FaceFilter: Audio-visual speech separation using still images

The objective of this paper is to separate a target speaker's speech from a mixture of two speakers using a deep audio-visual speech separation network. Unlike previous works that used lip movement on video clips or pre-enrolled speaker information as an auxiliary conditional feature, we use a single face image of the target speaker. In this task, the conditional feature is obtained from facial appearance in cross-modal biometric task, where audio and visual identity representations are shared in latent space. Learnt identities from facial images enforce the network to isolate matched speakers and extract the voices from mixed speech. It solves the permutation problem caused by swapped channel outputs, frequently occurred in speech separation tasks. The proposed method is far more practical than video-based speech separation since user profile images are readily available on many platforms. Also, unlike speaker-aware separation methods, it is applicable on separation with unseen speakers who have never been enrolled before. We show strong qualitative and quantitative results on challenging real-world examples.Comment: Under submission as a conference paper. Video examples: https://youtu.be/ku9xoLh62

Sensemaking of narratives: informing the capabilities development process

This capstone project determines whether sensemaking of soldier narratives can inform the Department of Defense‘s (DOD) capability development process (CDP). Sensemaking is the process of creating awareness and understanding in situations of high complexity or uncertainty. The authors gathered service member narratives concerning their use of fielded equipment, which created metadata for both quantitative and qualitative research and analysis. This capstone compares results from sensemaking of narratives with results from the Warfighter Technology Tradespace Methodology (WTTM), a system designed for the rapid fielding of equipment for small forward operating bases (FOBs) and combat outposts (COPs). The capstone finds that 1) soldier narratives inform the fielding process by providing an additional layer of meaning and context, and 2) soldier narratives do not replace current feedback mechanisms; rather, they play a complementary role. This capstone finds that narratives as a feedback mechanism can be applied during operational testing of newly developed or fielded equipment for the DOD‘s CDP.http://archive.org/details/sensemakingofnar1094542657Major, United States Army;Major, United States Army;Major, United States ArmyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Simplicity of tangent bundles on the moduli spaces of symplectic and orthogonal bundles over a curve

The variety of minimal rational tangents associated to Hecke curves was used by J.-M.Hwang [8] to prove the simplicity of the tangent bundle on the moduli of vector bundles over a curve. In this paper, we use the tangent maps of the symplectic and orthogonal Hecke curves to prove an analogous result for symplectic and orthogonal bundles. In particular, we show the nondegeneracy of the associated variety of minimal rational tangents, which implies the simplicity of the tangent bundle on the moduli spaces of symplectic and orthogonal bundles over a curve. We also show that for large enough genus, the tangent map is an embedding for a general symplectic or orthogonal bundle

Visual Scene Description and Recall: On Differences between Korean and English Speakers

Scientific research into the relationship between language and thought has profound implications for the understanding of second language learners and their learning process. The present study focuses on the connections between verbalization patterns and perceptual orientations. Adult monolingual speakers of Korean and English were asked to describe a set of dynamic scenes at two different presentation durations, 1.5 and 3 seconds, and then recall the focal figures and backgrounds of the depicted situations. Participants utterances were counted for comparison with their performance on the subsequent recall test. The study found that Korean speakers (KSs) mentioned more specific subjects at longer durations whereas English speakers (ESs) choice of subject referents was not significantly influenced by time. Further, in contrast to previous research, ESs produced more background details than KSs and were inclined to add more descriptions about figures at longer durations while dismissing a commensurate amount of background information. In the recall test, KSs remembered background details more accurately than ESs. This asymmetry in linguistic encoding and recall in function of presentation durations suggests that the effect of a particular language on the language speakers attentional allocation and information storing is far more intricate than was reported in earlier works

Self-dual Chern-Simons Vortices on Riemann Surfaces

We study self-dual multi-vortex solutions of Chern-Simons Higgs theory in a background curved spacetime. The existence and decaying property of a solution are demonstrated.Comment: 11 pages, LaTe

The variation of relative magnetic helicity around major flares

We have investigated the variation of magnetic helicity over a span of several days around the times of 11 X-class flares which occurred in seven active regions (NOAA 9672, 10030, 10314, 10486, 10564, 10696, and 10720) using the magnetograms taken by the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). As a major result we found that each of these major flares was preceded by a significant helicity accumulation over a long period (0.5 to a few days). Another finding is that the helicity accumulates at a nearly constant rate and then becomes nearly constant before the flares. This led us to distinguish the helicity variation into two phases: a phase of monotonically increasing helicity and the following phase of relatively constant helicity. As expected, the amount of helicity accumulated shows a modest correlation with time-integrated soft X-ray flux during flares. However, the average helicity change rate in the first phase shows even stronger correlation with the time-integrated soft X-ray flux. We discuss the physical implications of this result and the possibility that this characteristic helicity variation pattern can be used as an early warning sign for solar eruptions