A Digital Microphone Array for Distant Speech Recognition

In this paper, the design, implementation and testing of a digital microphone array is presented. The array uses digital MEMS microphones which integrate the microphone, amplifier and analogue to digital converter on a single chip in place of the analogue microphones and external audio interfaces currently used. The device has the potential to be smaller, cheaper and more flexible than typical analogue arrays, however the effect on speech recognition performance of using digital microphones is as yet unknown. In order to evaluate the effect, an analogue array and the new digital array are used to simultaneously record test data for a speech recognition experiment. Initial results employing no adaptation show that performance using the digital array is significantly worse (14\% absolute WER) than the analogue device. Subsequent experiments using MLLR and CMLLR channel adaptation reduce this gap, and employing MLLR for both channel and speaker adaptation reduces the difference between the arrays to 4.5\% absolute WER

The 2005 AMI system for the transcription of speech in meetings

In this paper we describe the 2005 AMI system for the transcription\ud of speech in meetings used for participation in the 2005 NIST\ud RT evaluations. The system was designed for participation in the speech\ud to text part of the evaluations, in particular for transcription of speech\ud recorded with multiple distant microphones and independent headset\ud microphones. System performance was tested on both conference room\ud and lecture style meetings. Although input sources are processed using\ud different front-ends, the recognition process is based on a unified system\ud architecture. The system operates in multiple passes and makes use\ud of state of the art technologies such as discriminative training, vocal\ud tract length normalisation, heteroscedastic linear discriminant analysis,\ud speaker adaptation with maximum likelihood linear regression and minimum\ud word error rate decoding. In this paper we describe the system performance\ud on the official development and test sets for the NIST RT05s\ud evaluations. The system was jointly developed in less than 10 months\ud by a multi-site team and was shown to achieve very competitive performance

Developing personal relationships in care homes: realising the contributions of staff, residents and family members

Personal relationships are all integral part of living, working and visiting in care homes, but little research has made relationships the main focus of enquiry, and there have been few studies of the perspectives of residents, staff and family members. The study reported here sought to redress this neglect. Using a constructivist approach, the nature and types of relationships between residents, staff and family members were explored in three care homes in England using combined methods including participant observation, interviews and focus groups. The data collection and analysis Occurred iteratively Over 21 months and three types of relationships were identified: 'pragmatic relationships' that primarily focus oil the instrumental aspects of care; 'personal and responsive relationships' that engage more fully with the particular needs of individual residents; and 'reciprocal relationships' that recognise the roles of residents, staff and family members in creating a sense of community within the home. This paper explores the contributions made by staff; residents and family members in the development of these relationships. The findings enhance our understanding of the role of inter-personal relationships in care home settings and of the factors that condition them. The implications for developing improved practice in care ponies are also considered

Analysis of Unsupervised and Noise-Robust Speaker-Adaptive HMM-Based Speech Synthesis Systems toward a Unified ASR and TTS Framework

For the 2009 Blizzard Challenge we have built an unsupervised version of the HTS-2008 speaker-adaptive HMM-based speech synthesis system for English, and a noise robust version of the systems for Mandarin. They are designed from a multidisciplinary application point of view in that we attempt to integrate the components of the TTS system with other technologies such as ASR. All the average voice models are trained exclusively from recognized, publicly available, ASR databases. Multi-pass LVCSR and confidence scores calculated from confusion network are used for the unsupervised systems, and noisy data recorded in cars or public spaces is used for the noise robust system. We believe the developed systems form solid benchmarks and provide good connections to ASR fields. This paper describes the development of the systems and reports the results and analysis of their evaluation

Campo de Refugiados de Dadaab: un escenario de desafíos frente al Enfoque de Género del Alto Comisionado de Naciones Unidas para los Refugiados (ACNUR): 1998-2010

El presente Estudio de Caso tiene por objetivo determinar el alcance que tiene el Enfoque de Género de ACNUR, en la garantía de los derechos fundamentales de las mujeres y las niñas en el Campamento de Refugiados de Dadaab entre 1998 y 2010. La implementación del Enfoque resulta insuficiente en el proceso de defensa de los derechos de la población femenina, pues los problemas que enfrentan han aumentado a pesar de la ayuda humanitaria brindada por organizaciones internacionales. La iniciativa de ACNUR de mejorar las condiciones de las mujeres refugiadas, se materializa en el Enfoque de Género, no obstante los resultados de su aplicación no son los esperados. El carácter correlacional y analítico de la investigación responde al enfoque cualitativo utilizado, con el propósito de entender los retos que representa Dadaab en la aplicación de un proyecto internacional.This case study aims to determine the scope of the Gender Approach of UNHCR plays in guaranteeing the fundamental rights of women and girls in the Dadaab Refugee Camp between 1998 and 2010. Its application is insufficient in the process of defending the rights of the female population, because the problems faced by them have increased despite the humanitarian assistance provided by international organizations. This UNHCR's initiative created to improve the conditions of women refugees, is embodied in the Gender Approach, however the results of its application are unexpected. The correlational and analytical nature of this research responds to the qualitative approach that will be used, in order to understand the challenges of Dadaab in the implementation of an international project

Senior Capstone Lecture Recital: Chloe Lincoln, composition

This recital is presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree Bachelor of Arts in Music. Ms. Lincoln studies composition with Laurence Sherr.https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/musicprograms/1514/thumbnail.jp

Identification of genes expressed by immune cells of the colon that are regulated by colorectal cancer-associated variants.

A locus on human chromosome 11q23 tagged by marker rs3802842 was associated with colorectal cancer (CRC) in a genome-wide association study; this finding has been replicated in case-control studies worldwide. In order to identify biologic factors at this locus that are related to the etiopathology of CRC, we used microarray-based target selection methods, coupled to next-generation sequencing, to study 103 kb at the 11q23 locus. We genotyped 369 putative variants from 1,030 patients with CRC (cases) and 1,061 individuals without CRC (controls) from the Ontario Familial Colorectal Cancer Registry. Two previously uncharacterized genes, COLCA1 and COLCA2, were found to be co-regulated genes that are transcribed from opposite strands. Expression levels of COLCA1 and COLCA2 transcripts correlate with rs3802842 genotypes. In colon tissues, COLCA1 co-localizes with crystalloid granules of eosinophils and granular organelles of mast cells, neutrophils, macrophages, dendritic cells and differentiated myeloid-derived cell lines. COLCA2 is present in the cytoplasm of normal epithelial, immune and other cell lineages, as well as tumor cells. Tissue microarray analysis demonstrates the association of rs3802842 with lymphocyte density in the lamina propria (p = 0.014) and levels of COLCA1 in the lamina propria (p = 0.00016) and COLCA2 (tumor cells, p = 0.0041 and lamina propria, p = 6 × 10(-5)). In conclusion, genetic, expression and immunohistochemical data implicate COLCA1 and COLCA2 in the pathogenesis of colon cancer. Histologic analyses indicate the involvement of immune pathways

Data for Cybersecurity Research: Process and ‘Wish List’

This document identifies data needs of the security research community. This document is in response to a request for a “data wish list”. Because specific data needs will evolve in conjunction with evolving threats and research problems, we augment the wish list with commentary about some of the broader issues for data usage