Fishing in a speech stream, angling for a lexicon

Proceedings of the 18th Nordic Conference of Computational Linguistics NODALIDA 2011. Editors: Bolette Sandford Pedersen, Gunta Nešpore and Inguna Skadiņa. NEALT Proceedings Series, Vol. 11 (2011), 90-97. © 2011 The editors and contributors. Published by Northern European Association for Language Technology (NEALT) http://omilia.uio.no/nealt . Electronically published at Tartu University Library (Estonia) http://hdl.handle.net/10062/16955

Conference Program

Proceedings of the 18th Nordic Conference of Computational Linguistics NODALIDA 2011. Editors: Bolette Sandford Pedersen, Gunta Nešpore and Inguna Skadiņa. NEALT Proceedings Series, Vol. 11 (2011), xii-xvii. © 2011 The editors and contributors. Published by Northern European Association for Language Technology (NEALT) http://omilia.uio.no/nealt . Electronically published at Tartu University Library (Estonia) http://hdl.handle.net/10062/16955

Contents

Proceedings of the 18th Nordic Conference of Computational Linguistics NODALIDA 2011. Editors: Bolette Sandford Pedersen, Gunta Nešpore and Inguna Skadiņa. NEALT Proceedings Series, Vol. 11 (2011), iii-vii. © 2011 The editors and contributors. Published by Northern European Association for Language Technology (NEALT) http://omilia.uio.no/nealt . Electronically published at Tartu University Library (Estonia) http://hdl.handle.net/10062/16955

Information based speech transduction

Modern hearing aids use a variety of advanced digital signal processing methods in order to improve speech intelligibility. These methods are based on knowledge about the acoustics outside the ear as well as psychoacoustics. We present a novel observation based on the fact that acoustic prominence is not equal to information prominence for time intervals at the syllabic and sub-syllabic levels. The idea is that speech elements with a high degree of information can be robustly identified based on basic acoustic properties. We evaluated the correlation of (information rich) content words in the DanPASS corpus with fundamental frequency (F0) and spectral tilt across four frequency bands. Our results show a correlation of certain band-level differences and the presence of content words. Similarly, but to a lesser extent, a correlation between F0 and the presence of content words was found. The principle described here has the potential to improve the “information-to-noise” ratio in hearing aids. In addition, this concept may also be applicable in automatic speech recognition systems

Phillips Phonograph : Vol. 3, No. 49 - August 9, 1881 (Extra)

https://digitalmaine.com/phillips_phonograph/1466/thumbnail.jp

A Multi-lingual Speech Corpus for Cognitive Research

We present the speech corpus SMALLWorlds (Spoken Multi-lingual Accounts of Logically Limited Worlds), newly established and still growing. SMALLWorlds contains monologic descriptions of scenes or worlds which are simple enough to be formally describable. The descriptions are instances of content-controlled monologue: semantically “pre-specified” but still bearing most hallmarks of spontaneous speech (hesitations and filled pauses, relaxed syntax, repetitions, self-corrections, incomplete constituents, irrelevant or redundant information, etc.) as well as idiosyncratic speaker traits. In the paper, we discuss the pros and cons of data so elicited. Following that, we present a typical SMALLWorlds task: the description of a simple drawing with differently coloured circles, squares, and triangles, with no hints given as to which description strategy or language style to use. We conclude with an example on how SMALLWorlds may be used: unsupervised lexical learning from phonetic transcription. At the time of writing, SMALLWorlds consists of more than 250 recordings in a wide range of typologically diverse languages from many parts of the world, some unwritten and endangered

Knowledge management using machine learning, natural language processing and ontology

This research developed a concept indexing framework which systematically integrates machine learning, natural language processing and ontology technologies to facilitate knowledge acquisition, extraction and organisation. The research reported in this thesis focuses first on the conceptual model of concept indexing, which represents knowledge as entities and concepts. Then the thesis outlines its benefits and the system architecture using this conceptual model. Next, the thesis presents a knowledge acquisition framework using machine learning in focused crawling Web content to enable automatic knowledge acquisition. Then, the thesis presents two language resources developed to enable ontology tagging, which are: an ontology dictionary and an ontologically tagged corpus. The ontologically tagged corpus is created using a heuristic algorithm developed in the thesis. Next, the ontology tagging algorithm is developed with the ontology dictionary and the ontologically tagged corpus to enable ontology tagging. Finally, the thesis presents the conceptual model, the system architecture, and the prototype system using concept indexing developed to facilitate knowledge acquisition, extraction and organisation. The solutions proposed in the thesis are illustrated with examples based on a prototype system developed in this thesis

Phillips Phonograph : Vol 4. No. 3 September 24, 1881

https://digitalmaine.com/phillips_phonograph/1256/thumbnail.jp

The Gilded Tropics: Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent in Florida, 1886-1917

This dissertation examines the Floridian works of Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent in the context of tourism, race, and the environment as perceptions of the tropics in an Anglo-American context. Both artists sojourned in Florida and produced a number of watercolors and related oils that not only testify to a rapidly-expanding tourist industry to the Sunshine State, but also update the Romantic myths of the tropics with a more sober, ironic Realist take. While Homer and Sargent continue to be popular subjects for studies and exhibitions on their own, this dissertation is the first to consider how their shared attitudes toward and experiences in the tropics might reveal a wider web of connections between two otherwise antithetical artists. By focusing on their work in Florida, this study not only revises the historiography of each artist, but considers how their work in the American Tropics speaks most directly to contemporary concerns about race, the environment, and art-making. This project extends a consideration of two Gilded-Age artists into the twenty-first century, asserting broader connections to modern and modernist ideas of the environment. The state of Florida persists in the national imagination as the locus of troubling anxieties and bold aspirations concerning nationality, borders, and real estate values. Winslow Homer and John Singer Sargent were some of the first artist travelers to explore these themes in Florida