Methods of Improving Speech Intelligibility for Listeners with Hearing Resolution Deficit

ABSTRACT: Methods developed for real-time time scale modification (TSM) of speech signal are presented. They are based on the non-uniform, speech rate depended SOLA algorithm (Synchronous Overlap and Add). Influence of the proposed method on the intelligibility of speech was investigated for two separate groups of listeners, i.e. hearing impaired children and elderly listeners. It was shown that for the speech with average rate equal to or higher than 6.48 vowels/s, all of the proposed methods have statistically significant impact on the improvement of speech intelligibility for hearing impaired children with reduced hearing resolution and one of the proposed methods significantly improves comprehension of speech in the group of elderly listeners with reduced hearing resolution. VIRTUAL SLIDES: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/206548637176199

A Model of Persuasion for Speaking Rate Adaptation

Proper speaking rate is a key attribute of effective communication. Emerging persuasive technologies use computers as a tool to induce human behavioural and attitude changes. This thesis established a computational framework which can persuade people to slow down their speech and communicate more effectively. We defined a conceptual model and implemented a computer software system, both serving as the cornerstones of our persuasion framework. The computer system is designed to persuade people to be aware of their speaking rate and to slow down their speech. The combination of computer technology and persuasive technologies and theories are embedded in the system. In order to conduct effective persuasion, a number of computer-based survey questions were asked and a short tailored letter was generated for each participant. A virtual coach system monitored and reminded the participant to slow down. A few adaptive cues were used to enhance the effects of the persuasion. We evaluated the feasibility and effectiveness of the overall system. At the same time, we evaluated the feasibility of individual elements. A total of 22 participants was selected to make up the sample. The experiments were conducted under controlled conditions. The results indicated that our system is effective in persuading people to speak more slowly. The feedback from users indicated that our system raised their awareness about speaking rate

St. Cloud State University Student Research Colloquium 2003

2003 Student Research Colloquium Proceedings includes the following: Acknowledgements, Program highlights, Schedule of events, Program, College receptions/COSE Award Ceremony, Abstracts, Student index, Faculty sponsor index, Map of Atwood Memorial Center

Volume 17, Number 12 (December 1899)

Too Much Talent Social Element in Success Penalty of Genius Narrow and Broad Pianoforte Instruction Odds and Ends; or, Ideas on Many Subjects Fallacious Notions Teacher-Student Musician\u27s Life-Work Study the Life of Schumann Robert Schumann as a Composer for the Piano Robert Schumann, Biographical Piano Works of Robert Schumann Point of Utility Autobiographic Character of Schumann\u27s Music Side Lights on Schumann Some Side Lights on the Making of a Musician Songs of Schumann Technical Demands of Schumann\u27s Music Schumann—The Man Christmas Story Successful Teacher To the Girls Who Read The Etude Education of Musicians Do You Expect a Testimonial? Clara Schumann Childhood Songs Timely Suggestionshttps://digitalcommons.gardner-webb.edu/etude/1017/thumbnail.jp

Vista: February 10, 1994

https://digital.sandiego.edu/vista/1099/thumbnail.jp

Catalog for 1991-1992

This University of Maine catalog from the 1991-1992 academic year includes detailed descriptions of courses and information about the programs and departments at the university

Creating a Korean Engineering Academic Vocabulary List (KEAVL): Computational Approach

With a growing number of international students in South Korea, the need for developing materials to study Korean for academic purposes is becoming increasingly pressing. According to statistics, engineering colleges in Korea attract the largest number of international students (Korean National Institute for International Education, 2018). However, despite the availability of technical vocabulary lists for some engineering sub-fields, a list of vocabulary common for the majority of the engineering sub-fields has not yet been built. Therefore, this study was aimed at creating a list of Korean academic vocabulary of engineering for non-native Korean speakers that may help future or first-year engineering students and engineers working in Korea. In order to compile this list, a corpus of Korean textbooks and research articles of 12 major engineering sub-fields, named as the Corpus of Korean Engineering Academic Texts (CKEAT), was compiled. Then, in order to analyze the corpus and compile the preliminary list, I designed a Python-based tool called KWordList. The KWordList lemmatizes all words in the corpus while excluding general Korean vocabulary included in the Korean Learner’s List (Jo, 2003). Then, for the remaining words, KWordList calculates the range, frequency, and dispersion (in this study deviation of proportions or DP (Gries, 2008)) and excludes words that do not pass the study’s criteria (range ≥ 6, frequency ≥ 100, DP ≤ 0.5). The final version of the list, called Korean Engineering Academic Vocabulary List or KEAVL, includes 830 lemmas (318 of intermediate level and 512 of advanced level). For each word, the collocations that occur more than 30 times in the corpus are provided. The comparison of the coverage of the Korean Academic Vocabulary List (Shin, 2004) and KEAVL based on the Corpus of Korean Engineering Academic Texts showed that KEAVL covers more lemmas in the corpus. Moreover, only 313 lemmas from the Korean Academic Vocabulary List (Shin, 2004) passed the criteria of the study. Therefore, KEAVL may be more efficient for engineering students’ vocabulary training than the Korean Academic Vocabulary List and may be used for the engineering Korean teaching materials and curriculum development. Moreover, the KWordList program written for the study can be used by other researchers, teachers, and even students and is open access (https://github.com/HelgaKr/KWordList)

Proceedings of the Second International Mobile Satellite Conference (IMSC 1990)

Presented here are the proceedings of the Second International Mobile Satellite Conference (IMSC), held June 17-20, 1990 in Ottawa, Canada. Topics covered include future mobile satellite communications concepts, aeronautical applications, modulation and coding, propagation and experimental systems, mobile terminal equipment, network architecture and control, regulatory and policy considerations, vehicle antennas, and speech compression

A critical investigation of deaf comprehension of signed tv news interpretation

This study investigates factors hampering comprehension of sign language interpretations rendered on South African TV news bulletins in terms of Deaf viewers’ expectancy norms and corpus analysis of authentic interpretations. The research fills a gap in the emerging discipline of Sign Language Interpreting Studies, specifically with reference to corpus studies. The study presents a new model for translation/interpretation evaluation based on the introduction of Grounded Theory (GT) into a reception-oriented model. The research question is addressed holistically in terms of target audience competencies and expectations, aspects of the physical setting, interpreters’ use of language and interpreting choices. The South African Deaf community are incorporated as experts into the assessment process, thereby empirically grounding the research within the socio-dynamic context of the target audience. Triangulation in data collection and analysis was provided by applying multiple mixed data collection methods, namely questionnaires, interviews, eye-tracking and corpus tools. The primary variables identified by the study are the small picture size and use of dialect. Secondary variables identified include inconsistent or inadequate use of non-manual features, incoherent or non-simultaneous mouthing, careless or incorrect sign execution, too fast signing, loss of visibility against skin or clothing, omission of vital elements of sentence structure, adherence to source language structures, meaningless additions, incorrect referencing, oversimplification and violations of Deaf norms of restructuring, information transfer, gatekeeping and third person interpreting. The identification of these factors allows the construction of a series of testable hypotheses, thereby providing a broad platform for further research. Apart from pioneering corpus-driven sign language interpreting research, the study makes significant contributions to present knowledge of evaluative models, interpreting strategies and norms and systems of transcription and annotation.Linguistics and Modern LanguagesThesis (D. Litt.et Phil.) (Linguistics