Laying the Foundation for In-car Alcohol Detection by Speech

The fact that an increasing number of functions in the automobile are and will be controlled by speech of the driver rises the question whether this speech input may be used to detect a possible alcoholic intoxication of the driver. For that matter a large part of the new Alcohol Language Corpus (ALC) edited by the Bavarian Archive of Speech Signals (BAS) will be used for a broad statistical investigation of possible feature candidates for classification. In this contribution we present the motivation and the design of the ALC corpus as well as first results from fundamental frequency and rhythm analysis. Our analysis by comparing sober and alcoholized speech of the same individuals suggests that there are in fact promising features that can automatically be derived from the speech signal during the speech recognition process and will indicate intoxication for most speakers

Locally optimal control of continuous variable entanglement

We consider a system of two bosonic modes each subject to the dynamics induced by a thermal Markovian environment and we identify instantaneous, local symplectic controls that minimise the loss of entanglement in the Gaussian regime. By minimising the decrease of the logarithmic negativity at every instant in time, it will be shown that a non-trivial, finite amount of local squeezing helps to counter the effect of decoherence during the evolution. We also determine optimal control routines in the more restrictive scenario where the control operations are applied on only one of the two modes. We find that applying an instantaneous control only at the beginning of the dynamics, i.e. preparing an appropriate initial state, is the optimal strategy for states with symmetric correlations and when the dynamics is the same on both modes. More generally, even in asymmetric cases, the delayed decay of entanglement resulting from the optimal preparation of the initial state with no further action turns out to be always very close to the optimised control where multiple operations are applied during the evolution. Our study extends directly to mono-symmetric systems of any number of modes, i.e. to systems that are invariant under any local permutation of the modes within any one partition, as they are locally equivalent to two-mode systems.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, still no joke

PRÉ-DIMENSIONAMENTO E ANÁLISE NUMÉRICA DE ESTRUTURAS DE SUPORTE AUXILIARES DE UM PROJETO METROVIÁRIO

TCC (graduação) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Centro Tecnológico. Engenharia Civil.O modal metroviário se destaca como uma interessante solução para a mitigação dos problemas de mobilidade urbana. A implantação de tal sistema passa para por diversas etapas. O projeto básico e com ele o pré-dimensionamento de suas estruturas de suporte são cruciais para o adequado desenvolvimento da obra. Esse trabalho busca, através de modelos teóricos e empíricos, dimensionar as estruturas de suporte de um túnel de ligação, um túnel de via e um poço de ventilação e saída de emergência. As estruturas de suporte dos túneis foram dimensionadas utilizando o sistema Q de Barton. Já as estruturas do poço foram obtidas a partir de uma combinação entre a teoria de empuxo de Rankine e cascas de revolução. Além disso, o resultado dos dimensionamentos passou por duas análises distintas com ferramentas computacionais. A primeira avaliou a estabilidade dos blocos de rocha formados entre a escavação das estruturas e as descontinuidades do maciço com o programa Unwedge da Rocscience. Na segunda utilizaram-se modelos de elementos finitos para verificar os sistemas de suporte. Esse consiste do programa Phase2 da mesma empresa do anterior. Dentre os resultados obtidos, encontrou-se que as estruturas de suporte dos túneis foram superdimensionadas. Também, percebeu-se a importância de realizar a análise com diversas ferramentas, já que as estruturas de suporte tiveram um impacto grande na análise de estabilidade de blocos

Mobile learning — trends and practices

Mobile learning has become one of the more influential aspects in the field of educational technology given the ubiquity of modern mobile devices and proliferation of educational applications or ‘apps’ for mobile devices. Within this special issue, there are a range of studies and reviews which cover a breadth of current topics in the field, namely user motivations for using mobile learning, issues in evaluation and domain-specific considerations (e.g., use within language learning or audio-based applications). Together these studies represent the synthesis of a range of methods, approaches and applications that highlight benefits and areas of future growth of mobile technologies

200 anys dels Contes d’infants i de la llar dels germans Grimm

El 20 de desembre de 1812, els germans Jacob i Wilhelm Grimm van publicaruna col·lecció de 86 històries, seguida per un segon volum l’any 1815 amb 70relats més. La col·lecció, augmentada però també escurçada amb la supressiód’algunes històries al llarg de la seva vida, conté, en la darrera edició, 211 rondalles.La influència d’aquests llibres va ser enorme. La col·lecció de les rondallesdels germans Grimm és, al costat de la Bíblia de Luter, el treball més coneguti més àmpliament difós de la història cultural alemanya a tot el món. Haestat traduït a 160 llengües de tots els continents. El 2005, aquesta col·lecció esva afegir a la Llista del Patrimoni Mundial de Documents de la UNESCO.Aquest treball ofereix una visió general sobre l’estat actual de la investigacióde les rondalles dels germans Grimm i discuteix importants esdevenimentshistòrics i moderns que els folkloristes han utilitzat per parlar de les rondallesdurant gairebé dos-cents anys, el paper dels nous mitjans en la divulgació i recepcióde les rondalles dels germans Grimm i el context transcultural en quècada vegada més tot això es duu a terme.En vista d’aquestes tendències, aquest treball resumeix les líniesd’investigació i condensa els significats sobre les tradicions orals i literàries iofereix idees per al futur de les rondalles dels Grimm i de les rondalles en general

Probabilities on Sentences in an Expressive Logic

Automated reasoning about uncertain knowledge has many applications. One difficulty when developing such systems is the lack of a completely satisfactory integration of logic and probability. We address this problem directly. Expressive languages like higher-order logic are ideally suited for representing and reasoning about structured knowledge. Uncertain knowledge can be modeled by using graded probabilities rather than binary truth-values. The main technical problem studied in this paper is the following: Given a set of sentences, each having some probability of being true, what probability should be ascribed to other (query) sentences? A natural wish-list, among others, is that the probability distribution (i) is consistent with the knowledge base, (ii) allows for a consistent inference procedure and in particular (iii) reduces to deductive logic in the limit of probabilities being 0 and 1, (iv) allows (Bayesian) inductive reasoning and (v) learning in the limit and in particular (vi) allows confirmation of universally quantified hypotheses/sentences. We translate this wish-list into technical requirements for a prior probability and show that probabilities satisfying all our criteria exist. We also give explicit constructions and several general characterizations of probabilities that satisfy some or all of the criteria and various (counter) examples. We also derive necessary and sufficient conditions for extending beliefs about finitely many sentences to suitable probabilities over all sentences, and in particular least dogmatic or least biased ones. We conclude with a brief outlook on how the developed theory might be used and approximated in autonomous reasoning agents. Our theory is a step towards a globally consistent and empirically satisfactory unification of probability and logic.Comment: 52 LaTeX pages, 64 definiton/theorems/etc, presented at conference Progic 2011 in New Yor

The Role of Subjective Quality Judgements in User Preferences for Mobile Learning Apps

This study investigated whether subjective quality judgements on sound and picture quality across three devices (iPhone, iPad, and iPad mini) affected user preferences for learning applications. We tested 20 native Finnish-speaking users trialing generic audio clips, video clips, and two kinds of learning apps that were heavily reliant on sound. It was found that there was a main effect of the device on perceived sound quality, replicating earlier findings. However, these judgements did not impact on the users' preferences for different devices nor on their preferences for different applications. The results are interpreted as indicating that perceived quality and affordances are less important for users in these contexts than other considerations (e.g., convenience, mobility, etc.).Peer reviewe

Phonetic and orthographic cues are weighted in speech sound perception by second language speakers: evidence from Greek speakers of English.

Second language (L2) learning can involve processing of speech-sound contrasts that have multiple phonetic cues (e.g. Iverson et al., 2003). This can be particularly difficult for foreign-language learners especially if the cues are weighted differently in the foreign and native languages (e.g., Giannakopoulou et al., 2011, 2013). The orthographic representation of words is suggested to also interfere with speech sound perception in way of presenting additional cues for the second language learner. Greek child and adult speakers of English were studied to determine on what basis they are making perceptual identification between English vowels with the use of pictures as visual stimuli. Performance was impaired for Greek speakers across all tasks but worst for Greek speakers for the picture stimuli task. Findings suggest a 'link' between orthography and perceptual identification serving as an additional cue for L2 speakers