Modelling context in automatic speech recognition

Speech is at the core of human communication. Speaking and listing comes so natural to us that we do not have to think about it at all. The underlying cognitive processes are very rapid and almost completely subconscious. It is hard, if not impossible not to understand speech. For computers on the other hand, recognising speech is a daunting task. It has to deal with a large number of different voices "influenced, among other things, by emotion, moods and fatigue" the acoustic properties of different environments, dialects, a huge vocabulary and an unlimited creativity of speakers to combine words and to break the rules of grammar. Almost all existing automatic speech recognisers use statistics over speech sounds "what is the probability that a piece of audio is an a-sound" and statistics over word combinations to deal with this complexity. The results of those systems are impressive but unfortunately not good enough for most applications of speech recognition. This thesis proposes to put context information in the models of speech recognition to achieve better recognition results. Context is defined as knowledge of the speaker, such as gender and dialect, knowledge of the conversation and knowledge of the world. The influence of each of those categories is investigated using data analysis and case studies and new models for speech recognition are defined. In particular, a model that dynamically adapts the vocabulary of the recogniser to the topic of a conversation, which it can automatically determine, is presented.Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc

Nooit meer leren

Waarom zou je nog iets leren, dankzij internet kunnen we alles wat we willen weten toch razendsnel opzoeken? Feitjes wel, maar voor de context heb je voorlopig toch echt je eigen hersens nodig, zeggen professor Catholijn Jonker en dr. Pascal WiggersMediamaticsElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc

An audio-visual corpus for multimodal speech recognition in Dutch language

This paper describes the gathering and availability of an audio-visual speech corpus for Dutch language. The corpus was prepared with the multi-modal speech recognition in mind and it is currently used in our research on lip-reading and bimodal speech recognition. It contains the prompts used also in the well-established POLYPHONE corpus and therefore captures the Dutch language characteristics with a reasonable accuracy.Intelligent SystemsElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc

Language Modeling With Dynamic Bayesian Networks Using Conversation Types and Part of Speech Information

Intelligent SystemsElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc

Self-reflection on personal values to support value-sensitive design

The impact of ubiquitous technology and social media on our lives is rapidly increasing. We explicitly need to consider personal values affected or violated by these systems. Value-sensitive design can guide a designer in building systems that account for human values. However, the framework lacks clear steps to guide elicitation of stakeholders’ values. We argue that developing tools for value elicitation that designers can use or give to stakeholders is a feasible solution to this challenge. Crucial in eliciting values is that a stakeholder has to have an understanding about her own values and how they relate in importance. This requires self-reflection. Self-reflection, in turn, requires thinking or analysing one’s behaviour in meaningful moments over a long period of time. In this paper, we investigate how current methods from various disciplines can be combined and applied in a tool supporting reflection on personal values. We present an exploratory study investigating photo elicitation and a value questionnaire as methods for expressing and eliciting values with a tool. Based on the results we present an envisioned mobile personal informatics application that triggers people to reflect about their values in real-life contexts.MediamaticsElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc

Social acceptance of negotiation support systems: Scenario-based exploration with focus groups and online survey

We investigate people’s attitudes toward the possible use of negotiation support systems (NSS) in different social contexts and the consequences for their design. To explore functional requirements and social acceptance in different use contexts, we followed a threestep approach. In the first step, we conducted a number of focus groups with negotiation experts. Second, we conducted focus groups with potential users. The focus groups were a qualitative exploration of people’s ideas about NSS that led to design guidelines for mobile NSS. Third, we conducted an online survey (a) to find out in which situations people consider a mobile NSS socially acceptable, (b) to find the factors and relationships that influence this acceptance in the different situations and social contexts, and (c) to investigate the consequences of people’s attitudes toward NSS for the system’s design. The data showed that subjective norm is an important factor influencing the intention to use the system and that the acceptance of NSS depends on the use context. Therefore, we argue that NSS should be designed not only merely as tools being used in the actual negotiation but also as social devices harnessing social networks to provide support in all negotiation phases.MediamaticsElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc

Measurement of charged particle multiplicities and densities in pp collisions at s√=7 TeV in the forward region

Charged particle multiplicities are studied in proton–proton collisions in the forward region at a centre-ofmass energy of √ s = 7 TeV with data collected by the LHCb detector. The forward spectrometer allows access to a kinematic range of 2.0 < η < 4.8 in pseudorapidity, momenta greater than 2 GeV/c and transverse momenta greater than 0.2 GeV/c. The measurements are performed using events with at least one charged particle in the kinematic acceptance. The results are presented as functions of pseudorapidity and transverse momentum and are compared to predictions from several Monte Carlo event generators

Measurement of the diffractive cross-section in deep inelastic scattering

Diffractive scattering of $\gamma^* p \to X + N$, where $N$ is either a proton or a nucleonic system with $M_N~<~4$~GeV has been measured in deep inelastic scattering (DIS) at HERA. The cross section was determined by a novel method as a function of the $\gamma^* p$ c.m. energy $W$ between 60 and 245~GeV and of the mass $M_X$ of the system $X$ up to 15~GeV at average $Q^2$ values of 14 and 31~GeV$^2$. The diffractive cross section $d\sigma^{diff} /dM_X$ is, within errors, found to rise linearly with $W$. Parameterizing the $W$ dependence by the form d\sigma^{diff}/dM_X \propto (W^2)^{(2\overline{\mbox{\alpha_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}}} -2)} the DIS data yield for the pomeron trajectory \overline{\mbox{\alpha_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}}} = 1.23 \pm 0.02(stat) \pm 0.04 (syst) averaged over $t$ in the measured kinematic range assuming the longitudinal photon contribution to be zero. This value for the pomeron trajectory is substantially larger than \overline{\mbox{\alpha_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}}} extracted from soft interactions. The value of \overline{\mbox{\alpha_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}}} measured in this analysis suggests that a substantial part of the diffractive DIS cross section originates from processes which can be described by perturbative QCD. From the measured diffractive cross sections the diffractive structure function of the proton F^{D(3)}_2(\beta,Q^2, \mbox{x_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}}) has been determined, where $\beta$ is the momentum fraction of the struck quark in the pomeron. The form F^{D(3)}_2 = constant \cdot (1/ \mbox{x_{_{I\hspace{-0.2em}P}}})^a gives a good fit to the data in all $\beta$ and $Q^2$ intervals with $a = 1.46 \pm 0.04 (stat) \pmComment: 45 pages, including 16 figure