron member having a coating film on at least part of its surface is manufactured by a step of projecting zinc particles to the surface of a base material made of an iron material to form a base film, and a step of forming a coating film of resin coating material on at least a part of the base film.

Abstract: An outdoor apparatus that incorporates a heat sink and has a box-shaped casing, having a plurality of aligned ventilation holes formed on an upper plate and a lower plate so as to oppose the heat sink, and wherein inter-hole portions that are portions of the upper plate between adjacent ventilation holes are recessed downward with respect to other portions of the upper plate.

Abstract: A speech synthesis device is provided with: a central segment selection unit for selecting a central segment from among a plurality of speech segments; a prosody generation unit for generating prosody information based on the central segment; a non-central segment selection unit for selecting a non-central segment, which is a segment outside of a central segment section, based on the central segment and the prosody information; and a waveform generation unit for generating a synthesized speech waveform based on the prosody information, the central segment, and the non-central segment. The speech synthesis device first selects a central segment that forms a basis for prosody generation and generates prosody information based on the central segment so that it is possible to sufficiently reduce both concatenation distortion and sound quality degradation accompanying prosody control in the section of the central segment.

Abstract: An object of the present invention is to provide a device and a method for generating a synthesized speech that has an utterance form that matches music. A musical genre estimation unit of the speech synthesizing device estimates the musical genre to which a received music signal belongs, an utterance form selection unit references an utterance form information storage unit to determine an utterance form from the musical genre. A prosody generation unit references a prosody generation rule storage unit, selected from prosody generation rule storage units 151 to 15N according to the utterance form, and generates prosody information from a phonetic symbol sequence. A unit waveform selection unit references a unit waveform data storage unit, selected from unit waveform data storage units 161 to 16N according to the utterance form, and selects a unit waveform from the phonetic symbol sequence and the prosody information.

Abstract: An image forming apparatus includes an image carrier, a rotary-type developing device and a development control device. The developing device includes a rotation holding member and plural developing units mounted on the rotation holding member. The rotation holding member is configured to stop rotating so that any of the developing units stops in a developing position. The development control device includes a receiving unit, a first determination unit, a first drive control unit and a second drive control unit. The receiving unit receives an image formation instruction relating to a series of image formation processes. The first determination unit determines as to whether or not the series of image formation processes are completed. When the first determination unit makes the determination, the second derive control unit returns the developing unit, which is finally located in the developing position in the image formation processes, to an initial waiting position.

Abstract: Disclosed is a speech synthesizing apparatus including a segment selection unit that selects a segment suited to a target segment environment from candidate segments, includes a prosody change amount calculation unit that calculates prosody change amount of each candidate segment based on prosody information of candidate segments and the target segment environment, a selection criterion calculation unit that calculates a selection criterion based on the prosody change amount, a candidate selection unit that narrows down selection candidates based on the prosody change amount and the selection criterion, and an optimum segment search unit than searches for an optimum segment from among the narrowed-down candidate segments.

Abstract: To provide a noise suppressing method and apparatus capable of achieving high-quality noise suppression using a lower amount of operations. Noise contained in an input signal is suppressed by transforming the input signal into frequency-domain signals; integrating bands of the frequency-domain signals to determine integrated frequency-domain signals; determining estimated noise based on the integrated frequency-domain signals; determining spectral gains based on the estimated noise and said integrated frequency-domain signals; and weighting said frequency-domain signals by the spectral gains.

Abstract: An audio content generation system is a system for generating audio contents including a voice synthesis unit 102 which generates synthesized voice from text; and is provided with an audio content generation unit 103 which is connected to a multimedia database 101 in which contents mainly composed of audio article data V1 to V3 or text article data T1 and T2 are registered respectively, generates synthesized voice SYT1 and SYT2 for the text article data T1 and T2 registered in the multimedia database 101 by using the voice synthesis unit 102, and generates audio contents in which the synthesized voice SYT1 and SYT2 and the audio article data V1 to V3 are organized in accordance with a predetermined order.