26,556 research outputs found
Representing Childhood and Forced Migration: Narratives of Borders and Belonging in European Screen Content for Children
This article explores representations of childhood and forced migration within a selection of European screen content for and about children. Based on the findings of a research project that examined the intersections of children’s media, diversity, and forced migration in Europe (www.euroarabchildrensmedia.org), funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council, the article highlights different ways in which ideas of borders and belonging are constructed and deconstructed in a selection of films and television programmes that feature children with an immigration background. Drawing on ideas around the “politics of pity” (Arendt), the analysis explores conditions under which narratives of otherness arise when it comes to representing forcibly displaced children within European-produced children’s screen media. It also examines screen media that destabilize borders of “us” and “the other” by emphasizing the agency of children from migration backgrounds, and revealing both the similarities and the differences between European children with immigration backgrounds and White European-born children. It is argued here that, operating according to the notions of living “together-in-difference” (Ang), “narratability” (Chouliaraki and Stolic), and “the struggle for belonging” (Kebede), these representations destabilize narratives of borders and otherness, suggesting that children with a family history of immigration “belong” to European societies in the same ways as White European-born children
Extremal metrics on blow ups
Given a compact Kahler manifold with an extremal metric (M,\omega), we give
sufficient conditions on finite sets points p_1,...,p_n and weights a_1,...a_n
for which the blow up of M at p_1,...,p_n has an extremal metric in the Kahler
class \pi^*[\omega] - \epsilon (a_1 PD[E_1] + .. + a_n PD[E_n]) for all
\epsilon sufficiently small. In particular our result implies that if
(M,\omega) is a toric manifold and p_1,...,p_n is any subset of the fixed locus
of the torus action, then such metrics exist for any choice of the weights. The
relationship with previous constructions of the first two authors for Kahler
constant scalar curvature metrics is discussed.Comment: 39 page
Speech Separation Using Partially Asynchronous Microphone Arrays Without Resampling
We consider the problem of separating speech sources captured by multiple
spatially separated devices, each of which has multiple microphones and samples
its signals at a slightly different rate. Most asynchronous array processing
methods rely on sample rate offset estimation and resampling, but these offsets
can be difficult to estimate if the sources or microphones are moving. We
propose a source separation method that does not require offset estimation or
signal resampling. Instead, we divide the distributed array into several
synchronous subarrays. All arrays are used jointly to estimate the time-varying
signal statistics, and those statistics are used to design separate
time-varying spatial filters in each array. We demonstrate the method for
speech mixtures recorded on both stationary and moving microphone arrays.Comment: To appear at the International Workshop on Acoustic Signal
Enhancement (IWAENC 2018
Beyond Word N-Grams
We describe, analyze, and evaluate experimentally a new probabilistic model
for word-sequence prediction in natural language based on prediction suffix
trees (PSTs). By using efficient data structures, we extend the notion of PST
to unbounded vocabularies. We also show how to use a Bayesian approach based on
recursive priors over all possible PSTs to efficiently maintain tree mixtures.
These mixtures have provably and practically better performance than almost any
single model. We evaluate the model on several corpora. The low perplexity
achieved by relatively small PST mixture models suggests that they may be an
advantageous alternative, both theoretically and practically, to the widely
used n-gram models.Comment: 15 pages, one PostScript figure, uses psfig.sty and fullname.sty.
Revised version of a paper in the Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Very
Large Corpora, MIT, 199
Acoustic Impulse Responses for Wearable Audio Devices
We present an open-access dataset of over 8000 acoustic impulse from 160
microphones spread across the body and affixed to wearable accessories. The
data can be used to evaluate audio capture and array processing systems using
wearable devices such as hearing aids, headphones, eyeglasses, jewelry, and
clothing. We analyze the acoustic transfer functions of different parts of the
body, measure the effects of clothing worn over microphones, compare
measurements from a live human subject to those from a mannequin, and simulate
the noise-reduction performance of several beamformers. The results suggest
that arrays of microphones spread across the body are more effective than those
confined to a single device.Comment: To appear at ICASSP 201
Preshaping command inputs to reduce telerobotic system oscillations
The results of using a new technique for shaping inputs to a model of the space shuttle Remote Manipulator System (RMS) are presented. The shapes inputs move the system to the same location that was originally commanded, however, the oscillations of the machine are considerably reduced. An overview of the new shaping method is presented. A description of RMS model is provided. The problem of slow joint servo rates on the RMS is accommodated with an extension of the shaping method. The results and sample data are also presented for both joint and three-dimensional cartesian motions. The results demonstrate that the new shaping method performs well on large, telerobotic systems which exhibit significant structural vibration. The new method is shown to also result in considerable energy savings during operations of the RMS manipulator
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