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We propose PolyVoice, a language model-based framework for speech-to-speech translation (S2ST) system. Our framework consists of two language models: a translation language model and a speech synthesis language model. We use discretized speech units, which are generated in a fully unsupervised way, and thus our framework can be used for unwritten languages. For the speech synthesis part, we adopt the existing VALL-E X approach and build a unit-based audio language model. This grants our framework the ability to preserve the voice characteristics and the speaking style of the original speech. We examine our system on Chinese $\rightarrow$ English and English $\rightarrow$ Spanish pairs. Experimental results show that our system can generate speech with high translation quality and audio quality. Speech samples are available at https://speechtranslation.github.io/polyvoice.

Expressive text-to-speech (TTS) has become a hot research topic recently, mainly focusing on modeling prosody in speech. Prosody modeling has several challenges: 1) the extracted pitch used in previous prosody modeling works have inevitable errors, which hurts the prosody modeling; 2) different attributes of prosody (e.g., pitch, duration and energy) are dependent on each other and produce the natural prosody together; and 3) due to high variability of prosody and the limited amount of high-quality data for TTS training, the distribution of prosody cannot be fully shaped. To tackle these issues, we propose ProsoSpeech, which enhances the prosody using quantized latent vectors pre-trained on large-scale unpaired and low-quality text and speech data. Specifically, we first introduce a word-level prosody encoder, which quantizes the low-frequency band of the speech and compresses prosody attributes in the latent prosody vector (LPV). Then we introduce an LPV predictor, which predicts LPV given word sequence. We pre-train the LPV predictor on large-scale text and low-quality speech data and fine-tune it on the high-quality TTS dataset. Finally, our model can generate expressive speech conditioned on the predicted LPV. Experimental results show that ProsoSpeech can generate speech with richer prosody compared with baseline methods., Accepted by ICASSP 2022

T-helper (Th) 17 and Th22 cells are critical for the pathogenic process of Kawasaki Disease (KD). A total of 43 children with freshly diagnosed KD and 20 healthy controls (HC) were quantified for the numbers of Th17, Th22 and Th1 cells by flow cytometry. The concentrations of serum IL-17, IL-22, IL-6, IFN-γ and TNF-α were examined by ELISA. Compared to those in the HC, significantly increased numbers of Th17 and Th22 cells, but not Th1 cells, and higher levels of serum IL-17 and IL-22, but not IFN-γ, were found in KD patients. Stratification analysis indicated the numbers of both Th17 and Th22 cells and the concentrations of serum IL-17 and IL-22 in KD patients with coronary artery lesions (CAL) were significantly greater than that in those with noncoronary artery lesions (NCAL). Treatment with the intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) therapy significantly decreased numbers of Th22 and Th17 cells as well as the serum concentrations of IL-22 and IL-17 in KD patients. The concentrations of serum IL-22 and IL-17 were correlated positively with C-reactive protein (CRP) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) values as well as N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) in those patients respectively. Conclusion: Our study provided direct evidence that Th22 and Th17 cells might contribute to the pathogenesis of KD.

IntroductionKawasaki disease (KD) , also known as Kawasaki syndrome, is an acute, self-limited febrile vasculitis that predominantly affects infants and children under 5 years of age [1]. KD is characterized by high spiking fever persisting for more than 5 days, erythematous rash, bilateral conjunctivitis, congestive oral mucosa, swelling lymph node, and edematous extremity [2]. Furthermore, KD is the most common cause of acquired cardiac disease, especially coronary artery aneurysms in children [3]. Although KD has been studied for almost half a century, the pathogenic mechanism of KD remains unclear. Furthermore, while most patients respond well to intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), roughly one-quarter of the children meeting clinical criteria will go on to have coronary artery inflammation, including aneurysms [4]. Hence, further illustration of the mechanism of KD is a crying need to find a therapeutic for KD treatment clinically.Both innate and adaptive immune systems are involved in the pathogenesis of KD [5]. The early event of visualized immunological abnormality is the activation of innate immune system represented as the elevated numbers of activated monocytes and increased expression of circulating cytokines, such as interleukin (IL)-6 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) -α [6]. Subsequently, it is generally believed that autoreactive T cell and their inflammatory cytokines play a major role in the development of KD [7]. T helper (Th) 17 cells, a recently identified lineage of CD4+ Th cells, predominantly produce IL-17A. Th17 cell and IL-17A have been shown to participate in host defense responses and inflammatory diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), Graves’ disease (GD), and Crohn’s disease (CD) [8-11]. A recent study has shown that a high frequency of Th17 cells and high levels of IL-17 were demonstrated in the acute stage of KD, and that elevated Th17 cells might be associated with tissue damage and coronary artery aneurysm formation [7, 12]. However, there is little information about whether higher frequency of Th17 and higher concentrations of IL-17A also exist in Chinese patients with KD and how Th17 responses are associated with the development of coronary artery aneurysm in KD patients.More notably, a newly identified T-cell subset, termed Th22 cells, has been described as expressing their key cytokines interleukin (IL)-22, which can activate signal transduction and transcription 3 (STAT3) [13]. IL-22, originally termed as an IL-10-related T-cell-derived-inducible factor, enhance innate immunity and promote epithelial cell proliferation and tissue. In contrast, IL-22 also act as regulator in the pathogenesis of RA and SLE [14-15]. Furthermore, recent studies have reported that IL-22 may function as a biphasic cytokine: protective and regenerative in steady state while amplifying proinflammatory signals given by TNF-α [16], which is necessary for exacerbation of vascular injury in KD. However, little is known about the role of Th22 cells in the pathogenesis of KD. We believe that Th22 cells may partially contribute to the formation of coronary aneurysms.Here, in the current study, we sought to further clarify the mechanism underlying hyperactivation of Th22 and Th17 during acute KD. We characterized the numbers of circulating Th22 and Th17 cells by flow cytometry, and measured the concentration of serum inflammatory cytokines by enzymelinked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in 43 Chinese patients with new onset KD. Furthermore, we analyzed the potential association of the numbers of Th22 and Th17 cells with the clinical measures in these KD patients. Our findings indicated that increased numbers of Th22 and Th17 cells might be contributed to the pathogenesis of KD in Chinese patients.

Synergistic effects of additive amount, reaction time and temperature of transglutaminase on properties of WPI-NaCas composite protein films were discussed by orthogonal experiments. Results indicated that transglutaminase (TGase) modification decreased D50 and D90 of film-forming solution particles, resulting in decrease in water solubility and increase in both mechanical and water barrier properties of films under most conditions. Compared with control sample, scanning electron microscope analysis indicated that cross-section of enzyme modification sample was denser and more impermeable. However, there was no significant difference in both thermogravimetric analysis and solution apparent viscosity changes for all samples. Orthogonal experiment results also showed that TGase reaction time was the most effective factor on tensile strength (TS) and water vapor permeability (WVP) properties of film, and the secondary, tertiary factors were reaction temperature, TGase additive amount respectively. Films modified by 0.1 mg/ml TGase at 50°C for 30 min exhibited the optimum mechanical and water barrier performance. Key words: Transglutaminase (TGase), mechanical properties, water vapor permeability (WVP), scanning electron microscopy analysis.

The WPI-NaCas-GLY antimicrobial film takes full advantage of the controlled release of active or antimicrobial agents as well as demonstrates a great potential for functioning as an alternative biodegradable polymer in practical applications. The moisture sorption kinetics of the film as an important carrier of active agents was investigated at various relative humidities (RH). The results indicated that the moisture sorption characterization and procedure of this film can be described well by the empirical Peleg model with higher confidence and concordance. The model could predict the film's moisture content at any time (Mt), the time to reach any given level of R (tR), the equilibrium moisture at any RH condition (Me), and isotherm trend based upon experimental data and modeled constants k(1), k(2), a, b, c, and d without giving consideration to their physical meaning. The water vapor transmission rate of the WPI-NaCas-GLY antimicrobial film increased exponentially with increasing RH due to its hydrophilicity, which was primarily caused by the presence of glycerol in a higher content. The results also suggested that aw predominately affects the film's Me values compared with the temperature factor by fixed nonlinear multiple regression analyses.

Compounds (Et4N)2[MCu3S4(dtcR2)3] (M=W (1) or Mo (2); R2  C5H10 (a), Et2 (b) or C4H8 (c) were synthesized by the reaction of (Et4N)2MS4 and CuCl in the presence of NadtcR2 in DMF. The crystal and molecular structures of 1a·DMF and 2a·DMF were determined from X-ray diffraction data. The compounds are isomorphous and crystallize in the triclinic space group P 1 with unit cell parameters for 1a(2a)·DMF: a=12.047(0) (12.053(2)), b= 17.620(3) (17.650(5)), c=14.514(1) (14.533(4)) A; α=100.83(9) (100.43(3)), β=115.41(3) (115.47(2)), γ=79.49(8) (79.78(2))°; V=2715.9 (2727.8) A3, Z=2 (2), and Dx=1.611 (1.497) g/cm3. The final R values converged to 0.048 and 0.067 for M=W and Mo respectively. [p ]The four metal atoms MCu3 are coplanar with the central tetrahedron of MS4 preserved. Each Cu(I) ion is coordinated to two inorganic S atoms from MS4 and two organic S atoms from one dtcC5H10 ligand in a distorted tetrahedral geometry. Infrared spectra showed two stretching vibrations at 430–442 cm− for μ3-SM and 455–463 cm−1 for μ2-SM. The compounds are diamagnetic and show reversible one-electron oxidation-reduction at E1/2 = 0.55 V (2a).

We report the synthesis and structure of a novel cluster compound (Et 4 N) 2 [W 2 Cu 5 S 8 (S 2 CNMe 2 ) 3 ] consisting of two defective cubane cores, WCu 2 S 4 and WCu 3 S 4 , bridged by two Me 2 dtc − ligands and jointed by two weak Cu-S bonds