Bayesian Speaker Adaptation Based on a New Hierarchical Probabilistic Model

In this paper, a new hierarchical Bayesian speaker adaptation method called HMAP is proposed that combines the advantages of three conventional algorithms, maximum a posteriori (MAP), maximum-likelihood linear regression (MLLR), and eigenvoice, resulting in excellent performance across a wide range of adaptation conditions. The new method efficiently utilizes intra-speaker and inter-speaker correlation information through modeling phone and speaker subspaces in a consistent hierarchical Bayesian way. The phone variations for a specific speaker are assumed to be located in a low-dimensional subspace. The phone coordinate, which is shared among different speakers, implicitly contains the intra-speaker correlation information. For a specific speaker, the phone variation, represented by speaker-dependent eigenphones, are concatenated into a supervector. The eigenphone supervector space is also a low dimensional speaker subspace, which contains inter-speaker correlation information. Using principal component analysis (PCA), a new hierarchical probabilistic model for the generation of the speech observations is obtained. Speaker adaptation based on the new hierarchical model is derived using the maximum a posteriori criterion in a top-down manner. Both batch adaptation and online adaptation schemes are proposed. With tuned parameters, the new method can handle varying amounts of adaptation data automatically and efficiently. Experimental results on a Mandarin Chinese continuous speech recognition task show good performance under all testing conditions

Good reductions of Shimura varieties of Hodge type in arbitrary unramified mixed characteristic. Part I

We prove the existence of good smooth integral models of Shimura varieties of Hodge type in arbitrary unramified mixed characteristic $(0,p)$. As a first application we provide a smooth solution (answer) to a conjecture (question) of Langlands for Shimura varieties of Hodge type. As a second application we prove the existence in arbitrary unramified mixed characteristic $(0,p)$ of integral canonical models of projective Shimura varieties of Hodge type with respect to h--hyperspecial subgroups as pro-\'etale covers of N\'eron models; this forms progress towards the proof of conjectures of Milne and Reimann. Though the second application was known before in some cases, its proof is new and more of a principle.Comment: 87 pages. Final version, to appear in Mathematische Nachrichten (most alignment issues kept loose to match with the layout of the journal

Integral canonical models of unitary Shimura varieties

We prove the existence of integral canonical models of unitary Shimura varieties in arbitrary unramified mixed characteristic. Errata to [Va1] are also included.Comment: 27 pages. Accepted (in final form) for publication in Asian J. Mat

Paper folding, Riemann surfaces, and convergence of pseudo-Anosov sequences

A method is presented for constructing closed surfaces out of Euclidean polygons with infinitely many segment identifications along the boundary. The metric on the quotient is identified. A sufficient condition is presented which guarantees that the Euclidean structure on the polygons induces a unique conformal structure on the quotient surface, making it into a closed Riemann surface. In this case, a modulus of continuity for uniformizing coordinates is found which depends only on the geometry of the polygons and on the identifications. An application is presented in which a uniform modulus of continuity is obtained for a family of pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms, making it possible to prove that they converge to a Teichm\"uller mapping on the Riemann sphere.Comment: 75 pages, 18 figure

Crystal melting on toric surfaces

We study the relationship between the statistical mechanics of crystal melting and instanton counting in N=4 supersymmetric U(1) gauge theory on toric surfaces. We argue that, in contrast to their six-dimensional cousins, the two problems are related but not identical. We develop a vertex formalism for the crystal partition function, which calculates a generating function for the dimension 0 and 1 subschemes of the toric surface, and describe the modifications required to obtain the corresponding gauge theory partition function.Comment: 30 pages; v2: references adde