Alien Registration- Williamson, Donald M. (Brownville, Piscataquis County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/10511/thumbnail.jp

Attention-based Speech Enhancement Using Human Quality Perception Modelling

Perceptually-inspired objective functions such as the perceptual evaluation of speech quality (PESQ), signal-to-distortion ratio (SDR), and short-time objective intelligibility (STOI), have recently been used to optimize performance of deep-learning-based speech enhancement algorithms. These objective functions, however, do not always strongly correlate with a listener's assessment of perceptual quality, so optimizing with these measures often results in poorer performance in real-world scenarios. In this work, we propose an attention-based enhancement approach that uses learned speech embedding vectors from a mean-opinion score (MOS) prediction model and a speech enhancement module to jointly enhance noisy speech. The MOS prediction model estimates the perceptual MOS of speech quality, as assessed by human listeners, directly from the audio signal. The enhancement module also employs a quantized language model that enforces spectral constraints for better speech realism and performance. We train the model using real-world noisy speech data that has been captured in everyday environments and test it using unseen corpora. The results show that our proposed approach significantly outperforms other approaches that are optimized with objective measures, where the predicted quality scores strongly correlate with human judgments.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, submitted in journal TASLP 202

Privacy-preserving and Privacy-attacking Approaches for Speech and Audio -- A Survey

In contemporary society, voice-controlled devices, such as smartphones and home assistants, have become pervasive due to their advanced capabilities and functionality. The always-on nature of their microphones offers users the convenience of readily accessing these devices. However, recent research and events have revealed that such voice-controlled devices are prone to various forms of malicious attacks, hence making it a growing concern for both users and researchers to safeguard against such attacks. Despite the numerous studies that have investigated adversarial attacks and privacy preservation for images, a conclusive study of this nature has not been conducted for the audio domain. Therefore, this paper aims to examine existing approaches for privacy-preserving and privacy-attacking strategies for audio and speech. To achieve this goal, we classify the attack and defense scenarios into several categories and provide detailed analysis of each approach. We also interpret the dissimilarities between the various approaches, highlight their contributions, and examine their limitations. Our investigation reveals that voice-controlled devices based on neural networks are inherently susceptible to specific types of attacks. Although it is possible to enhance the robustness of such models to certain forms of attack, more sophisticated approaches are required to comprehensively safeguard user privacy

La biomasa de las lagunas costeras de la reserva de los Cayos Miskitos

The study of the fish biomass of the coastal lagoons was carried out in the coastal lagoons of Bihmuna, Pahara, Wounhta and Karatá. Its purpose was to determine the present biomass of the fishing resources existing in the four lagoons studied during the summer and winter seasons and to address the current problems that exist in these lagoons for fisheries regulation.This quantitative approach study used four sampling units (atarraya, gillnets, purse seine net and ring) and random sampling points were selected in the lagoons; which were for a period of 24 hours (day and night), where different fishing tools were used. In relation to the results, the biomass of the lagoons was higher in winter; however in the summer there was a greater presence of individuals in juvenile and pre-juvenile states In the summer sampling, there were catches of penaeids in the lagoon of Bihmuna and Karatá where the individuals captured for the most part were of a state of pre-juvenile maturity. It is important to mention that the Bihmuna lagoon in the winter time there was the presence of penaeids; this is due to the circulation of dissolved salts in the water that is the product of the entry of water from the ocean that enters this lagoon through the two mouths it has.El estudio de la biomasa íctica de las lagunas costeras fue realizado en las lagunas costeras de Bihmuna, Pahara, Wounhta y Karatá. Tuvo como propósito determinar la biomasa presente de los recursos pesqueros existente en las cuatro lagunas estudiadas en la época de verano e invierno y abordar la problemática actual que existe en estas lagunas para la regulación pesquera. Este estudio de corte cuantitativo utilizó cuatro unidades de muestreos (atarraya, redes agalleras, red de cerco y aro jaibero) y de manera aleatoria al azar fueron seleccionado los puntos de muestreos en las lagunas; los cuales fueron por un periodo de tiempo de 24 horas (diurno y nocturno), donde se utilizaron diferentes aperos de pesca. En relación a los resultados, la biomasa de las lagunas fue mayor en invierno; mientras. que en el verano hubo mayor presencia de individuos en estados juveniles y pre juveniles. En el muestreo de verano hubo captura de peneidos en la laguna de Bihmuna y Karatá donde los individuos capturados en su mayor parte eran de estado de madurez pre juvenil. Es importante mencionar que la laguna de Bihmuna en la época de invierno hubo presencia de peneidos; esto se debe por la circulación de sales disueltas en el agua que es producto de la entrada de agua del océano que ingresa en esta laguna a través de las dos desembocaduras que presenta

Performance of the Halex in Logitudinal Studies of Older Adults

Goal: The Halex is an indicator of health status that combines self-rated health and activity limitations, which has been used by NCHS to predict future years of healthy life. The scores for each health state were developed based on strong assumptions, notably that a person in excellent health with ADL disabilities is as healthy as a person in poor health with no disabilities. Our goal was to examine the performance of the Halex as a longitudinal measure of health for older adults, and to improve the scoring if necessary. Methods: We used data from the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) to compare the relationship of baseline health to health 2 years later. Subject ages ranged from 65 to 103 (mean age 75). A total of 40,827 transitions were available for analysis. We examined whether Halex scores at time 0 were related monotonically to scores two years later, and iterated the original scores to improve the fit over time. Findings: The original Halex scores were not consistent over time. Persons in excellent health with ADL limitations were much healthier 2 years later than people in poor health with no limitations, even though they had been assumed to have identical health. People with ADL limitations had higher scores than predicted. The assumptions made in creating the Halex were not upheld in the data. Conclusions: The new iterated scores are specific to older adults, are appropriate for longitudinal data, and are relatively assumption-free. We recommend the use of these new scores for longitudinal studies of older adults that use the Halex health states