The meeting was primarily about the amount of data and amount of transcribed data that the team is collecting. The team was concerned that they were focusing too much on the mundane aspects of the recording and not enough on the more important aspects of transcribing the data. The meeting also discussed how to deal with the overlapping of people's voices in the recording, and how to reduce the number of overlapping events. Also, the team discussed whether it would be a good idea to manually mark speaker overlap by hand.
The transcriptions for the first twelve minutes of the meeting were transcribed using Jane's transcription software. The transcriptions contained roughly seventy-five percent of the participants' utterances. The majority of the transcripts were from the morning meeting, but there are scattered other meetings that will be recorded over the course of the next few weeks.
PhD D informed the team that he had found more than seventy-five speaker overlaps in the first twelve minutes of transcribing. He thought that it was important to look at the overlapping zone as a distinct phenomenon, rather than just the overlapping of speakers. He wanted to know how many overlaps there were in twelve minutes.
The recording of the first session of the meeting has been transcribed and sent to IBM for comparison. A larger chunk of the data has been recorded and put on CD-ROM and will be sent next week.
The team was collecting data from meeting participants on a weekly basis. Meeting participants agreed to have their transcripts transcribed and the team was working on transcribing other meetings as well. The team thought that transcribing from outside the group would be a good idea, but they did not want to have meetings that were recorded from outside this group do the digits.
This meeting was about the conceptual design of the remote control. First of all, the team had a discussion about the components of a remote control, including components of the case, the case material, the material of the casing, the energy source, the battery, the buttons, the voice recognition system, and the shape of the controller. Then, the group discussed the cost of the components, including the material used for the case and the material for the casing. After that, they talked about the material they would use to make the casing and all the other details of the prototype. Finally, they reached a consensus that they would stick with the rubber casing and use rubber push buttons because the other buttons weren't compatible with rubber.
The Industrial Designer first presented on the component design of the remote control. The remote control would be made of plastic with a hard plastic casing and a round remote control with visible light coming out of it as a fun gimmick. The user interface designer proposed to use go-to buttons being stuck into the system so those didn't move away from the screen and the important ones like power, volume and jump between channels. The voice command system could be incorporated and the remote could be produced in a variety of different case materials to suit different tastes. The User Interface designer also proposed to have a changeable casings and a rubber case.
Industrial Designer thought that the remote control should be made of rubber because it was durable and easy to drop and it didn't matter. Also, rubber was a good material to use for the case as it was a consistency of stress balls. Besides, rubber could be used as part of the case material to suit different tastes. In addition, Industrial Designer thought it would be a good idea to incorporate visible light coming out of the remote as a fun gimmick.
The User Interface thought that they should get away from the idea of having a hand-held remote control and instead have a round remote control that looks like a paperweight or something like that, with go-to buttons being stuck into the system so that the important ones like power, volume and jump between channels could not move away. They could also add some stupid little jokes with the voice recognition idea like the toastie maker that they got from the bank.
Marketing thought that the touch screen was the most marketable feature because it was new and it was something that was showing up in other places. Industrial Designer thought that in order to incorporate touch screen technology it would cost them upwards of seventeen fifty Euro per remote. Project Manager thought they could have a very simple touch screen. User Interface thought that they could do a slide or a compartment.
The Marketing thought that the touch screen was the most marketable feature because it was new and it was something that was showing up in other places. Besides, the Marketing believed that the most primary functions on a daily basis should be secondary, at least if not functionally then visually, like voice recognition.
The Industrial Design thought that the traditional shape of the remote control was not suitable for the current market trend. The Industrial Design pointed out that most remotes operated on the infrared part of the spectrum, which meant that it was not easy to misplace or lose. Therefore, the User Interface proposed to design a round remote control that looked like a paperweight or something like that, which could sit on the table or something.
This meeting was mainly about the first meeting of the new remote control project. First of all, the team got acquainted with each other and got used to the whiteboard. Then, they talked about the general plan for the project how they were going to go about accomplishing this and a bit of discussion close up about the detailed design of the remote control. After that, they discussed the trade-off between the size and functionality of the product. They decided to make it multifunctional but at the same time not too much so that they wouldn't be able to tell them apart from other remotes. Finally, they decided to design a touch screen remote with multi-format features and keep it nice and slick.
The Project Manager was not sold on the idea of selling the remote for twenty-five Euros because the finance department had told him that it would be a very expensive product. However, the Project Manager believed that they should try to make a hundred percent profit on the product and sell it internationally.
The group agreed that the remote control should be multifunctional. They wanted it to be universal, but at the same time it should not be too big or too complicated. They also agreed that it should be a universal remote control, which could be sold in PAL, NTSC, region one, PAL 2, PAL 3, PAL 4, PAL 5, PAL 6, PAL 7, PAL 8, etc.
The Project Manager thought that the remote control should be made out of a nice material and the buttons should be simple and not too complicated. He thought that there should be only one outstanding feature to set it apart from all the other remotes.
Industrial Designer thought that making the remote out of a nice material would be very important because so many of those remotes that you see were cheap and low quality. Keeping it nice and slick would also be important.
The Industrial Designer thought it would be a good idea to have a locator device on the remote control to help people find their remote control. He suggested that it could be a simple button that you had on your television to help you find your remote.
The group agreed that the remote control should be as fashionable as possible. They would try to take ordinary stuff that nobody really thought about and try to make it nice, like John Lewis nice or Debenham's or something. They wanted it to be multifunctional but at the same time not too much so that they wouldn't be able to tell them apart. Besides, they wanted the remote to be made out of a nice material so that it could be sold as a phone or a remote for twenty-five Euros.
This meeting was about the product requirements of the new remote control. First, the Industrial Designer gave a presentation about the working of the remote control and then the User Interface gave a short talk about the technical function design. After that, the group discussed some new product requirements, including teletext, LCD screen, menu button, power button, volume button, and menu button. Finally, the team decided to make a basic remote control, only swapping channels and volume and power button and nothing much more.
Industrial Designer believed that the remote control would not be too expensive to build because it was not so expensive. There were a lot of wires on it, wires which connected the components in it, the battery, and switches and things like that. There would be only one battery on it and a long-lasting battery. Industrial Designer also suggested that the device should be zap friendly.
Project Manager thought Industrial Designer's presentation about the working of the remote control was difficult to explain to people who had not seen a remote control inside. Industrial Designer pointed out that there were a lot of wires, wires, switches, switches and things like that, and there were many small electronics. Project Manager thought that the industrial designer's presentation was not easy to explain because the Industrial Designer didn't know how the remote controls worked.
Industrial Designer proposed that to have a trendy remote control, they could also make something like the Nokia mobile phones to change covers. So if you had a trendy half with all red, yellow and something, and then you could put a red cover on it. And then you can buy the covers. However, Industrial Designer thought that too few people would change the cover for good profit.
User Interface thought the technical function design was for a remote control to have some influence on the TV set, both audio and vide video in a cordless way. User Interface also found some interesting quotes on the web about this idea.
Marketing conducted a usability lab-test with a hundred people. The users found the look and feel of current remote controls very ugly and found it hard to learn how to use. Also, fifty percent of the users only used ten percent of buttons. The most used buttons were channel selection, power, volume and channel selection. The teletext was less relevant but also not used very often. Most users also found the design of the remote control was very important, as most users used it for zap friendly purposes.
Marketing presented the results of a usability lab-test with a hundred people. The team found that most users disliked the look and feel of current remote controls and found it hard to learn how to use. Also, fifty percent of users only used ten percent of the unused buttons, and most users found most remote controls very ugly. Marketing suggested that less important functions should be discarded from the remote control, such as audio options, screen options to change the brightness, and channel settings.
Firstly, teletext was no longer necessary since the internet made it possible for everyone to access the latest news. Secondly, the remote control should be zap friendly as most users use it for that. Thirdly, the corporate colour and slogan must be used as it was very important for the design. Fourthly, it should be only for the age group of forty plus because not very many people buy their stuff.
This meeting was mainly about the functional design of the remote control. First, the group discussed the new project requirements that were sent to them. Then, they went through each of the presentations that the team had been preparing during the time. After that, the team discussed the target group and functions of the new remote control and came to a consensus that it should only be designed for the use of television. Finally, the meeting ended with a general discussion about the technical functions design. The team decided to keep the design as simple and clear as possible and to incorporate the latest features in the chip design.
Industrial Designer firstly identified the basic components of the remote control and how they work together with each other. User Interface then presented on working design, technical functions and functional requirements of remote control. Industrial Designer proposed to keep the whole remote control small just like the physical size and follow some conventions like whereabouts you find the on off button and colour tends to be red or something. Then User Interface presented on functional requirements, including a locator and a beeper button on the TV.
Project Manager thought that the advanced technology design would help the company to upgrade its technology at a future point of time.
The group thought that the locator would solve the problem of having different noises because it would beep every five minutes so that people would not accidentally lose the remote control. Also, it would save the environment by being able to sit in the sunshine.
The group discussed the general requirements of the new remote control. First of all, they agreed that the remote control should be sleek, stylish, sophisticated, and minimalist. Second, they wanted it to be easy to use, but still have the buttons so that it was easy for the user to use. Third, it should have a long battery life and a locator function. Fourth, the group agreed that they should keep the whole remote control small just like the physical size and follow some conventions like whereabouts you find the on off button and maybe the colour tends to be red or something. Fifth, they should have an ergonomic design that encourages good use and not straining their wrists watching TV. Sixth, they needed to have a fairly defined group that they wanted to focus on. Seventhly, they had to keep the design as simple and clear as possible.
The group agreed that fifteen to twenty-five year olds have a higher disposable income because they don't have a mortgage, a life insurance policy, etc. They also don't normally have a car and all those things. However, if they were talking 25 Euros as a price, that was not unaffordable even for young people.
Project Manager thought that ninety one point two percent of fifteen to twenty five year olds would pay more for a voice recognition remote control than fifteen to thirty five. However, Project Manager also wondered how well voice recognition would work given that a TV tended to be people talking and how were they going to stop it from just flipping channels whilst watching TV. Project Manager thought it would be a bit strange to have a fancy remote control on a fancy TV, but it might not pick up other things coming from there, so they needed both.
This meeting was mainly about the functional design of the new remote control. First of all, Marketing gave a presentation about the working design of remote controls. Then, User Interface and Industrial Designer gave presentations respectively about technical functions design and user interface design respectively. After that, Project Manager asked the team to give presentations respectively on the components of the remote control and the technical functions of the user interface. Next, the team discussed the design of power and volume control. Finally, they discussed the idea of automatic on off on the button.
Marketing suggested that they should target the young people because they are more interested in a new device. However, Marketing also pointed out that young people might not be willing to pay for fancy looking remote controls because they have other means of finding their information. Therefore, they should only make a universal remote control.
The marketing learned that the power button was not used often because in general users only used it once per session, but it was very relevant. Channel selection was also very important because people wanted to have control on volume and that made sense of course. Volume was not often used but people also wanted to adjust volume. Audio settings, screen settings, teletext and channel settings were more or less relevant. It seemed that people found teletext teletext relevant, even if they personally never used it but seemed that it was average relevant at least.
The marketing thought they should aim at young people because they were those who might be more interested in a new device. In general, early adopters of new devices are young people, less than more than older people.
User Interface proposed that they should only make a remote control, nothing more than this. They should have only few buttons, a screen with a back light which could change colours, and all the other things can be controlled through the screen. And all these buttons should be easy to find and to click because when users watch a movie and want to change something, they should do it by touching it and finding it easily just by touch. Then User Interface proposed to include two nice features into the device, power on and off can be made fully automatic and volume can be changed according to distance and angle.
The user interface designer recommended that they should only make a remote control, nothing more than this, and only make simple desires into simple actions. All these buttons should be easy to find and to click, and each could respond for your voice, like it could turn on the light for you just to find it easily just by touch.
Marketing suggested that people would like to zap out of the one hundred channels. User Interface proposed another solution, which was to set up the TV set like four or five channels, and users would never have to go to a twenty-five channel. This solution was adopted by the group, but it was not very convenient for people with hundreds of channels. Project Manager suggested that they could carry out some research to find out how many people really needed to go from channel number twenty five to sixty four.
The basic function of the remote control was to send a message to the main device like TV. To do this, it needed an interface, which basically some kind of pressing buttons or keys or like moving jack or something like that. And then these messages could be transferred into a message and then it would process by the chip and generate some information. The chip would be mainly digital signal processing chip because since it was mainly digital devices, it would take care of all these functions and put it in some digital format. Then, the main control would be in a main device to do the particular action what the user wanted.
Marketing informed the team about the trend of having speech recognition in the remote control. User Interface suggested that the team should consider whether people would like or not to have this kind of functionality in their remote control and as the age went up, the relevance went down. Industrial Designer suggested that they could have another simple speech recogniser on the D-S-B chip. Project Manager thought it would be very expensive but Industrial Designer thought it could be implemented in the next step if they made it work.
The team decided that automatic power on and off can be made fully automatic when users go to the sofa, take the remote control and point it to the TV, and then the TV turns on. However, it would be very expensive for the current budget of twelve Euros. Project Manager suggested that speech recogniser could be implemented in the next step if they made it work.
The meeting was mainly about the progress of the belief-net project. The team had decided that the construction analyzer that they needed for the demo level was in there, and they were working on the parser, analyzer, and parser in parallel with the grammar stuff. There was also some discussion about the semantics of the parser and parser, and how they could be formalized. Also, the team discussed how to deal with the syntactic differences between English and German and how to incorporate them into the model.
The meeting was mainly about the progress of the belief-net project. The team had decided that the construction analyzer that they needed for the demo level was in there, and they were working on the parser, analyzer, and parser in parallel with the grammar stuff. There was also some discussion about the semantics of the parser and parser, and how they could be formalized. Also, the team discussed how to deal with the syntactic differences between English and German and how to incorporate them into the model.
The SmartKom system did not work as expected and was unable to handle non-English word orders such as "I am Spartacus", "Where is the midpoint", etc. The problem was that JavaBayes did not support exploding the nodes out and down. The team had to hack away at the code to make it work.
The first demo would be an internal demonstration, in which the system would be able to speak into it and walk through the information. The demo would take place in half an hour or forty-five minutes. Participants would be given a brief introduction to the system, and then they would be asked to give a sensible answer to a question about the system.
The team would continue working on the demo, but the focus would shift to the next phase of the project, which would be focused on the ontology. The team would work on the parser, analyzer, and construction parser in parallel with the formalization of the belief-net.
This meeting was the conceptual design meeting for the new remote control. First, the group discussed the components of the remote control, including the energy source, the material and interface, the buttons, the speech recognition chip, the location feature, the colour of the buttons and the material of the case. Then, the team talked about the fancy features of the product, such as speech recognition and location feature. After that, the meeting moved on to discuss the design of the interface, which was divided into three parts: the component design, the user interface design, and the product evaluation. The final product would be a spongy, fruit-shaped remote control with a fancy look and feel.
Industrial Designer proposed to use simple battery instead of solar cells, titanium instead of rubber, push buttons or liquid crystal display instead of titanium, and titanium as the material and interface. Project Manager agreed to use titanium because it was cheaper and less expensive compared to rubber. User Interface proposed to make the remote control look like fruit and vegetables. Marketing suggested to use speech recognition technology instead of LCD because it would reduce the cost on display and speech recognition could also be used for more complicated remote controls.
The industrial designer recommended using simple push buttons instead of push buttons because it needed a simple chip and it was cheaper compared to LCD which needed advanced chip technology and was more expensive. Also, push buttons could be made with titanium instead of rubber because it was easier to mould the shapes and the titanium was cheaper.
The user interface designer proposed that the remote control should be made with simple devices or simple technology to do the location of remote control in a room or in a house. For energy, they could use simple battery instead of solar cells or traditional solar cells, and the material they could have plastic, rubber, titanium, or titanium could be good for this remote control. For the interface, the user interface proposed to use push buttons instead of LCDs and to use liquid crystal display instead of titanium.
User Interface proposed that they got a perfect remote control with a lot of buttons with an explanation for every button. Then User Interface proposed to make a backlight of the LCD screen with different colours so that the remote control could glow in the dark. Project Manager agreed with User Interface and suggested that the backlight could be a source of information or source for menus.
The marketing believed that there were two kinds of people, those who wanted to be different from their friends and those who were willing to pay more for a remote control with a distinctive look and feel and look. The marketing thought that people would be willing to buy the remote control if it was pink.
The marketing expert believed that there were two kinds of people: those who wanted the remote control to know who was using it and those who didn't want to use it. The marketing expert thought that the young people would be willing to pay more for a remote control with speech recognition because they thought it would be a good sales pitch.
Marketing first gave a brief recap on how to watch trends on the web and suggested that the best source of information about trends was the web. Then, Marketing suggested that they should watch the trends everywhere in the world and try to create the trend. Marketing also suggested that their remote control should be spongy and fruit-like. Then they discussed whether they could make the remote control smell like fruit or not.
The marketing learned that the trend of fruit and vegetable was spreading across the world and that it could travel from clothing to furniture. The marketing also learned that people were interested in location and these things, so the marketing suggested that the remote control should be more round and look natural somehow.
Marketing suggested that the remote control should have a distinctive look and feel and should be spongy. Marketing also suggested that they could make it look like fruit and vegetables because it was a colour that they didn't usually see in a remote control and it could travel from clothe to furniture. However, this idea was challenged by User Interface who pointed out that they still had to put their chips inside the remote, so they could not make the remote look like a chameleon.
This meeting was the final meeting of the detailed design of the remote control. First, the team presented the prototype of the new remote control to the team. Then, they talked about the prototype presentation and the evaluation criteria. After that, they discussed the cost of the prototype, including the amount of buttons, the material of the cover, the color of the case, the buttons and the scroll wheel, and the location of the locator. Finally, they calculated the production cost and found that they were within the budget of twelve point five. They agreed to cut some things down because of the budget they had, but they would still be within their budget. They also agreed to have a locator on the TV.
Marketing firstly went through all the user requirements and things that the team had worked on and made a list of them. Then, the team evaluated each feature on a seven-point scale. The team gave a seven out of seven to each feature, including the features of voice recognition, ergonomics, technological innovation, and locatable function. After that, they discussed the cost of the product and found that they were within the budget, but they had to cut some things down because of the tight budget.
Project Manager agreed with Marketing that the remote control was more for right-handed people than for left-hand people. However, Project Manager also pointed out that there might be a problem if there were not all left-handeders in the family.
The team gave intuitive five points on the evaluation criteria. They gave it a seven on the ergonomics, five on the scroll, four on the voice recognition, three on the speech recognition, two on the speak sample speaker, and one on the intuitive design. They also gave it seven points for the location function, which they thought was intuitive.
The team agreed that the prototype presentation and evaluation criteria were satisfactory, but they still had to cut some things down because of the budget. They decided to send all of their manufacturing to some nice poor country and cut some of the prices that way. They also decided to have a single-curved surface and single-sided rubber case material. They would have pushbuttons for the volume and an additional mute button on the top as well. Besides, they would have a beeping thing instead of speaker and the sample sensor would have to go because it was not on their list.
Marketing agreed with group mates when discussing the spin wheel with LCD display. He thought it was not a great difference, but the scroll wheel was essentially the two buttons that was, so he didn't think it was too much of a difference. Besides, he thought the voice recognition was also just part of it.
Industrial Designer thought they lost their evaluation criteria because the scroll wheel was not very intuitive and left-handed people were not used to it. However, User Interface argued that it was not a big issue because right-hand people would be able to scroll with their finger rather than their thumb. Project Manager agreed that the beeping thing was not like a sample speaker, but it would just beep, so they still had the locate.
This meeting was mainly about the detailed design of the remote control. First of all, the group discussed the cost of the prototype of remote control, which was under the budget of twelve fifty Euros. Then, the team discussed the features of the product, including the interchangeable faces, the voice recognition function, the slide-out panel, the multiple colours coming out, and the visible light. After that, they discussed the financial aspects of the project, including whether to switch away from the solar cells or take out the back-up battery, and whether to use a slide or a fold-out bay for more advanced functions. Finally, the meeting ended with a discussion about the project evaluation.
In this meeting, the team discussed some problems with the prototype of the remote control. First of all, Industrial Designer was disappointed about the loss of the solar panel because it was a set-back. Then, User Interface complained that the pull-out panel could take some adjusting because it looked like it was coming up rough, but once users got used to it, it did make a lot of sense. The team also discussed whether to switch away from the solar cells or take out the back-up battery, but the cost was too high and they would have to set up a call center for that one per cent of the time when people were calling and saying look my remote isn't working. Finally, the group discussed whether they should keep the voice recognition option or switch to a non-remote shape.
The User Interface thought that the solar cell was one of the main selling features of the remote, but the Industrial Design thought that it would be hard to get rid of it because it was so integral to the theme of the product. In the long run, it was better to keep the battery because people would be upset if they found out that the remote was not working.
The Project Manager thought that the Industrial Designer, User Interface, and User Interface had done a good job in their presentations. He thought that their presentation was creative and innovative. He also appreciated the incorporation of tin foil from a random Kit-Kat bar into their presentation.
The group thought that they were relatively productive considering the limited amount of input they had going in. They thought that the technology had definitely been a help to try out all the new stuff, and the teamwork was good as well. Also, they thought they had a lot of room for creativity in the design of the remote, and they had priced out a spongy even spongier non-natural look material. They also continued on with the ideas that following Apple's colour schemes with the kind of the light orange and the green, they could use a slide or a fold-out bay for more advanced functions for users.
The Industrial Design thought that the team members were creative and resourceful. They brainstormed more during their meetings as a team because the information came in at the right time and filled in the gaps enough. Also, they had enough room to just make things up and fill in the blanks on their own.
The Project Manager thought that the team members got too much information from the previous meetings and the level of information dropped off severely over the course of the day. He thought that they had too much brainstorming and too little creativity during the last meeting. Besides, he thought that their limited ability to think outside the box was the reason for their limited creativity.
The meeting was mainly about the selection of a belief-net for the project. The team decided to use a combination of table top and close talking mn-3-L to collect data. They also discussed how they could extract features from the data, such as intention, context, and utterance, and how to incorporate them into the model. In addition, the team decided that they would start collecting data in parallel with the close talking and the far field at the same time, so that they could get a better idea of how the model would work. The meeting ended with a discussion about how the data collection would be done.
The team wanted to record the conversation in parallel with the close talking and the far field at the same time. They decided to use table top microphones and high quality pressure zone mikes, as well as close talking mikes. They wanted the near field mikes to isolate the difference between the two.
C thought that it would be a good idea to have both table top and close talking microphones in the room. He thought that the close talking mikes would give high quality audio, especially for people who weren't interested in the acoustic parts of the corpus. He also wanted to isolate the difference between close talking and far field mikes.
A thought that it would be a good idea to have both table top and close talking microphones in the room so that they could record in parallel with close talking and far field mikes at the same time. He also wanted to make sure that everyone was wearing headphones and that the microphone was about two thumb widths away from their mouths.
The group discussed how the data collection would be carried out. The first thing they would do would be to set up a three-D model of Heidelberg with a QuickTime animation of a person standing in a square in the center of the city. The user would be told that the computer system knew exactly where they were, via GPS, but when the human operator came on, the GPS was crashed as well, so the person first had to ask the wizard where he was. Then, the wizard would tell the person where he or she was, depending on what they saw there. The professor thought that this would provide interesting data for future research. The second thing they wanted to figure out was how much direction was given to the subject about what their interaction with the system was like.
B thought that it would be interesting to experiment with the interaction between the user and the computer navigation system. In the experiment, the user would be given a three-D model of Heidelberg, followed by a QuickTime animation of a street map, and then the computer would tell the user how to get to a certain location. The user would then be told how far away the location was by the computer and how to find it by GPS. B thought that this experiment would provide interesting data for future research.
D thought that it would be interesting to see how much direction the subjects would give to the computer navigation system when they were unfamiliar with interacting with the system. D thought that people would not be able to tell the difference between the intention of wanting to go to a building and the intention to get to the nearest part of it.
This meeting was the Children, Young People and Education Committee. It was mainly about the Welsh Government's childcare offer. The meeting started with the Minister for Children and Social Care on the childcare offer, Huw Irranca-Davies and Jo-Anne Daniels, director for communities and tackling poverty, and Owain Lloyd, deputy director for childcare, play and early years, respectively, gave a presentation about the childcare scheme. Then, the meeting went into questions and answers from Members, and the Minister answered the questions about the programme, including the cost of childcare, the availability of childcare providers, and its impact on work participation and work hours for mothers and families with a child of target age. After that, the discussion moved to the topic of the programme's impact on childcare providers and the wider aspects of beyond the £4.50 rate.
Huw Irranca-Davies thought it had gone well and was glad they had done it through this process of early implementer, actually piloting it, because they were learning lessons as they went along. However, one was the bureaucracy around the current approach that they were taking, because it was being done on the seven early implementers. They were asking parents to come in, provide their wage slips, provide the birth certificates, and so on. The burden of administration on that was falling to each pilot area. The other big challenge they were hitting was communication.
Huw Irranca-Davies thought that it had gone well, but he was glad they had done it through this process of early implementer, actually piloting it, because they were learning lessons as they went along. One was the bureaucracy around the current approach that they were taking, because it was being done on the seven early implementers. The burden of administration on that was falling to each pilot area. The other big challenge they were hitting was communication with parents and families with complex issues and complex backgrounds, so it was difficult. The biggest one was the administrative burden, which was very bureaucratic.
Huw Irranca-Davies explained that there were some economic issues and then some cultural issues. It was not capacity, whether it was in English language provision or in Welsh language provision. In children with complex needs, they were not finding that as an issue. But what they were finding was that, in some of the south Wales Valleys constituencies, there was a family tradition of doing childcare within the families. This was not what the scheme was about.
Huw Irranca-Davies explained that the childcare offer was not only to provide childcare; it was also about aligning the early years development entirely. It was about communicating what the offer was, how simple it was to get in this and where they went to, and critically, I think, how we do that national roll-out would be important as well. Huw Irranaca-Davy also explained that it was not a single national rate, but a contribution towards the wraparound childcare element but it didn't cover everything.
According to Barry Hughes, in some of the south Wales Valleys constituencies, there was a family tradition of doing childcare within the families. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and so on provided free, unregistered, unlicensed childcare of a sort. This was not what the childcare offer was about. The focus of the childcare scheme was on registered licensed providers, which could be registered and inspected by the care inspectorate.
Huw Irranca-Davies thought that they had several things going on at once in terms of how they monitor and assess the development of this roll-out. First of all, they were identifying not only broadly at a national level where they needed to develop those qualifications, but also at a regional, geographic level as well, and that was being taken forward. Secondly, they had a whole programme running alongside it. It was about communicating what the offer was, how simple it was to get invovled in this and where they went to, and critically, I think, how they did that national rolling-out would be important as well.
Huw Irranca-Davies explained that they had been having an open dialogue with the sector around affordability, around the hourly rate and around what might happen in the future as well. At the moment, they were not getting people saying within this part of the roll-out that they needed to adjust this amount. They were focusing on those elements that weren't included within it, to some extent as well, and the effect of that on more disadvantaged families, but that had to be balanced with the pocket of affordability for this scheme.
Huw Irranca-Davies thought that it was right that they were focusing on those elements that weren't included within it, to some extent as well, and the effect of that on more disadvantaged families, but that had to be balanced with the pocket of affordability for this scheme as well. He believed that there had been a very open dialogue with the sector around affordability, around the hourly rate and around what might happen in the future.
Huw Irranca-Davies thought that the pilots in Cardiff and Newport were having real-life impacts on parents, including in disadvantaged families, and they knew they had lessons to learn over the affordability and the £4.50 per hour rate. They were learning lessons from the pilot areas and they were going to learn more from the other areas.
Huw Irranca-Davies said that the pilots were having real-life impacts on parents, including in disadvantaged families, and most children would become eligible for a full-time school place in the term after their fourth birthday. In terms of child development and not accentuating disadvantage, another area where this may apply is the kids who are born in the summer term, compared to those who were born in Michaelmas. There is mixed evidence about school starting age and the birth month of children.
Huw Irranca-Davies thought that the Flying Start was having real-life impacts on parents, including in disadvantaged families, and they were having this fed back from real life situations on the ground, where parents were making different choices in the areas where it was being piloted. There were the 10 hours of education provision that sat here for every family, by the way, within this offer, let alone the childcare. It was not only Flying Start that provided that other support for parents, and readiness not only for the parents and for their children, but also the support into work.
Huw Irranca-davies explained that he visited one of the facilities in the Valleys the other day that was taking this forward—a very good independent sector-run childcare provision with Welsh language and English language running alongside each other, and he asked the point about the integration. Their standard of staff was an exemplar of what they wanted to see: not only very well-qualified childcare staff who were qualified within not simply the child-minding but the wider child development aspects. The quality, he thought, was key, and that's why they were focused very much on registered inspected providers, as opposed to every Tom, Dick and Harriet.
This meeting was mainly about the evaluation of the prototype of the new remote control. First, the team members gave their opinions on the prototype. Then, they gave a rating to each feature of the product according to the seven point scale from true to false. After that, the group evaluated the price of the remote control and found that it was cheap enough. The team also agreed that the joystick was too expensive, so they had to change the joystick into a button up, button down, button right, button left, and the joystick to a regular one. Then the team evaluated the product on its appearance and found it was aimed at the younger market and not for all customers. Finally, it was evaluated on the sound and it was given a three.
User Interface introduced the prototype of the remote control. It was made of yellow rubber with big buttons, except the power button and the mute and the other button. The joystick was for the volume and the channels. To the right was the volume up button and to the left was volume down. There was an LCD display on the joystick and the R-R logo was on the rub rubber part. The buttons were blue except for power button, mute and other button, channel higher channel button and channel lower channel button. All the buttons had to be the same colour.
Marketing introduced how the evaluation would work. Based on the marketing strategy, on the latest trends, on user preferences, and on base of each criterion, the team would give a rating on each item based on the seven point scale from true to false. In the end, they would count an average of all ratings.
The team agreed that the product was technologically innovative and aimed at the younger market. However, they disagreed on the fancy look-and-feel of the product because it was not aimed at all customers. Also, they thought the scroll-button was something new and not a lot of other remote controls had it. The team also disagreed on whether the product would get lost easily.
The team agreed that the remote control would cost 15 Euros. They had one battery, one advanced chip, one chip-on-print, one joystick, two scroll-wheels, one integrated scroll-wheel, one LCD display, two push-buttons, one special colour, a special colour for the buttons, a button supplement in yellow rubber and a special color for the joystick. They also had to change the colour of the joystick to normal colour.
The team thought the creativity of the team members was good enough. The SMARTboard brought up new ideas when they worked with the remote control. The project manager thought the speed of the project was good.
This meeting was mainly about the design of the remote control. First of all, the group discussed the various components of the product, including the battery, the case, the buttons, the LCD display, the material, the look and feel of the interface, the color of the buttons and the material of the case. Then, the team discussed the interface design, including buttons, shape and size and buttons and voice recognition. After that, the meeting moved on to the discussion about the components' properties, materials, the user interface and any trends that the Marketing Expert had been watching. The team finally reached a consensus that LCDs were definitely the way to go because of style and the company's manufacturing division had designed a new programmable speech speaker unit, which could be used on a double curved surface. Finally, they discussed the material and shape of the controller.
The Industrial Designer introduced the remote components, including a simple battery, an LCD display, a spinning wheel and an advanced integrated circuit. The User Interface presented on the user interface, including scroll wheels, buttons in company colours and voice recognition. The Marketing Expert presented on market trends, including fancy look and feel.
Industrial Designer thought that the scroll wheel was like the iPod with the LCR display. Instead of going down, users could just spin the wheel and scroll around. Industrial Designer thought the wheel was fast and fast enough for users to search quite a lot of stuff.
The Marketing thought that LCD was a good way to get in the whole RSI issue because most people used the remote control with their right hand and it was a bit of a pain to get the number in wrong. Also, LCD could come up with new information about what's on and users could just see that on the remote rather than having to interrupt their viewing pleasure.
The team decided to have a simple battery, an LCD display with a spinning wheel, a simple case with a curved on one side and a rubber case on the other, and a curved case made out of rubber. The team also decided to incorporate voice recognition as well as LCD displays into the remote control. Also, the team agreed to have push-buttons on the outside and then on the inside an LCD with spinning wheel and they were incorporating voice recognition.
The user interface designer thought that a wooden remote control was not practical for a table because it was too small and bulky. The marketing designer thought it was not very cleanable either. The industrial designer thought the case was too thin and it was likely to break. However, the project manager thought the double-curved case was a good idea because it could be curved from one side and flipped into each other.
Marketing thought that push-buttons were out of fashion and out of trend in the remote control industry. However, User Interface argued that for the channel numbers, they still needed them because most people would not want to flip through all the channels and it would be frustrating for the user. Marketing also pointed out that there was a limit to how much the biggest techno geek could spend fiddling with the TV.
This meeting was a scrutiny session with a focus on higher and further education. The meeting started with Kirsty Williams, Cabinet Secretary for Education, Eluned Morgan, Minister for Welsh Language and Lifelong Learning, and Huw Morris, who is the group director of skills, higher education and lifelong learning. They talked about the demand for part-time undergraduate study for the first year of Diamond, the recruitment of teachers into the 300 priority places, and the financial situation of the Welsh universities. Next, the meeting discussed the parity of esteem between academic and vocational post-16 education. Then, the group discussed the Welsh Government's plans for the post-compulsory education and training sector. Finally, they discussed the financial position of Welsh universities and the Welsh government's plans to implement the reforms.
Suzy Davies AM asked about the trend of teacher recruiting at Welsh teacher training centres. Kirsty Williams AM firstly explained that for this year's intake, although they were in touch with their providers, they were not in a position to give figures for the 2018-19 cohort. But what they had seen over recent years was that they were only recruiting to about 65 per cent of those targets. They were still a job of work to do to understand and respond to those needs, and they had a whole package of things they needed to do. In January of this year, they had set up an advisory board on the recruitment and retention of teaching staff, and were awaiting some reports from the advisory group on what they felt that they should do next.
According to Kirsty Williams, for this year's intake, although they were in touch with their providers, they were not in a position to give figures for the 2018-19 cohort. But what they had seen over recent years was that they were only recruiting to about 65 per cent of the targets, which was a cataclysmic drop. They were still doing a lot of work to understand and respond to the needs, and they were putting in place plans to improve the situation. They had also embarked on their first ever national ITE recruitment marketing exercise. In January of this year, they had set up an advisory board on the recruitment and retention of teaching staff, and were awaiting some reports from that advisory group on what they should do next.
According to Kirsty Williams, the figures on their own told one story, but there were additional people in the system with an ability to speak Welsh and to be able to use. And if they looked at qualifiers of ITE courses in Wales by degree type, they saw a different trend—they saw numbers going up. Therefore, there was no need to second-guess the judgment of previous Ministers who pursued the ITE reforms. Moreover, they were not sitting back and hoping that something miraculous would change things. They were pulling levers and putting in place plans to improve the situation.
Hefin David thought that the decision by the Education Workforce Council not to accredit the University of South Wales with the ability to deliver teacher training was independent of the Government, but Kirsty Williams insisted that it was not appropriate for him to comment on that, especially as he understood that there was an appeals process that may be being undertaken. In terms of the overall numbers, they would be looking to commission from those institutions that had been accredited the number of training places that their planning tool said that they needed. Clearly, there would be a responsibility upon the university to ensure that those students already in the system were able to complete their studies and their course, with the appropriate level of support and tuition to enable them to achieve their career aspirations and to graduate from that programme.
Kirsty Williams said that the process was independent of Government, and it would not be appropriate for him to comment on that, especially as he understood that there was an appeals process that may be being undertaken. What he would say was that from the very outset of the ITE reforms, he expected very high standards in the system, and the accreditation process demanded of ITE providers that their provision would be able to meet the goals of the curriculum. In terms of the overall numbers, they would be looking to commission from those institutions that had been accredited the number of training places that their planning tool said that they needed. Clearly, there would be a responsibility upon the University of South Wales to ensure that those students already in
According to Kirsty Williams, there was a significant geographical spread. Currently, with the current providers, there were centres here in the south-east, there are centres in mid Wales, and in north Wales. Obviously, accessibility was an issue for them. Therefore, they were responding with their part-time PGCE route, which actually would be location neutral, because students who already had three years' worth of debt would be able to study that as a distance learner.
Kirsty Williams said that he was in favor of a healthy, strong and sustainable HE sector. He was not pursuing or urging a policy of mergers, but if individual institutions felt that was of benefit to them and their students, obviously, they would have an interest in that and making sure that they were robust plans, but that was a matter for individual institutions. There was no formal policy for reconfiguration or mergers.
Kirsty Williams said that she was in favor of a healthy, strong and sustainable HE sector. If individual institutions wished to collaborate or go further to a formal merger then, obviously, that was a matter for them. However, she did not have a burning desire or a set policy to pursue mergers. She believed that it was not worth the disruption that could occur to staff and students. She was all for universities and institutions working together, but there was no formal policy.
Kirsty Williams was not aware of any disadvantage to Cardiff Met, but he would recognise for staff and students caught up in those deliberations and those issues. In terms of the institution going forward, he was really heartened by some of the really interesting collaborative work that Cardiff Met were interested in doing, and new partnerships and new collaborations between institutions, whether that be Cardiff Uni or local colleges, and he thought that was to be welcomed.
Dawn Bowden thought that the employers were using the funding issue as the reason not to have a reasonable settlement with staff. Kirsty Williams thought this was where the Welsh Government did have a role. They were keeping a close eye on the situation, but they were extremely aware of the sensitivities of the situation. In terms of the financial pressures, they were constantly working with the Student Loans Company to make sure that the services that they offered to people were as good as they could be, and that there were no unnecessary delays that put a student under pressure or gave students worries about their financial situation.
First of all, Eluned Morgan believed that this was about ColegauCymru's negotiation, but they were keeping a close eye on the situation. Second, he was concerned that the employers seemed to be using the funding issue as the reason not to have a reasonable settlement with staff. Third, he looked at the college in his constituency, Merthyr college—it was a tertiary college, providing A-Level education across Wales and they were astounding results they had been getting as well. Fourth, he thought it was probably worth emphasising that the reason this had come about or part of the reason was because the pay settlement in relation to teachers' pay and they had had the consequential.
Eluned Morgan said that she thought it was a laudable aim and she wanted to see people have greater pay equality between schoolteachers and FE. However, she was not sure if it was the right thing to do at the moment. She thought they had got work to do to make sure that they did reach that parity of esteem, but she thought the way to make people move was through making sure that the finances were where they needed to be, and then they were likely to shift.
This was the Children, Young People and Education Committee's last formal meeting before the Senedd tomorrow. It was mainly about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on health and social services as they relate to children and young people in Wales. First, the committee discussed the impact on the care system, including edge-of-care services, and how the Welsh Government had responded to the situation. Then, they discussed the situation of looked-after children and children on the edge of care. The committee also discussed the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, which had not been introduced any easements in relation to children's services legislation, and whether there was sufficient capacity in place to manage any increase. Finally, the meeting discussed the children's mental health and well-being.
According to Vaughan Gething, they still had seven-day-a-week crisis care for children and young people. They were not services to be scaled down. They had built up those crisis care services over a period of time, and the last thing they wanted to see was to see them disappear during this period when there were well-understood concerns about emotional and mental health. In terms of telephone advice services, they had made sure that's maintained, and both myself and the deputy Minister had referred to that on a number of occasions.
According to Vaughan Gething, children's mental health was a central concern and remained so for both himself and the education minister. They were working together with both health boards and their own knowledge and analytical services across the Government to both try to further understand what that was and the difference. In all of the unknowns within the lockdown, the impact on mental health and well-being was absolutely one of them, because they were looking at how they then developed not just a recovery plan for the economy but also an overall recovery plan around mental health, how we support people, and that would have to be informed by the understanding of what's happening when they got more engagement with families about the level of need.
Tracey Breheny said that in terms of in-patient capacity, that was in the system in both the north Wales and in the south Wales unit at the moment. There were some discharges of young people, but they had the assurance that that was only undertaken where it was clinically safe to do so and where the community support was in place. In terms of CAMHS primary mental health services, according to the latest tool, those staff were gradually returning to work from self-isolation or whatever, or from different parts of the system.
The group talked about the evaluations on the increasing suicide crimes during the COVID-19 and the long-term special care for the pregnant women. The first thing they talked about was the evaluation on the suicide crimes, which showed that there was a rise in the number of suicides during the pandemic. The second thing was that the group also talked about how to deal with the problem of the special care of pregnant women and how to cope with it.
According to Vaughan Gething, the crisis care services were still available for children and young people who needed them at the moment. They were not part of the series of measures that he stopped within the health service on 13 March, and the last thing they wanted to see was to see them disappear during this period of time when there were well-understood concerns about emotional and mental health.
According to Vaughan Gething, there had been a reduction in people wanting to make use of the perinatal mental health service. However, he was concerned about the time frame because of the pause or the interruption in work to create the in-patient capacity that he had previously committed to. He was also impressed by the continuing commitment of staff to deliver this service for women in what was a particularly uncertain time.
According to Julie Morgan, the definition of vulnerable children and young people included those with a social worker and with statements of special educational needs, and the most vulnerable of these should be prioritised. However, the current guidance did not include discretion for local authorities to have some flexibility and to be able to offer a place for those who may be on the edge of receiving care and support if they were known to be vulnerable by the school or by family support services.
Julie Morgan thought that it was difficult to monitor if there was not easy access to the children that they were referring to, and that's why they had been trying to encourage the vulnerable children to go into school or childcare settings. There had been a lot of encouragement for that happen. Also, there was close contact between Welsh Government officials and the heads of the children's services.
Julie Morgan said that they had had close communications with the fostering organizations and they supported AFA Cymru to develop guidance for foster carers, and that guidance had been very strongly welcomed across the sector. The Fostering Network had extended its helpline hours and Voices from Care had developed this particular offer of support for care leavers.
According to Julie Morgan, the Welsh Government had not introduced any easements in relation to children's services legislation. Therefore, from a Welsh context, the standards that were in place did remain, so therefore there wouldn't have been a necessity for them to do a children's rights impact assessment in the primary legislation. In terms of childcare and education, they were obviously looking at the provisions under the coronavirus Act to allow some of the statutory requirements, and they were going to be undertaking a full suite of impact assessments on those.
According to Julie Morgan, the online survey would be going out to thousands of children, and they would get their response in terms of what were the important issues that had arisen for them, what they felt about what's happened during this period, how they had dealt with the schools, the way that they had had to cope in not going school and being at home for so long. And so they were trying to get feedback from young people.
Albert Heaney thought that from a Welsh context, the standards that were in place did remain, so therefore there wouldn't have been a necessity for them to do a children's rights impact assessment in relation to the primary legislation. He also believed that the coronavirus Act was particularly a strong point to them in Wales, both in terms of safeguarding arrangements, but also ensuring that children' rights were protected at a crucial time.
The meeting was primarily about the progress of the team's efforts to collect data for the Hub-five project. The team discussed how to improve the performance of their efforts on the Hub 5 project and how to incorporate more read speech data into the model. They also discussed the current state of their data collection efforts and how they could expand their efforts. The meeting also discussed how the team could improve their efforts with the help of more read data. Finally, the team discussed the size of the data they would need to store in the machine room and how much space they could fit in the disk racks.
The team was running out of space on their storage disks and needed to figure out where to store their data. The team thought that they could hang disks off the back of the machine that collects the data. They could also store the data on a second disk rack on XG. The problem was that they didn't currently have a wire running to that back room that went anywhere near one of the ICSI routers. They would have to run a wire somewhere.
Grad E explained that he had an 18 gigabyte drive hanging off of his computer. He was not doing anything on it right now because he had too many meetings to transcribe.
Grad A thought that Dave was leaving because he was too busy to take over the task of setting up the new machines. The rest of the team thought that he was probably too busy with other projects. The professor thought it was a good idea to have a conversation with Dave about it.
The team was concerned that they were running out of space for the next meeting. The professor suggested that they could alternate the focus of the meeting by having a telephone meeting every other week or whenever they felt like it. The team thought that this would be a good idea, but the professor thought it would be boring for people who were not interested in the details of the recognition system.
The professor thought that it would be a good idea to alternate the focus of the meetings. He thought that the team could have a telephone meeting every other week or whenever they felt like it.
The team was joking that it was nearing the end of the week and Dave Johnson would be gone for a few days so they might not have enough meeting space for a full meeting. They thought that they could alternate the focus of the meeting by having a guy's meeting and a girl's meeting.
This meeting was the kick-off meeting for the new television remote control project. First of all, Project Manager introduced the project plan from Real Reaction. Then, the team discussed the first ideas about the project, including the design of the remote control, the material of the case, the shape of the buttons, the colour of the front, the buttons to be used, the number of buttons on the front and the type of buttons. The team also talked about the technical design and the form of the product. Finally, the meeting ended with a general discussion about the target market, which was fifty million.
The group agreed that it was important to make the remote control compatible with the DVD player so that customers could use it as a game pad. Also, they wanted it to be compatible with everything they used, so that it would be acceptable for the whole world. The group also agreed that they should not add too many buttons and make it easy to learn.
The group agreed that the remote control should be original and trendy. They wanted it to be compatible with everything they use, and it should be user-friendly. They also agreed that there should be some space between the buttons to make it clear that there are two functions for every button, and the buttons should have international recognisable buttons. Also, they agreed that it should not be too big, not too small, and not too close together.
The group agreed that it was important to make the remote control compatible with the D-V-D player so that customers could use it for different devices. Also, it would be a good idea to make it compatible with DVD players so that people could use their television and DVD player with the same remote control.
When discussing the desired features of remote control, the team agreed that the green color was the most appropriate because it was the color of children's rooms. However, they also agreed that it was not suitable for the remote control because people of often don't like bright colours or something.
The group agreed that the buttons should be not too small, not too big, and not too close together. There should be some space between the buttons to make it apparent that there are two functions for every button. Also, the group agreed to make the buttons international recognisable so that every culture in every country can recognize them.
The product manager did not exactly calculate how much they had to sell, but he thought they should keep their costs at 12 and a half Euros and keep the expected profit at 25 Euros.
This meeting was the first hybrid meeting of the House of Commons Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. It was mainly about questions to ministers. The meeting started with petitions from members who were presenting petitions in support of Bill S-204 and petitions against Bill C-7. Then, the meeting moved on to ministerial announcements. First, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness gave an update on the government's efforts to prevent further tragic occurrences from happening at long-term care homes and to ensure that the most vulnerable seniors were properly looked after and cared for. Next, the Prime Minister gave a brief update on how the government was working with the provinces and territories to ensure the safety of the front-line health care workers. Finally, it was the turn of the opposition party to ask questions to the ministers.
The opposition party argued that the government should not use the Covid-19 crisis as an excuse to avoid presenting solutions to the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls committee, in particular by delaying action on the calls for justice. According to the Prime Minister, the government had done everything it could to move extremely quickly, including the wage subsidy and a range of other programs to support workers and small businesses. What they had done in terms of helping small businesses with the Canada emergency business account had had a massive impact on small businesses across the country, but they understood that certain companies and businesses had particularities that meant it was a little more difficult for them to qualify. They were working with them through regional development agencies, and they encouraged them to approach their local RDAs, which would be able to help them get the money they deserve.
The opposition party and the Prime Minister said that the government had recognized that a number of organizations and companies were facing difficulties because of COVID-19, and they were supporting people all over the country through the wage subsidy program. However, the opposition party questioned whether companies that had acquired another company in the last year had employees whose jobs were threatened because their revenue was now counted together. The Prime Minister assured the committee that there were clear criteria for submitting applications under these programs.
The debate over the situation of long-term care in Ontario was heated after the military report revealed that cockroaches and flies were present and that food was rotten. The Prime Minister promised to work with the provinces and territories to ensure that all seniors were protected right across the country in all those institutions. However, the opposition party argued that the government had not done enough to ensure the quality of care for the seniors. The opposition party also demanded that the Prime Minister should call for an end to profit in the care of the seniors and establish national standards.
The Prime Minister was talking about the tragic conditions in long-term care facilities in Ontario, and there was a report out from Quebec today about the appalling conditions in these facilities. The opposition party wanted to know how the federal government was working with the provinces and territories to ensure that the most vulnerable seniors were properly looked after and cared for. The Minister of National Defence answered that the Constitution of Canada was not an excuse. However, from the very beginning, they had indicated their willingness to support the provinces on this very important issue.
The opposition party argued that the government was using the emergency wage subsidy to fund partisan activities. The Minister of Digital Government argued that it was important to protect employees across the country and in every economic sector that was experiencing a significant drop in income. However, the opposition party insisted that this principle was very important and that this approach must be maintained in order to have a better job market in the future.
Hon. Bill Morneau (Minister of Finance) introduced that the government was making investments now so that the situation became more stable. It was very important for the situation to be stable in order to ensure the future. The government would continue to work with the provinces and territories to ensure that they were getting help to everyone who needed it, but their focus was always on the most vulnerable, first and foremost.
The debate about the economic bilateral relations with the UK was mainly about whether the government would commit to having a new trade agreement with the U.K. in place by January 1, 2019. The opposition party wanted to know if the government was monitoring the situation carefully to ensure that CETA continued to apply to the trade with the United Kingdom during this period while they went through Brexit. However, the opposition party argued that the government had not done enough to assure the businesses that CECA would continue to apply.
Hon. Mary Ng (Minister of Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade) explained that Canada had unprecedented access to a number of markets around the world because of the extraordinary agreements that the government had made to provide access to customers in those international markets. However, there were a lot things that would be changing in supply chains. The government was continuing to work with countries around the globe to ensure that Canada's supply chains and those global supply chains, particularly for essential goods, for agricultural products, for medical supplies, continued to remain open.
Hon. Patty Hajdu (Minister of Health) explained that from the very beginning of the outbreak in early January, the government had been aware of the challenges the health sector would face, and immediately began to work with the provinces and territories to understand what the need would be and how they could best prepare. However, Mrs. Cathy McLeod questioned why the minister approved a donation of 16 tonnes of PPE for China on January 31, claiming it would not compromise the supply. Hon. Anita Anand explained that they were operating in a highly competitive global environment, and the reality was that they needed to make sure they had multiple complementary supply chains operating at the same time, which they had been doing in the past weeks and months, to ensure their front-line health care workers had the supplies they need to keep Canadians safe.
Mr. Alain Therrien (La Prairie, BQ) argued that during the pandemic, the government had given money to companies that didn't pay a cent in tax because they used tax havens. The government's response was that it was no big deal. However, Mr. Andrew Scheer argued that this was not the same as dipping into the pockets of taxpayers to spend money carelessly. The Liberals promised to correct this injustice. In everything they did, they would target companies and not innocent workers.
The Prime Minister stated that the government had a strong regulatory regime that imposed rigorous standards. However, from the very beginning, they had indicated their willingness to support the provinces on this very important issue. That is why they followed the appropriate steps outlined under the Investment Canada Act, to make sure that any measures they took kept seniors and their well-being first and foremost.
Hon. Patty Hajdu introduced that the seniors care crisis in Ontario was completely unacceptable and the government was committed to working with the provinces and territories to ensure that all seniors were protected right across the country in all long-term care facilities. However, the opposition party raised the issue of profit in the care of the seniors. The Prime Minister responded that the government had a strong regulatory regime that imposed rigorous standards.
The meeting focused on the Aurora project. The team discussed the Aurora front-end and Aurora back-end. The Aurora system had an error rate of two points seven percent, which was significantly better than the previous Aurora system, which had a three-point nine percent error rate. The meeting also discussed the VAD problem and how to deal with reverberation. The professor thought that the mean subtraction was making the PZM signal louder, but the team was not sure if it made the Aurora signal any louder.
The TORRENT team was two months away from being done with the project. The team was working on a rough draft of their proposal and hoped to give it to Morgan by Monday. They were also working on intermediate categorization for Switchboard, a large vocabulary task that spans across phonemes.
Grad F explained that he had just finished a section on talking about intermediate categories that span across phonemes. Grad F would use the SRI recognizer since it was already set up for Switchboard. He would run tandem-style processing with his intermediate classifiers.
Grad F thought that he had to come up with a complete set of intermediate features in intermediate categories to classify right away. He would start with a reasonable set of regular phonetic features and build a system that classifies these intermediate categories using multi-band techniques.
The SRI system had an improvement in word error rate, training on the TI-digits data set and testing on Meeting Recorder digits using PZM F, but near-mike performance worsened. The reason for this was that the model was using finer-grained acoustic models, which were more sensitive to the artifacts in re-sensitized audio.
The professor thought that high-pass filtering could reduce some of the effects of reverberation. He thought that the reverberation could be artificially imposed. He was also putting in some reverberation because he had averages over multiple windows stretching out to twelve seconds, which were then being subtracted from the speech.
PhD C thought that the signal to noise ratio was dependent on the signal level. He thought that changing the absolute level by a factor of two would not have an effect on the model. The model was trained and tested on the same thing.
This meeting was mainly about the final design of the remote control. Firstly, the team presented the prototype of the new remote control to the team. Then, they discussed the cost of the device. The team decided to use titanium-coloured plastic for the back, but they had to discard the LCD screen because it was too expensive. Finally, they evaluated the team's creativity and found that they were satisfactory about their creativity.
The prototype of the new remote control was presented by Industrial Designer and User Interface. The prototype had a round shape with a round basic shape, a titanium-coloured back, a double R logo in the upper right corner, and two huge buttons on the front and back. On the back, there were two buttons for the Okay button and the channel and volume controls in the middle, and the company slogan in an arc shape above the logo. The front was made of hard plastic, the back was titanium, and there was a menu button and a video button on the lower part of the device. The remote control had two buttons, the power, channel, and volume button on each side, and it was easy to find if it got lost. The team agreed that the remote control would be good-looking and easy to use, but they had to adapt it to the budget.
The Industrial Designer and the Project Manager agreed that the LCD screen should be put on the upper side of the remote. However, the Industrial Designer pointed out that it was not practical to put it in the middle of the device. The Project Manager thought that if the remote was to be sold in the market, it would be better if it could be held in one hand. The Industrial Designer thought that the remote should be held more like a telephone so that people could look at the screen.
The Project Manager thought the prototype was fancy-looking and fancy-feeling. However, he thought it was not practical to have an arc in the middle, so that the device would fall over the user's hands. Also, he didn't like the way the side view of the device was distorted by the curve. He thought the device could be made to be more user-friendly by having a nice graphics program on the device. Besides, the team had to adapt the device to the budget. In the end, they decided to use titanium-coloured plastic for the back.
The User Interface thought titanium was a good-looking material and the titanium was strong. However, it was not practical to replace the titanium with titanium-coloured plastic because it would be hard to get rid of the special colour of titanium. Besides, titanium was not suitable for older people because of its tough look and the feel.
The Industrial Designer thought that titanium was not very practical to replace the titanium with titanium-coloured plastic because it was not practical to consider this after they had designed the entire product. Besides, the titanium was strong and useful for the target audience, but the older people would like it because of its classical look and feel.
The team thought the product was good-looking, fancy-feeling, easy to use and easy to find. However, the cost of the sample speaker was too high, so the team decided to use titanium-coloured plastic for the back. The team also decided to replace the SMARTboard with a hard plastic with the slogan on it, and the LCD screen with a special colour. The group also agreed to use the titanium-colored plastic because it was cheaper and easier to use.
The whole meeting was about the design of the remote control. First, Industrial Designer gave a presentation about what younger people wanted, including soft mat materials and primary colours, curved and round shapes, and push buttons. Then, User Interface presented on the interface concept and suggested a yellow case, round edges, and logo at the bottom. After that, Marketing presented on trend-watching and suggested keeping up with latest trends. Next, the group discussed the cost of all the things for the remote controls, including the battery, LCD screen, LCD chip, and scroll wheel. Finally, they decided to use a kinetic battery.
User Interface suggested a yellow case with round edges and the logo at the bottom. The power buttons were mostly at the top left or right, and arrow buttons could be blue. Some buttons had icons like play and stop, but they didn't use that. The icons on the arrows were not clear. The function of the power button was not clear either.
User Interface explained that the power buttons were mostly at the top left or right, and each set of buttons had his own colour. Some buttons had icons like play and stop, but they didn't use that. The V for volume was both a V and a letter, so it was not clear what the function of that was.
Firstly, User Interface introduced the standard features of the remote control, including the power button to switch the television on and off, the volume and channel quadrants, the up and down arrows, the scroll buttons, the menu and the menu menu button to man manipulate the LCD display, and the round edges and the logo at the bottom. Secondly, Industrial Designer proposed that the buttons should be large and thin, with a lot of buttons buttons. Thirdly, the group discussed the cost of the LCD screen, which was higher than the regular chip. Finally, they decided to use a joystick as the cheapest way.
Industrial Designer believed that younger people wanted remote controls with soft mat materials and primary colours. Also, the shapes of the remote controls should be curved and round so that it's easier to use.
Industrial Designer thought that the push-button requires a simple chip, which is more expensive than the regular chip, and a scroll wheel requires a more expensive one. Project Manager thought that people would not buy a basic remote control with advanced chips and LCD because they had seen enough of it. Industrial Designer also thought that a more hand-shaped remote control, with a scroll menu, a scroll thing, and an LCD display would be better than a basic one.
Marketing did some market trend-watching by Trendwatchers in cities like Paris and Milan. He found two groups, young and trendy and old and rich, starting to like fruit and vegetables as a theme for clothes, shoes, and also products. And to get a feeling for what it was, Marketing showed an image of the remote control with a spongy feeling and a familiar material.
The team decided on the cost of the remote control with LCD screen, a scroll wheel, a regular chip, and a scroll-wheel. The advanced chip with LCD was more expensive than the regular one, while the scroll wheel was cheaper. The group also decided to use a normal battery instead of kinetic because it was the cheapest way.
This meeting was the Children, Young People and Education Committee. It was the evidence session on the higher education new academic year allocations. First of all, David Blaney, who is the chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales, and Bethan Owen, who was deputy Chief Executive of HEFCW, gave a presentation on the financial sustainability of the universities in Wales. Then, they discussed the financial challenges facing the universities, including the demographic dip of 18-year-olds, which was deeper and longer in Wales than it was elsewhere in the UK, increased pension costs and, actually, increased costs generally. They also talked about the current uncertainty as a result of the Augar review in England, and whether that might play into Wales and also Brexit. Finally, the committee discussed the funding of universities and their ability to adapt to the changing financial situation.
Firstly, the impact of the demographic dip of 18-year-olds, which is deeper and longer in Wales than it is elsewhere in the UK. Secondly, there was a pre-existing funding gap in resource between England and Wales, and even now, that's still the case. Thirdly, the majority of the UK universities are actually taking out cost one way or another, which has a detrimental effect on the capacity of the system to deliver for Wales.
According to Dr David Blaney, Cardiff University had had a bond rather than borrowing, which they drew down as they were spending. In the short term, the reserves of Cardiff would appear as though they had significant cash balances, but all of those were restricted for investment in the estate and, over the next two or three years, would be utilised for that. The costs of those borrowings had to be met on an annual basis, so that's becoming an increasing proportion of the operating cash that universities have.
According to Dr David Blaney, the government was in a managed situation, but the challenges were quite acute. The institutions were taking out capacity; they were not cutting at fat now, they were cutting out core capacity. And against that backdrop, the introduction of the Diamond reforms was hugely important—delivery of that was going to be really important—and they were really pleased to see the Minister able to meet her commitments in respect of that.
According to Dr David Blaney, the estates strategies that institutions operate were overseen by either the full governing body or relevant sub-committees in respect of every institution, so there was proper governance oversight. In all of those instances, there was staff and student engagement as well in the strategic approach on estates.
Dr David Blaney thought that governing bodies were exhibiting what might be considered to be an imprudent risk appetite. They would see this coming through in forecasts, and they would see it coming through requests for borrowings, predominantly. In other ways, they had helped institutions to think again about some of their aspirations.
The meeting talked about the need to include more people in risk management. Dr David Blaney said that the main consideration was the interest of the students. They were the people who had the least influence over what happened in terms of the way an institution was managed. Therefore, they did not wish to see students becoming innocent victims of difficulties of management and financing. Their institutional risk review process was fundamentally designed to make sure that institutions were grappling with their problems before they became a crisis. They had machinery, which had 70/80 different factors and hundreds of questions that they asked twice a year, to interrogate the performance of the institutions and make sure they were seeing them managing the issues they were facing.
Dr David Blaney thought it was fair to say that they were seeing an increased risk profile in the sector in Wales, and it was about the financial pressures that they had already discussed this morning. The institutions had been working very hard to try not to take cost out now that they really didn't have to take out, because they didn't want to reduce capacity, which they would struggle to recover again when the financial position improved. They were being as responsible as they could expect them to be in this.
Bethan Owen thought the key bit of that was maintaining the attractiveness of Welsh universities to students, because a large proportion were coming not from just Wales, but from England and internationally. Also, the research portfolio was invested in, and that also brought economic benefits.
According to Sian Gwenllian, both Ian Diamond and Graeme Reid were very clear about the importance of being able to invest in QR research funding, for a number of reasons. The capacity of the sector to be able to respond to funding opportunities elsewhere in the UK and across the rest of the world was itself determined by the size and strength of the research base, which was sustained by QR funding. Dr David Blaney explained that although the Welsh research base was extraordinarily productive, and really was punching above its weight in many ways, it could do so much more, if it just had more scale. It was almost impossible for a body like them, far less the Government, to know where these emerging strengths were going to come from, and QR provided the flexibility for institutions, which is absolutely fundamental to keeping the Research base dynamic.
Graeme Reid's report produced an assessment of the correlation between QR funding and capacity to generate funding from other sources, and there was a very close correlation. It was sometimes more effective to have external experts making these points than us or the sector.
The Welsh Government had provided funding in 2017-18 and 2018-19 to WISERD Education, which was a research collaboration between a number of the Welsh universities specifically looking at educational issues, and they were providing additional funding to that to add value to the Welsh Government's existing evaluation of the progress of pioneer schools in developing the three-to-15 curriculum in Wales. It was a collaborative effort, and it was an important research facility and increasingly being used by Welsh Government in underpinning its own policy thinking.
The Reid review had done a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of an impact assessment for them. There had been an additional £6.6 million allocated for research very recently by the Government, which they had put out specifically in line with some of the recommendations from Reid. In response to that, they had recently issued their own vision for research and innovation, which was developed over a number of months, following the Reid report closely, working with stakeholders, including the Welsh Government, in order to try and set a vision for how they would respond to the challenges facing research in the future, especially the reduction, potentially, of access to EU funds.
This was the last meeting of the project. First, the team presented the prototype of their new remote control. Then, they discussed the technical specifications of the remote control, including the size, the weight, the colour, the buttons, the location finder, and the chip on the LCD. Finally, they evaluated the prototype according to a scale from one to seven. After that, they decided to have a party for their success.
The prototype was a working prototype with working buttons and a jog dial for controlling the cursor on the LCD screen. The team thought it was fancy and functional. It had two main functions and the other functions would be on LCD and speech recognition. Besides, it had location finder and location recognition and it could also do the action using speech recognizer. Also, it was flexible and users could change the colour of the LCD display, the buttons and the shape of the case. It was a fancy product and everyone was glad to obtain such a nice product. However, the team was not sure if the strawberries on the top would be useful.
The prototype was flexible and adaptable. It could be used for many different functions, such as volume control, location finder, location finding, and speech recognition. Also, it was flexible enough to accommodate many different colours or different fruits. Moreover, it covered all the end goals and was full adaptable to each personal use.
The industrial designer recommended to use rubber or some sponges for strawberries and different colours. He also suggested to use location finder and microphone to help locate the remote control.
The team evaluated the prototype of the strawberry remote control on the basis of its appearance, function, technology, and usefulness. First of all, the team thought that the prototype was fancy, robust, useful, and adaptable. Then, they gave a rating of one to seven on each criterion, with seven being the most important and one being the least important. After that, they decided to have a party to celebrate the success of the project.
Firstly, it was the fruit and vegetable year and the group thought that the fruits were not useful. Therefore, they decided to give two points on usefulness to the strawberry remote control. Secondly, the team thought that it was fancier than the strawberry, so they gave one point on fancy and another on usefulness.
The project manager thought that the colour and shape of the model were not very clear as there were several colours for the LCD and the case was not clear on the colour of the case. The project manager also thought the strawberries on the top were not useful as it was a fruit and vegetable year.
Firstly, the group discussed the price of the product. The group agreed that the product should be priced at 12.5 to 13.5 dollars. Secondly, the price should be reasonable. Thirdly, the team should cut out the most expensive things, like the LCD screen and the sample speaker sensor for speech recognition. Fourthly, they should choose a single curve instead of two or three curves.
The user interface designer recommended that the team should first verify if the product was suitable for their needs before making a product quotation. Then, they could discuss the technical specifications of the product. After that, the team would decide on the material of the material, the colour of the LCD display, the buttons, the location finder, and the chip on print.
The whole meeting was about the conceptual design of the remote control. First of all, the group had a discussion about the material of the front, the shape, the colour, the buttons, the LCD screen, the battery, the material for the front and the back, and the material to use for the back. Then, the team discussed the colour of the back and the shape of the buttons. After that, they decided to use titanium as the material and to make the front as round as possible. The team also discussed the material used for the buttons and the color of the material. Finally, the meeting ended with a discussion on the price of the product.
Marketing mainly talked about the latest trends trends, latest fashion updates, and things they must not do. First of all, it's very important that the control should be fancy looking and good-looking. Secondly, the buttons should be positioned the same way as they are on a conventional remote. Thirdly, the feel of the material should be strong and easy to use. Lastly, the remote should be made of a strong material.
Industrial Designer mainly talked about the components design of the remote control. First of all, Industrial Designer gave a presentation about the target audience product style. The target audience was mainly senior and wealthy people above forty-five years old, who liked straightforward shapes and luxurious style. Secondly, the remote should be fancy looking and good-looking. Thirdly, it should be easy to use and not too complicated. Fourthly, the slogan should be on the front and back. Lastly, the buttons should be made of a soft material.
User Interface mainly talked about the new developments in speech recognition systems that were already being used on coffee machines. User Interface suggested that the buttons for screen width and general settings should be shown in the LCD screen instead of extra buttons. Also, the buttons should be positioned the same way as they are on a conventional remote, for the learnability and to keep it recognisable.
The group decided to use titanium as the material for the front of the remote control. They also agreed to use a combination of titanium and titanium-based plastics for the back. The group also agreed that the front should be made of titanium because it would be strong and not too expensive.
The group decides that the company logo should be on the front of the remote control, and the slogan should be placed on the backside. The slogan can be carved into the titanium at the back, but the logo should not be exchangeable when it gets off the front.
Industrial Designer suggests to use titanium as a solution to the problem of dust in the control. However, Project Manager points out that titanium is not suitable for the remote control because it is not strong enough. User Interface suggests to make a wave or something around the corner where the logo is because it has to be there all the time. Project Manager also suggests that they can put a touch pad on it and say ha ha.
This meeting was a kick-off meeting for the design of a new remote control for the beginning of the new project. First, Project Manager introduced the team members to each other. Then, the team got to know each other by drawing their favourite animals on the whiteboard. Next, they discussed the price of the remote control and the production cost of the product. After that, they decided to make the product child-proof, robust, robust and adaptable. Finally, they agreed to design a universal remote control.
The group decided that the design goal of the remote control should be universal, trendy and user-friendly. It should be child-proof, not too big and not too small, with one colour and one colour only. Also, it should not be too big or too big. The group agreed that the off button should be at the top right so that it would be easy to find.
When discussing the design of buttons size and scale, the group agreed that the remote control should be not too big and not too large. The group also agreed that it should be palm sized.
The group decided that the remote control should be child-proof. The off button should be at the top right of the control, and it should be small and not too big. The colour of the remote should be one colour and the frame should be different. The remote control could change colours and it could be nice looking.
The group agreed that the design of the remote control should be child-proof. It should be monochrome, with one colour, one button, one click, and one colour only. Also, it should be not too big or too big and not too small. The group also agreed to have some child lock or something.
When discussing the design of remote control for children, the group agreed that the remote control should be child-proof. They also agreed that it should be waterproof, robust and unbreakable so that when the child threw it away, it would not break.
When discussing the design of remote control for children, the Industrial Designer thought that the appearance of the remote control should be nice looking so that it would not be difficult for children to find it when they throw it away.
This was the first meeting of the new remote control project. Project Manager introduced the project and the team members got to know each other by drawing their favourite animals on the whiteboard. Then, Project Manager gave the overall budget for the project, which was 25 Euros each remote control, and a profit target of 50 million Euros. After that, the team discussed the technical functions of the remote control and came up with some preliminary ideas about it.
The group agreed that the remote control should be trendy, user-friendly and original. It should be a little less crowded than the existing ones so that people can do all kinds of things with the TV. Also, it should be intuitive so that new users can learn how to use it without having to have buttons on it. The group also agreed that there should be one button for a menu or something if users really need to go and do that.
When discussing the design of the remote control, Project Manager mentioned that they were planning to sell the remote controls for 25 Euros each, and with that they would aim for a profit of 50 million Euros. To reach that profit target, the finance people estimated that they needed production costs of maximum 12.5 Euros so that they could reach the profit target.
The Industrial Designer thought that the remote control should be trendy, user-friendly and original so that it should provide some features that are quite unique to the product. The Industrial Designer suggested that the product should be sleek and stylish but still functional so that the new users would not have a lot of problems.
The group agreed that the remote control should be designed with a high battery life so that it could be used only when needed. The group also agreed that there should be one button for a menu or something so that users only need to go to the menu if they really need to do that. Also, they agreed that it should not be too far away from the usual ones because new users would have a big learning curve.
The Marketing thought that most of the buttons on the remote control were not needed because most people just turned it on, watched certain specified channels and then turned it off again. There was a lot of functionality in there that was not used ninety percent of the time, so there should be only one button for a menu or something.
Battery life was not a big problem for remote controls anyway. Users only needed to replace the batteries every now and then. The remote control should not be too far away from the usual ones because new users would have a lot of problems.
The team discussed how they could improve the performance of their recognition efforts. The team thought that they could do better on Switchboard and Switchboard-two data with fewer people in the room. They also wanted to know if they could down-sample Switchboard data and see if it affected their recognition results. They were also concerned that the recording was not as good as they expected it to be. They thought they could try downsampling to sixteen instead of forty-eight.
The team thought that the microphone data was pretty good, but there was a slight glitch in the recording. The team thought they could down-sample the data to sixteen kilohertz and see if the results were better. There was also some discussion about downsampling, but the team thought it would not be a big deal since Switchboard was recording at forty-eight kiloherstz and Switchboard-two was at eighty-two kiloherestz.
The team decided that the microphone should be placed as close to the person's mouth as possible. The team also decided to use a hand-held microphone with an antenna on the end, which could be passed around. They also decided that they should not use a lapel mike because it would be too confusing.
The group decided that they could fit one more wireless and the wireless, one more transmitter, and one more tuner for each of the eight channel boards. They also decided to purchase a new set of hand-held microphones with a little antenna coming out the bottom. They would also purchase nine identical head-mounted crown mikes with a different headset.
The meeting was mainly about the revision of the semantic specification of the construction of sentences. The team discussed how to link constructions together and how to specify the focus of a given sentence. They also discussed the semantics of the word "focus" and how it can be used in conjunction with other syntactic constructions. Finally, the team discussed whether to use semantic constraints or not.
The discussion on semantic specification was largely focused on how to specify the information structure focus of a given utterance. It was decided that the focus of the utterance should be determined by semantic constraints. The focus of an utterance is determined by the context in which it is expressed. For instance, "big red ball" could be the designated sort of element of that kind of phrase. In this way, the focus can be determined independently of other elements in the sentence.
The semantic specification for the construction of a sentence is a combination of two parts. The first part is a revised version of the original version, in which the constructions have a key word construction and a type specification. The second part is the revised construction of the semantics, which is a collection of constructions, each of which has a construction type and a meaning type. The construction of each of these constructions will have a specific meaning type, which will be determined by the context of the sentence. The semantics of the construction will depend on whether the construction is used for matching or not.
The mental spaces would consist of two parts: time and space. Time and space are absolute things that can be said about the time and place of an event, whereas relative things can be related to where the event is now and where it is in the future. There is a slot for setting time and setting place, and there are slots for setting predicates. The construction that you actually get is just gonna sort of give you a cue as to which one of those that you've already got going, and you're supposed to add structure to.
The domains in the mental spaces are related to time and space. Time and space is a property of the situation, whereas space is an extension of the context. In this way, the semantic properties of space can be used to specify the focus of a given utterance.
The meeting was mainly about the progress of the team's efforts to train a neural network on multi-language datasets. The team was concerned that their model was not performing as well as expected due to the language dependency and noise dependency. They were also trying to figure out how to reduce the noise dependency and improve the model's performance. The professor thought that they should start cutting down on the number of features in the model. They also discussed how they could further improve their model.
The team discussed the results from the experiments. The team found that the TIMIT-only model performed better than the multi-language model for multi-English, multi-French, and multi-Spanish. However, the team was concerned that the model performed worse for the Italian mismatched version of the model. The professor thought that the team should focus more on finding other kinds of training targets, such as multi-band and TRAPS.
The professor thought that the results were pretty good. He thought that it was interesting that the TIMIT network performed better than the multi-English model. He also thought that there was a general thing that was observable so far, but he was not completely convinced about it. He wanted to know more about the model and how it could be further improved.
PhD A thought that the model performed better on multi-English than on French, Spanish, and Italian. PhD A thought it was probably due to the fact that there was no low-pass filter or pre-emphasis filter in the Italian.
The team discussed how they could further improve their model. The team thought that they could train on multi-band MLP with on-line normalization and multi-branch networks with larger contexts. They also wanted to learn more about multi-linguistic features and how they can be combined with other features in the model.
The professor thought MSG was a good addition to the team's model. He thought that it had different temporal properties and that it could bring in things with different temporal values. He also thought that the on-line normalization was bad and MSG did not help much.
The team thought that they were making good progress on their models. They had started to fill the column with features from the French, Spanish, and English digits and were training on a large dataset containing sentences from the TIMIT, SPINE, English digits, and Italian digits. They were also working on a feature combination experiment using features and net outputs together. The team thought they were integrating their models a little more tightly than they did with other models.
This meeting was mainly about the remote control design. First, the User Interface Developer gave a presentation on the technical functions design of remote control. Then, the Industrial Designer gave a brief presentation on how remote control works and the method to complete the project. After that, the Marketing presented on the usability test results of the marketing report and suggested that the remote should be only a television remote control, with the company colours included in it and a simple formatted display for the user to work with. Next, the Project Manager gave the discussion plan on the next phase of the project, including the cost of plastic construction and the battery technology. Then the team discussed whether to include a certain number of face plates with the package.
User Interface proposed to revolutionize the idea of a remote control by achieving the functionality of a complicated device but use a simple formatted display for the user to work with. Industrial Designer proposed to use plastic as opposed to metal because the company simply couldn't afford this kind of lawsuits. User Interface also proposed to incorporate some of the ideas that they had previously like having multiple faces but it was not feasible.
The Project Manager believed that the younger demographic would be interested in voice recognition because seventy-five percent of people under thirty-five wanted voice control and the younger demographics were interested in having a face plate on their remote controls. Besides, the Project Manager thought that the remote control could be sold to both the younger market and the older market.
The User Interface suggested that they could put the basic functions on the centre of the remote control and then the other bits and bobs would be put on the menu. The Industrial Designer also suggested that the group should look into the possibility of people being able to input different types of skins for the actual interface part of it and things like that. Project Manager agreed with User Interface and thought that the simpler design with fewer buttons would be better for the younger market and the older market could use simpler designs with traditional buttons and what not.
The Project Manager believed that most users would not use most of the functions because they didn't know how to use them and didn't want to take the time to learn how to do them. Besides, the Project Manager thought that the younger demographic would be interested in voice recognition because seventy-five percent of people under thirty-five wanted voice control and the younger demographics were interested in the fashion in electronics. Therefore, they should look into this younger demographic.
The Project Manager mentioned that the team members agreed to use plastic as the material of the remote control because it was easy on the cost and high quality recycled plastic was the best choice. However, the Project Manager also pointed out that they would have to evaluate what's most important before making the final decision on the material.
The group agreed that the remote control should be made of plastic with a touch screen and the company colours should be included in it. They also agreed that it should have the company logo or motto on it so that it could be recognized by the younger generation. Also, they agreed that they should put fashion into electronics and put fashion in electronics into electronics.
This meeting was the seventh meeting of the Special Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic. It was mainly about the meeting with the opposition party. The meeting started with the introduction of the Prime Minister's statement that the government was working very hard to fill gaps for people who should get the money but haven't been able to, and the government would continue to work with the provinces to ensure that the funds were utilized in a way that best met the needs of their constituents. Then, the members asked questions about the government's response to the financial situation of the people who had received the Canada emergency response benefit. The Minister of Finance explained that they were continuing to tweak and improve the programs to make sure that more people who needed help would get it. Finally, the meeting ended with the Minister of Economic Development and Small Business Minister answering questions from the members.
Right Hon. Justin Trudeau said that the priority was to get money out quickly to all Canadians who needed it, and that's exactly what they had done. Millions of Canadians had received the money they so desperately needed, and they were going to make sure that this was done in the coming months. All fraudsters would be required to pay back the money fraudulently received from the government.
The Minister of Seniors said that the government was committed to providing assistance to seniors during the outbreak of the pandemic. The government would continue to work with other orders of government, particularly the provinces in whose jurisdiction this area rests primarily, to ensure that, in the long term, the country would better support seniors in all regions.
The Prime Minister said that beginning Friday, students in Quebec and Canada would be able to apply for the Canada emergency student benefit. When they applied, they would all be directed to a job bank that the government had set up to make sure they knew what jobs were available to get not only the money they needed, but also the experience they needed for their future, while helping the society in this crisis. The Prime Minister also promised to continue to work with the industries involved to ensure that they had a sufficient workforce while supporting students.
Hon. Navdeep Bains wanted to highlight some of the initiatives the government had put forward to assist small businesses. The Canada emergency wage subsidy covered 75% of the wages of employees, and that way they could maintain their jobs. On top of that, the Canada emergency business account, which had issued 590,000 loans, had also put forward the enhanced work-sharing program, which was an option for businesses to pay their employees.
Morneau said that Canada came into the crisis with a very strong fiscal position, and of course they would experience challenges as they moved forward, but they believed that they should experience those challenges as we supported Canadians. They would continue to focus on how they could support Canadians and Canadian businesses as they got through this challenge.
Hon. Navdeep Bains said that the government had demonstrated flexibility and nimbleness in the eligibility criteria by decreasing the payroll threshold for individual companies that wanted to apply for the wage subsidy program to $20,000 versus $50,000, and the upper limit had gone to $1.5 million versus $1 million. The eligibility criteria to compare to the first two months of this year also compared to the previous year as well.
Hon. Navdeep Bains said that the government was committed to supporting the arts, culture, and tourism industry. The government was continuing to have discussions and to tailor the measures so that as many Canadians as possible could take advantage of them.
The meeting with Hynek was mainly about the team's progress on the Aurora project. The team discussed the downsampling problem, the length of the filters, and how to improve the model's performance. They also discussed how to better coordinate between the two sides of the team. The meeting ended with a discussion about how to train more word-specific prototype HMMMs to start training from. They discussed the pros and cons of using LDA tuning, on-line normalization, and the delay of the recursion for the mean estimation.
The team was trying to get a handle on what good features are and how they can be detected. The team learned that sonorant features can be combined with canonical mapping of phones to acoustic features to produce a more robust model. They also learned that spectral subtraction can be used to improve the model's performance. They were also trying to figure out how to better coordinate between the two sides.
The professor thought that clustering was a good idea, but he was not sure how complicated it was to go from binary labels to binary variables. He thought that manual annotation would be useful, but it would be limited to a limited set of things. He also thought that the decision about how strongly to train the different pieces was based on a reasonable criterion with hidden variables rather than just assuming that every detector should be trained with equal strength.
The professor recalled that a researcher at A T-andT was trying to do speech recognition based on the pattern of pressure on the tongue. The professor thought that it was interesting that the researcher was using positional parameters. He thought that the model could do some other things, like nasality and voicing, reasonably well.
PhD B informed the team that he had been looking at the HTK system for the Italian data and got the same results as Stephane did. He wanted to do an experiment to see how that affects the Aurora task. The team thought that they could use the same number of states for all of the models. The problem with HTK was that it used the same numbers of states, so the team thought they could change that. They also wanted to learn more about the modulation spectrum.
PhD B had been looking at the Italian data and got the same results as Stephane. PhD B thought that the HTK back-end used the same number of states for all of the models, so he wanted to improve the performance of the Aurora recognizer for the Aurora task and see how that affects things. He decided to use a pronunciation dictionary for Italian digits to get high-level targets about what's sonorant and what's not.
The professor thought that the HTK back recognizer for the Aurora task was not very good. He thought that it was setting targets based on where the sound begins in a particular band, which was not a labeling per se. He wanted to see how that affected the Aurora results.
This meeting was about the design of a new remote control. First, the team had to think about what they would make. Then, they had to make a conceptual design, and then a detailed design. After that, they would discuss the budget. Finally, they discussed the weight and material of the new remote.
Industrial Designer first mentioned that remote controls were not easy to use. He had one set and a remote control broke when he dropped it. So that won't be their goal, Industrial Designer thought. Big buttons made it easier to use than small buttons. User Interface thought it was positive if there was an LED on the corner of the remote control. And that if you pushed the button the LED gave a light, and you could see that it was working. But Industrial Designer didn't always have that. But it was convenient to have it.
The decision of remote feature design was made that the LED on the corner of the remote control would indicate that it was working if you pushed a button and the LED would give a light to indicate that the remote was working.
This meeting was mainly about the functional design of the remote control. First of all, Marketing gave a presentation on the functional requirements of the product. Then, Industrial Designer and User Interface gave presentations respectively on the working design and the functions. After that, the group discussed the different functions and decided that the power button should be at the top and the volume button at the bottom. Finally, they discussed the buttons and decided to put the buttons on the left and right.
Marketing firstly presented what people disliked about the current remote controls and what they did not like about them. Then, he presented the three most important issues of the remote control, which were to be good-looking, user-centred, and universal standards. The group agreed that the remote should be compatible with the new DVD and other releases they had, and the buttons should be made of hard plastic with rubber and indestructible. They also agreed to make the buttons of up and down close together so that they could be easily wiped out. Finally, they agreed to have a power button, setting buttons, LCD window, the number buttons, and a mute button.
Project Manager thought that the manual design was a good idea because it was consistent with older remotes. He thought that people should take a look at it and know how it was supposed to work before using it.
The group agreed that LCD screens were more reachable than speech recognition. However, they did not rule out the idea of speech recognition because they had very demanding clients.
The first presentation was about the functional design of the remote control. The group agreed that the remote should be compatible with the new DVD and other releases they had, and it should have a small LCD screen that's special. Also, the group agreed to put the power button, setting buttons, LCD window, the number buttons, and the mute button at the top. The second presentation was Industrial Designer's presentation about the working design. He explained that the basic function of a remote control was to wait for a user to press a key, then the chip produced Morse code to indicate that specific button that was pressed, and then the LED produced an infrared beam and signals the signals to the sensor on the TV set. The third presentation was Marketing's presentation on the target audience and the team agreed to make the remote look like their original but familiar. The team also agreed to keep the buttons in one big circle in the middle so that they could be recognisable at all times.
When discussing the technical function design, User Interface thought they should reduce the option to control the DVD, teletext, and teletext and that kind of stuff because most people didn't use it all the time. Besides, he pointed out that most remotes had some space left at the bottom, and that way they could keep the shape recognisable for everybody. Also, he thought they could go further with the idea of a removable front.
The group agreed that it was better to put the LCD screen at the top of the remote because most remotes have some space left at the bottom, and that way the shape would be recognisable for everybody. However, they thought it would be unnatural to have an LCD screen on the top because it would look like a calculator. Also, it would take too much time for the team to design a script for the LCD.