PUHESYNTEESI JA LAUSEPAINO

Kontekstiin sopivien painotusten tuottaminen puhesyntetisaattorilla onyksi puhesynteesitutkimuksen suurimmista haasteista. Tässä artikkelissaluodaan katsaus painotusten käsittelyyn suomen varhaisemmassapuhesynteesitutkimuksessa ja esitellään kehittämämme lausepainomalli.Lisäksi käsitellään painotusten ennustamiseen liittyviä kysymyksiä:Voidaanko vapaasta tekstistä ennustaa automaattisin menetelmin, mitenihminen lukiessaan painottaisi sanat? Artikkelissa näytetään, että syntaktisenanalyysin, lauseen sanajärjestyksen, sanojen aikaisemman maininnan jaleksikon avulla voidaan useissa tapauksissa tehdä valistuneita arvauksiatodennäköisistä painotuksista.Avainsanat: Puhesynteesi, lausepaino, suomiKeywords: Speech synthesis, sentence stress, Finnis

Strategian merkitys sijoitusportfoliossa

Tämä opinnäytetyö käsitteli sijoitusstrategian merkitystä sijoitusportfoliossa. Rahoitusteoriassa on olemassa lukuisia eri strategioita, joita hyödynnetään sijoitustoiminnassa, mutta juuri oikean strategian löytäminen portfolioon on haasteellista. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli selvittää, mitä strategioita suomalaisilla eri sijoitustahoilla on käytössä ja millä perustein he olivat päätyneet valittuun strategiaan. Opinnäytetyön teoriaosuudessa tuotiin esille eri strategioita ja sijoittajalle tapoja portfolion rakentamiseen. Niitä tarkasteltiin eri näkökulmista ja peilattiin historiallisia tuottoja. Tutkimus toteutettiin kvalitatiivisena tutkimuksena ja tutkimusmenetelmänä käytettiin puolistrukturoituja teemahaastatteluita ja havainnointimenetelmänä seminaariluentoja. Tutkimusosioon valikoitui mukaan Ålandsbanken Asset Management –varainhoito, Estlander & Partners Ab –varainhoitoyritys ja Keskinäinen Eläkevakuutusyhtiö Ilmarinen. Jokainen tutkimuskohde valittiin yksinkertaisella satunnaisotannalla. Tutkimustulokset osoittivat, että jokainen tutkimuksessa mukana olleista toimi aktiivisena sijoittajana markkinoilla. Sijoituskohteita analysoitiin jatkuvasti, sijoitusportfolioiden riskiä vähennettiin hajauttamalla laajasti ja allokaatiot muuttuivat tasaisin väliajoin. Pankit ja varainhoitoyhtiö rakensivat strategiat pitkälti omien sijoitustuotteiden pohjalta. Strategian valintaan vaikutti jokaisen tutkimuskohteen sijoitustavoite. Eläkevakuutusyhtiö Ilmarinen suojasi eläkevaroja, Ålandsbanken Asset Management sijoitti vastuullisesti tuotoista karsimatta ja Estlander & Partners sijoitti pitkäaikaisesti hyödyntäen systemaattisia sijoitusstrategioitaThe present thesis investigated the role of an investment strategy in an investment portfolio. Finance theories present a number of various strategies that are utilized in investment activities, but finding the precisely right strategy for a particular portfolio is challenging. The aim of the study was to learn which strategies Finns use in different investment quar-ters, and what motivated them in choosing these particular strategies. In the theoretical part of this thesis, different strategies and investor means of building a portfolio were presented. These were examined from various perspectives and their past returns were studied. The study was carried out as qualitative research, and semi–structured thematic interviews and seminar lectures were employed as the detection method. The study researched the financial management units of Ålandsbanken Asset Management, Estlander & Partners Ab, and Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Company. Each research subject was selected by simple random sampling. The research results showed that every one of those involved in the study was actively participating in the investment market. There was a continuous analysis of investments, the risks related to the investment portfolios were reduced by strong decentralization, and allocations were changed periodically. The banks and the asset management company built their strategies largely based on their own investment products. In addition study revealed that the choice of strategy was affected by the investment objective of each research subject. Ilmarinen Mutual Pension Insurance Company secured its retirement funds, Ålandsbanken Asset Management invested in a responsible manner without compromising the returns, and Estlander & Partners made long-term investments by utilizing systematic investment strategies

Analysis of speech prosody using WaveNet embeddings : The Lombard effect

We present a novel methodology for speech prosody research based on the analysis of embeddings used to condition a convolutional WaveNet speech synthesis system. The methodology is evaluated using a corpus of Lombard speech, pre-processed in order to preserve only prosodic characteristics of the original recordings. The conditioning embeddings are trained to represent the combined influences of three sources of prosodic variation present in the corpus: the level and type of ambient noise, and the sentence focus type. We show that the resulting representations can be used to quantify the prosodic effects of the underlying influences, as well as interactions among them, in a statistically robust way. Comparing the results of our analysis with the results of a more traditional examination indicates that the presented methodology can be used as an alternative method of phonetic analysis of prosodic phenomena.Peer reviewe

Fluency-related Temporal Features and Syllable Prominence as Prosodic Proficiency Predictors for Learners of English with Different Language Backgrounds

Prosodic features are important in achieving intelligibility, comprehensibility, and fluency in a second or foreign language (L2). However, research on the assessment of prosody as part of oral proficiency remains scarce. Moreover, the acoustic analysis of L2 prosody has often focused on fluency-related temporal measures, neglecting language-dependent stress features that can be quantified in terms of syllable prominence. Introducing the evaluation of prominence-related measures can be of use in developing both teaching and assessment of L2 speaking skills. In this study we compare temporal measures and syllable prominence estimates as predictors of prosodic proficiency in non-native speakers of English with respect to the speaker's native language (L1). The predictive power of temporal and prominence measures was evaluated for utterance-sized samples produced by language learners from four different L1 backgrounds: Czech, Slovak, Polish, and Hungarian. Firstly, the speech samples were assessed using the revised Common European Framework of Reference scale for prosodic features. The assessed speech samples were then analyzed to derive articulation rate and three fluency measures. Syllable-level prominence was estimated by a continuous wavelet transform analysis using combinations of F0, energy, and syllable duration. The results show that the temporal measures serve as reliable predictors of prosodic proficiency in the L2, with prominence measures providing a small but significant improvement to prosodic proficiency predictions. The predictive power of the individual measures varies both quantitatively and qualitatively depending on the L1 of the speaker. We conclude that the possible effects of the speaker's L1 on the production of L2 prosody in terms of temporal features as well as syllable prominence deserve more attention in applied research and developing teaching and assessment methods for spoken L2.Peer reviewe

Quantity and tone in Finnish lexically stressed syllables

This paper presents results from a study on the tonal aspects of quantity in Finnish lexically stressed syllables. Fourteen speakers produced a set of 66 utterances where the quantity and structure of the lexically stressed syllable was system- atically varied. The tonal aspects of the syllable nucleus and nucleus and coda in case of closed syllables was stud- ied in the framework of the Target Approximation theory as formulated by Yi Xu. The results show a clear tendency to- wards the quantity distinction and bimoracity in general in Finnish to be signalled tonally by a dynamic falling tone as opposed to a static high tone in short (one mora) nuclei.Peer reviewe

Wavelet-based adaptation of pitch contour to Lombard speech

Peer reviewe

Intonation of Finnish Verbs

A production experiment investigated the tonal shape of Finnish finite verbs in transitive sentences without narrow focus. Traditional descriptions of Finnish stating that non- focused finite verbs do not receive accents were only partly supported. Verbs were found to have a consistently smaller pitch range than words in other word classes, but their pitch contours were neither flat nor explainable by pure interpolation.Peer reviewe

Boundary detection using continuous wavelet analysis

Peer reviewe

Hierarchical Representation and Estimation of Prosody using Continuous Wavelet Transform

Prominences and boundaries are the essential constituents of prosodic struc- ture in speech. They provide for means to chunk the speech stream into linguis- tically relevant units by providing them with relative saliences and demarcating them within utterance structures. Prominences and boundaries have both been widely used in both basic research on prosody as well as in text-to-speech syn- thesis. However, there are no representation schemes that would provide for both estimating and modelling them in a unified fashion. Here we present an unsupervised unified account for estimating and representing prosodic promi- nences and boundaries using a scale-space analysis based on continuous wavelet transform. The methods are evaluated and compared to earlier work using the Boston University Radio News corpus. The results show that the proposed method is comparable with the best published supervised annotation methods.Peer reviewe