Using stacked transformations for recognizing foreign accented speech

A common problem in speech recognition for foreign accented speech is that there is not enough training data for an accent-specific or a speaker-specific recognizer. Speaker adaptation can be used to improve the accuracy of a speaker independent recognizer, but a lot of adaptation data is needed for speakers with a strong foreign accent. In this paper we propose a rather simple and successful technique of stacked transformations where the baseline models trained for native speakers are first adapted by using accent-specific data and then by another transformation using speaker-specific data. Because the accent-specific data can be collected offline, the first transformation can be more detailed and comprehensive, and the second one less detailed and fast. Experimental results are provided for speaker adaptation in English spoken by Finnish speakers. The evaluation results confirm that the stacked transformations are very helpful for fast speaker adaptation.Peer reviewe

Isolation of a peptide in guinea pig liver homogenate and its turnover of leucine

Leucine was synthesized with C14 in the carboxyl group. 10 mg. of the radioactive amino acid (DL) and 0.66 gm. (wet weight) of guinea pig liver homogenate were added to a reaction mixture containing 1.3 per cent of an amino acid mixture corresponding to the composition of casein and 0.005 M fumarate, all in a final volume of 4 ml. of isotonic saline solution(1) at pH 7.4. The reaction was carried out under oxygen for 6 hours at 38°

Incorporation in vitro of labeled amino acids into bone marrow cell proteins

Nearly all experiments on the incorporation of labeled amino acids into tissue proteins in vitro have been done on tissues whose cell structure has been partially or completely disintegrated, e.g. tissue slices, segments, or homogenates. Since cell destruction reduces or abolishes the uptake of labeled amino acids (1), it seemed worth while to carry out studies on intact cells in vitro. Bone marrow cells were found to be suitable for this purpose. The labeled amino acids used were glycine-1-C14, L-leucine-1-C14, L-lysine-1-C14, and L-lysine-6-C14