Fuzzy reasoning in confidence evaluation of speech recognition

Confidence measures represent a systematic way to express reliability of speech recognition results. A common approach to confidence measuring is to take profit of the information that several recognition-related features offer and to combine them, through a given compilation mechanism , into a more effective way to distinguish between correct and incorrect recognition results. We propose to use a fuzzy reasoning scheme to perform the information compilation step. Our approach opposes the previously proposed ones because ours treats the uncertainty of recognition hypotheses in terms ofPeer ReviewedPostprint (published version

A second opinion approach for speech recognition verification

In order to improve the reliability of speech recognition results, a verifying system, that takes profit of the information given from an alternative recognition step is proposed. The alternative results are considered as a second opinion about the nature of the speech recognition process. Some features are extracted from both opinion sources and compiled, through a fuzzy inference system, into a more discriminant confidence measure able to verify correct results and disregard wrong ones. This approach is tested in a keyword spotting task taken form the Spanish SpeechDat database. Results show a considerable reduction of false rejections at a fixed false alarm rate compared to baseline systems.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Contextual confidence measures for continuous speech recognition

This paper explores the repercussion of contextual information into confidence measuring for continuous speech recognition results. Our approach comprises three steps: to extract confidence predictors out of recognition results, to compile those predictors into confidence measures by means of a fuzzy inference system whose parameters have been estimated, directly from examples, with an evolutionary strategy and, finally, to upgrade the confidence measures by the inclusion of contextual information. Through experimentation with two different continuous speech application tasks, results show that the context re-scoring procedure improves the capabilities of confidence measures to discriminate between correct and incorrect recognition results for every level of thresholding, even when a rather simple method to add contextual information is considered.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Hombres de negocios y finanzas públicas en la Cataluña de Felipe II

Editada en la Fundación Empresa PúblicaSe aborda la necesidad de investigar las conexiones entre capital privado y público en la articulación y funcionamiento de la Hacienda Real en la Cataluña de mediados del siglo XVI. Se pone de manifiesto la existencia de un poderoso sector privado de hombres de negocios que entra en contacto con los administradores hacendísticos para hacer fiante a las necesidades monetarias de la Monarquía. El artículo analiza la frecuencia de contratos de crédito, negociados a través de letras de cambio libradas sobre las ferias de Lyon, y los mecanismos especulativos asociados que permiten apreciar el alto componente financiero y mercantil efectivo de la fiscalidad real en Cataluña.The autor deals with the need for researches based on the connection of private and public capital in the functioning of the royal finances in Catolonia of the XVIth century. B. Hernández describes the existence of a powerful private sector of business-men that contacted with the fiscal administrators in order to face the monetary necessities of the Monarchy. This article analyzes the frequency of credit contracts negociated dough bills of exchange dispatched on the fairs of Lyons and die associated speculative mechanisms that allow to evaluate the importance of fiscal and mercantile factors diets had intervened in the royal financial system in Catelonia.Publicad

La información precontractual en la Directiva de Crédito al Consumo

Aborda legislação acerca da proteção e defesa do consumidor no ordenamento jurídico europeu. Analisa importância da divulgação da informação pré-contratual na União Europeia, obrigação baseada no desequilíbrio contratual entre as partes frente às práticas abusivas do comércio. Trata do dever de informar, nas relações de consumo, no âmbito jurisdicional de países europeus

Una invitación a dar otra mirada al significado de la educación y su correspondencia en el desarrollo de la humanidad

Educación de calidad, propuso el Ministerio de Educación Nacional (MEN), diseñada para capacitar y formar seres humanos que servirán para fortalecer el sistema económico capitalista de algunos y ampliar la brecha de exclusión e inequidad social. Lo que permite hacer un replanteamiento del significado de la educación en el mundo, pues ha llevado al desconocimiento de las humanidades para la construcción de una verdadera democracia y dejar a un lado la seudo-democracia en la que vive la humanidad, lo cual podría desencadenar el comienzo de naciones anárquicas y seguidora del todo poderoso sistema económico capitalista. Las propuestas tanto de occidente como de oriente para educar en valores difieren bastante y haría impensable el acercamiento de una y otra, pero existe un elemento integrador que permite el acercamiento, y es que todos pertenecemos a la raza humana, hacemos parte de un todo, siendo único y diferentes entre si, pero a partir de ello, se podría comprender el verdadero significado de la educación, toda vez que permitiría al pueblo del mundo descubrirse así mismo e integrarse con el todo, para alcanzar el desarrollo de la humanidad y comprender que aprender es vivir y cada quien tiene un papel fundamental en esta historia.Quality education, proposed the Ministry of National Education (MEN), designed to train and educate human beings that will strengthen the capitalist economic system and widen the gap some exclusion and social inequity. What allows a rethinking of the meaning of education in the world, it has led to ignorance of the humanities to build a true democracy and put aside the pseudo-democracy in which humanity lives, which could trigger the beginning of nations anarchic and follower of all powerful capitalist economic system. Proposals from both West and East to teach values and would differ quite unthinkable approach of both, but there is an integrating element that allows the approach, is that we all belong to the human race, we are part of a whole, being unique and different from one another, but from this, one could understand the true meaning of education, since the people of the world would discover himself and integrated with the whole, to achieve the development of humanity and understanding that learn to live and everyone has a role in this story

The impact of voice messaging to boost willingness to participate in oral whole class discussions

Tesis (Magíster en la Enseñanza del Inglés como Lengua Extranjera)This research project explores the alleged benefits of voice messaging via WhatsApp to strengthen willingness to communicate during whole class discussion. The study took place at language institute and 19 adults with an elementary level of English participated. To implement the system 2 WhatsApp groups were created, one for each section, and 3 related interaction resources were designed. The resources names were: Recording opinions via voice messaging prior group in-class conversation, providing remote homework assistance through voice messages and voice messages - driven forums. The intervention lasted little more than a month. After data analysis it was concluded that “recording opinions before group discussions” and “homework assistance” had not been very successful. However, there is some evidence that support the idea that forum based activities using voice messaging sparked a moderate level of willingness to communicate, as well as being helpful for lexical learning and collaborative work.Este estudio explora los aparentes beneficios de la mensajería de voz a través de WhatsApp para aumentar la voluntad de comunicarse durante discusiones que involucran a toda la clase. El estudio se realizó en un instituto de idiomas y conto con 19 participantes los cuales tenían un nivel de inglés elemental. Para implementar el sistema se crearon 2 grupos en WhatsApp, uno por cada curso, además se diseñaron 3 recursos de interacción. Los recursos fueron llamados: grabación de opiniones por mensajes de voz, asistencia remota para tareas usando mensajería de voz y foros generados por mensajería de voz. La intervención duro poco más de un mes y luego de la recolección de datos se concluyó que grabar opiniones y asistencia remota para tareas no fueron efectivas. Sin embargo, hubo evidencia que los foros generaron un moderado grado de voluntad para comunicarse como también se sugiere que podían ser útiles para aprendizaje de léxico y trabajo colaborativ

La matriz K-Exponencial y soluciones de algunos sistemas de ecuaciones diferenciales

En el presente trabajo se definen las matrices k-exponencial y k-logarítmica, usando la representación en series de potencias que incorporan el parámetro real de deformación k definido por G. Kaniadakis para explicar fenómenos de la Mecánica Estadística en el contexto de la relatividad especial, de tal forma que cuando el parámetro k tiende a cero, las matrices k-exponencial y k-logarítmica (con sus respectivas propiedades) se reducen a las de la matrices exponencial y logarítmica naturales, donde dichas matrices se relacionan como funciones matriciales inversas para matrices diagonalizables -- También se incursiona en sistemas (algunos de ellos acoplados) de ecuaciones diferenciales que pueden ser descritas en términos de k-derivadas en lugar de derivadas ordinarias (a las que se llamarán ecuaciones k-diferenciales), donde las matrices k-exponencial o k-logarítmica hacen parte de soluciones de dichos sistemas -- Para ello se presentan técnicas para resolver Ecuaciones k-diferenciales separables y lineales con coeficientes constante

Chiralities of nodal points along high symmetry lines with screw rotation symmetry

Screw rotations in nonsymmorphic space group symmetries induce the presence of hourglass and accordion shape band structures along screw invariant lines whenever spin-orbit coupling is nonnegligible. These structures induce topological enforced Weyl points on the band intersections. In this work we show that the chirality of each Weyl point is related to the representations of the cyclic group on the bands that form the intersection. To achieve this, we calculate the Picard group of isomorphism classes of complex line bundles over the 2-dimensional sphere with cyclic group action, and we show how the chirality (Chern number) relates to the eigenvalues of the rotation action on the rotation invariant points. Then we write an explicit Hamiltonian endowed with a cyclic action whose eigenfunctions restricted to a sphere realize the equivariant line bundles described before. As a consequence of this relation, we determine the chiralities of the nodal points appearing on the hourglass and accordion shape structures on screw invariant lines of the nonsymmorphic materials PI3 (SG: P63), Pd3N (SG: P6322), AgF3 (SG: P6122) and AuF3 (SG: P6122), and we corroborate these results with the Berry curvature and symmetry eigenvalues calculations for the electronic wavefunction.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure