Heavy metal contamination of soil and agricultural products is an environmental problem, has an adverse effect on the quality of food crops, and is a danger to food security and public health. The concentration of arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), lead (Pb), iron (Fe) and zinc (Zn) in surface soils and edible hypocotyls tissues of two ecotypes of Lepidium meyenii Walpers (maca) was evaluated in three districts of the Junín province, Peru. In addition, the risk to human health due to exposure to heavy metals from maca consumption was evaluated. Soil samples and maca hypocotyls were collected in areas influenced by mining and metallurgical activity. The mean concentration of Cd (0.32 ± 0.23 mg/kg) and Pb (0.20 ± 0.12 mg/kg) in maca samples exceeded the values established by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization. The bioconcentration factor was less than 1. The estimated daily intake of each metal was below the oral reference dose. The hazard quotient and hazard index were less than 1, it is unlikely to cause non-cancer adverse health outcome. The cancer risk for As and Cd was higher than the tolerable limit (1 × 10−6) in children and adults. In the district of Ondores, the cancer risk for As in children was higher than the acceptable limit (1 × 10−4). Residents of the Ondores district would be more exposed to As and Cd from consumption of maca hypocotyls. It is very important to carry out continuous monitoring of other toxic metals in different ecotypes of maca (red, black, yellow, purple, creamy white, pink) in order to evaluate the variation in the accumulation of heavy metals and the level of toxicity of each metal between ecotypes. / Revisón por pares

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(情報学) / 甲第19341号 / 情博第593号 / 新制||情||103(附属図書館) / 32343 / 京都大学大学院情報学研究科数理工学専攻 / (主査)教授 中村 佳正, 教授 矢ｹ崎 一幸, 教授 西村 直志 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Informatics / Kyoto University / DFAM

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(情報学) / 甲第20739号 / 情博第653号 / 新制||情||113(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院情報学研究科数理工学専攻 / (主査)教授 中村 佳正, 教授 山下 信雄, 教授 西村 直志 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Informatics / Kyoto University / DFAM

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第20884号 / 理博第4336号 / 新制||理||1623(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院理学研究科数学・数理解析専攻 / (主査)教授 並河 良典, 教授 雪江 明彦, 教授 森脇 淳 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

Research in vocal vibrato has established that vocal tract filtering is primarily responsible for the amplitude modulation (AM) present in Western classical vibrato. Using electroglottography (EGG) and the EGG speed quotient, which is sensitive to fluctuations in the amplitude of vocal fold vibration, AM was detected at the laryngeal (source) level, in addition to the subsequent AM which results from vocal tract filtering. Seventeen classically-trained opera singers sang vowels in three pitch and loudness conditions. EGG and microphone measurements of FM and AM and their rates, extents, and periodicity were made. Airflow was also measured, and the samples were rated by voice professors for vibrato consistency, speed, and width. Physiologic and acoustic data revealed that AM from vocal tract filtering, or the resonance-harmonics interaction (RHI) described by Horii and associates, was present throughout the vibrato samples. Laryngeal-level AM was also present throughout, with soft conditions having the highest mean extents. Singers with lower degrees of laryngeal-level AM were also those rated highest for vibrato consistency. Vibrato rate increased as pitch increased, and, to a lesser extent, as intensity increased. These findings document, in addition to the AM resulting from the RHI, the concurrent presence of laryngeal-level AM in a group of singers representing a range of training and experience.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) represents a group of developmental disabilities associated with impairments in social, communicative, and imaginative abilities. Speech impairments associated with ASD can be explained by differences in cognitive processing styles relative to neurotypicals. Previous studies found that individual differences in cognitive processing influence one’s production and perception of prosody. For example, Stewart et al. (2018) found that higher levels of autistic character traits indicated by one’s Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) score (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001) correlated significantly with one’s ability to discriminate pitch and time, but no significant correlation between auditory discrimination thresholds for intensity. Additionally, Turnbull (2015; 2019) observed shorter overall word and vowel durations during a task which required participants with varying AQ scores to speak for the benefit of a listener with a hearing impairment. The present study examined whether prosodic cue-trading in production and perception differs when comparing populations with varying levels of autistic traits, as indicated by their AQ score differences. Furthermore, the study investigated whether these differences exist on a continuum, or rather are categorical, with respect to participants’ level of autistic character traits. To achieve this, we analyzed individual variability patterns in 18 participants’ speech production and perception. Results from the perception task showed that participants displayed a significant enhanced perception of pitch and intensity, but not duration, when completing a task where participants listened to sentences manipulating the prosodic parameters f0, intensity, duration. Results from the production task where participants read sentences designed to elicit background, broad, and narrow focus found no significant effect of AQ across any of the acoustic parameters measured, although the results for f0 are near the 5% significance level for the f0 condition, suggesting that participants with higher AQ scores may produce lower f0 ranges, and thus, less prosodic variability compared to low AQ participants. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) represents a group of developmental disabilities associated with impairments in communicative abilities, among others. Theories suggest that individuals with higher levels of autistic traits notice small details in the physical properties of sounds, but have trouble distinguishing the more abstract, intended meaning of the same sound patterns. Previous studies found that individual differences in the degree of autistic traits influence one’s production and perception of prosody (i.e., the relative highness or lowness of a tone),; individuals with higher levels of autistic are better able to detect fine-grained differences in pitch and time, but not loudness. The present study examined the extent to which speakers with varying levels of autistic traits use prosody during speech production and perception. This study observed that (1) individuals with higher levels of autistic traits displayed an enhanced perception of pitch and loudness, but not time, and (2) that these same participants may exhibit less variability in their production of pitch.

In this thesis, we study the degree of the canonical map of surfaces of general type. In particular, we give the first examples known in the literature of surfaces having degree d=10,11, 13, 14, 15, and 18 of the canonical map. They are presented in a self-contained and independent way from the rest of the thesis. We show also how we have discovered them. These surfaces are product-quotient surfaces. In this thesis, we study the theory of product-quotient surfaces giving also some new results and improvements. As a consequence of this, we have written and run a MAGMA script to produce a list of families of product-quotient surfaces having geometric genus three and a self-intersection of the canonical divisor large. After that, we study the canonical map of product-quotient surfaces and we apply the obtained results to the list of product-quotient surfaces just mentioned. In this way, we have discovered the examples of surfaces having degree d=10,11,14, and 18 of the canonical map. The remaining ones with degrees 13 and 15 do not satisfy the assumptions to compute the degree of the canonical map directly. Hence we have had to compute the canonical degree of these two families of product-quotient surfaces in a very explicit way through the equations of the pair of curves defining them. Another work of this thesis is the classification of all smooth surfaces of general type with geometric genus three which admits an action of a group G isomorphic to \mathbb Z_2^k and such that the quotient is a projective plane. This classification is attained through the theory of abelian covers. We obtained in total eleven families of surfaces. We compute the canonical map of all of them, finding in particular a family of surfaces with a canonical map of degree 16 not in the literature. We discuss the quotients by all subgroups of G finding several K3 surfaces with symplectic involutions. In particular, we show that six families are families of triple K3 burgers in the sense of Laterveer. Finally, in another work we study also the possible accumulation points for the slopes K^2/ \chi of unbounded sequences of minimal surfaces of general type having a degree d of the canonical map. As a new result, we construct unbounded families of minimal (product-quotient) surfaces of general type whose degree of the canonical map is 4 and such that the limits of the slopes K^2/ \chi assume countably many different values in the closed interval [6+2/3, 8].

ABSTRACT Individuals subconsciously convey emotions through language. The present study investigates the relationship between emotional intelligence (EQ) and language style matching (LSM). Emotional intelligence involves the ability to regulate, maintain, and express one’s emotions and to perceive the emotion of others. LSM involves the phenomenon that when individuals talk they tend to mimic each other’s word usage (Neiderhoffer & Pennebaker, 2002). The hypothesis of the present study is that individuals who are emotionally intelligent subconsciously match their language to their communication partner. Ten participants from the University of Central Florida’s Psychology Department were given an emotional intelligence test. The participants were then asked to submit three text conversations stored in their phones, one in which they interpret as a positive encounter, another which they interpret as a negative encounter, and one interpreted as a neutral encounter. Bivariate correlations were used to analyze the data. The results did not support the hypothesis. Keywords: Emotional Intelligence, Language Style Matching, Empathy

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