F: That 's looks strange .
B: OK ,
E: Oh there we go .
B: now we 're on and it seems to be working .
C: One two three four five six
E: This looks good .
A: That is weird .
A: It 's like when it 's been sitting for a long time or something .
B: So , I mean B: I don't know what it is .
B: But all all I know is that it seems like every time I am up here after a meeting , and I start it , it works fine .
B: And if I 'm up here and I start it and we 're all sitting here waiting to have a meeting , it gives me that error message
B: and I have not yet sat down with been able to get that error message in a point where I can sit down and find out where it 's occurring in the code .
A: Next time you get it maybe we should write it down .
B: Yep , we will .
D: Yeah .
E: Was it a pause , or ?
B: One of these days .
E: OK .
E: Was it on " pause " or something ?
B: No .
E: OK .
E: Don't know .
D: So uh so the uh , the new procedural change that just got suggested , which I think is a good idea is that um , we do the digit recordings at the end .
D: And that way , if we 're recording somebody else 's uh meeting , and a number of the participants have to run off to some other meeting and don't have the time , uh , then they can run off .
D: It 'll mean we 'll get somewhat fewer uh , sets of digits ,
D: but um , I think that way we 'll cut into people 's time , um , if someone 's on strict time uh , less .
D: So , I th I think I think we should start doing that .
D: Um , so , uh , let 's see , we were having a discussion the other day , maybe we should bring that up , about uh , the nature of the data that we are collecting .
D: uh @ @ that uh , we should have a fair amount of data that is um , collected for the same meeting , so that we can ,
D: uh D: I don't know .
D: Wh - what what were some of the points again about that ?
D: Is it F: Uh , well , OK , I 'll back up .
F: Um , at the previous at last week 's meeting , this meeting I was griping about wanting to get more data
D: Yeah .
F: and I I talked about this with Jane and Adam ,
F: um , and was thinking of this mostly just so that we could do research on this data um , since we 'll have a new this new student di does wanna work with us ,
F: th the guy that was at the last meeting .
A: Well , great .
A: Great .
F: And he 's already funded part - time ,
F: so we 'll only be paying him for sort of for half of the normal part - time ,
A: What a deal .
F: uh Yeah .
B: And what 's he interested in , specifically ?
F: So
F: he 's comes from a signal - processing background ,
F: but I liked him a lot
F: cuz he 's very interested in higher level things , like language , and disfluencies and all kinds of eb maybe prosody ,
B: Mm - hmm .
F: so he 's just getting his feet wet in that .
B: Great .
F: Anyway , I thought OK , maybe we should have enough data so that if he starts he 'd be starting in January , next semester that we 'd have , you know , enough data to work with .
B: Right .
F: But , um , Jane and Adam brought up a lot of good points that just posting a note to Berkeley people to have them come down here has some problems in that you m you need to make sure that the speakers are who you want and that the meeting type is what you want , and so forth .
F: So , I thought about that and I think it 's still possible ,
F: um , but I 'd rather try to get more regular meetings of types that we know about , and hear , then sort of a mish - mosh of a bunch of one one - time B: One offs ?
F: Yeah , just because it would be very hard to process the data in all senses ,
F: both to get the , um to figure out what type of meeting it is and to do any kind of higher level work on it , like well , I was talking to Morgan about
F: things like summarization , or what 's this meeting about .
F: I mean it 's very different if you have a group that 's just giving a report on what they did that week , versus coming to a decision and so forth .
F: So . Then I was um , talking to Morgan about some new proposed work in this area , sort of a separate issue from what the student would be working on where I was thinking of doing some kind of summarization of meetings or trying to find cues in both the utterances and in the utterance patterns ,
F: like in numbers of overlaps and amount of speech ,
F: sort of raw cues from the interaction that can be measured from the signals and from the diff different microphones that point to sort of hot spots in the meeting , or things where stuff is going on that might be important for someone who didn't attend to listen to .
F: And in that uh , regard , I thought we definitely w will need it 'd b it 'd be nice for us to have a bunch of data from a few different domains , or a few different kinds of meetings .
F: So this this meeting is one of them ,
F: although I 'm not sure I can participate if I F: You know , I would feel very strange being part of a meeting that you were then analysing later for things like summarization .
B: Mm - hmm .
F: Um , and then there are some others that menti that Morgan mentioned ,
F: like the front - end meeting and maybe a networking group meeting .
B: Right .
B: Yep .
B: Yeah , we 're we 're hoping that they 'll let us start recording regularly .
F: So So if that were the case then I think we 'd have enough .
B: So .
B: Mm - hmm .
F: But basically , for anything where you 're trying to get a summarization of some kind of meeting <comment> meaning out of the meeting , um , it would be too hard to have fifty different kinds of meetings where we didn't really have a good grasp on what does it mean to summarize ,
B: Yeah .
F: but rather we should have different meetings by the same group but hopefully that have different summaries .
F: And then we need a couple that of  We don't wanna just have one group
F: because that might be specific to that particular group , but @ @ three or four different kinds .
D: S So B: Yeah , we have a lot of overlap between this meeting and the morning meeting .
F: See , I 've never listened to the data for the front - end meeting .
C: Yeah .
D: Yeah .
B: Yeah , we we 've only had three .
B: So .
F: OK .
F: But maybe that 's enough .
F: So , in general , I was thinking more data
F: but also data where we hold some parameters constant or fairly similar ,
F: like a meeting about of people doing a certain kind of work where at least half the participants each time are the same .
B: Mm - hmm .
B: Um D: Now , let l l let me just give you the other side to that
D: cuz I ca because I I don't disagree with that ,
D: but I think there is a complimentary piece to it too .
D: Uh , for other kinds of research , particularly the acoustic oriented research , I actually feel the opposite need .
D: I 'd like to have lots of different people .
F: Right .
F: Right .
D: As many people here a a and talking about the kind of thing that you were just talking about it would have uh too few people from my point of view .
D: I 'd like to have many different speakers .
D: So , um I think I would also very much like us to have a fair amount of really random scattered meetings , of somebody coming down from campus , and and uh ,
C: Mm - hmm .
D: I mean , sure , if we can get more from them , fine ,
E: Mm - hmm .
F: Right .
D: but if we only get one or two from each group , that still could be useful acoustically just because we 'd have close and distant microphones with different people .
F: Yeah , I definitely agree with that .
C: Yeah .
E: Mm - hmm .
F: Definitely .
C: Yeah .
E: Can I can I say about that that the the issues that I think Adam and I raised were more a matter of advertising so that you get more native speakers .
E: Because I think if you just say E: an And in particular , my suggestion was to advertise to linguistics grad students because there you 'd have so people who 'd have proficiency enough in English that that uh , it would be useful for for purposes You know .
D: Mm - hmm .
E: But you know , I think I 've been I 've I I 've gathered data from undergrads at on campus
E: and if you just post randomly to undergrads I think you 'd get such a mixed bag that it would be hard to know how much conversation you 'd have at all . And and the English you 'd have The language models would be really hard to build
D: Well , you want to i
E: because it would not really be it would be an interlanguage rather than than a D: Well , OK , uh , first place , I I I don't think we 'd just want to have random people come down and talk to one another ,
E: OK .
D: I think there should be a meeting that has some goal and point cuz I I think that 's what we 're investigating ,
F: It has to be a a pre - existing meeting , like a meeting that would otherwise happen anyway .
D: so
D: Yeah , yeah .
B: Right .
E: OK .
D: So I was I was thinking more in terms of talking to professors uh , and and and uh , senior uh , uh , d and uh , doctoral students who are leading projects and offering to them that they have their hold their meeting down here .
B: Yep .
F: That 's I think what we and I agree with .
E: Oh , interesting !
C: Yeah .
E: Oh , I see .
E: Oh , interesting !
D: Uh , that 's the first point .
D: The second point is
D: um
D: I think that for some time now , going back through BeRP I think that we have had speakers that we 've worked with who had non - native accents and I th I think that E: Oh , oh . I 'm not saying accents .
E: u The accent 's not the problem .
D: Oh , OK .
E: No , it 's more a matter of uh , proficiency ,
E: e e just simply fluency .
E: I mean , I deal with people on on campus who I think sometimes people , undergraduates um in computer science uh , have language skills that make , you know that their their fluency and writing skills are not so strong .
D: Yeah .
D: Oh !
D: You 're not talking about foreign language at all .
B: Yeah . Yeah , just talking about .
D: You 're just talking about E: Well , e I just think ,
B: We all had the same thought .
E: but you know , it 's like when you get into the graduate level , uh , no problem .
E: I mean , I 'm not saying accents .
C: Uh - huh .
D: Yeah , then we 're completely gone .
E: I 'm say I 'm saying fluency .
D: It 's  The the habits are already burnt in .
B: Mm - hmm .
E: Well , yeah .
E: I 'm just saying fluency .
D: But B: Well , I think that , um I think that the only thing we should say in the advertisement is that the meeting should be held in English .
D: Yeah .
B: And and I think if it 's a pre - existing meeting and it 's held in English , <comment> I I think it 's probably OK if a few of the people don't have uh , g particularly good English skills .
E: OK , now can I can I say the other aspect of this from my perspective
E: which is that um , there 's there 's this this issue , you have a corpus out there , it should be used for for multiple things
E: cuz it 's so expensive to put together .
B: Right .
D: Right .
E: And if people want to approach E: Um ,
E: i so I know e e You know this E: The idea of computational linguistics and probabilistic grammars and all may not be the focus of this group ,
D: Uh - huh .
E: but the idea of language models , which are fund you know generally speaking uh , you know , t t terms of like the amount of benefit per dollar spent or an hour invested in preparing the data ,
D: Mm - hmm .
D: Mm - hmm .
E: if you have a choice between people who are pr more proficient in <nonvocalsound> um , i more fluent , more more close to being academic English , then it would seem to me to be a good thing .
D: I guess I maybe D: Hmm .
E: Because otherwise y you don't have the ability to have D: I
E: Uh , so if if you have a bunch of idiolects that 's the worst possible case .
E: If you have people who are using English as a as an interlanguage because they they don't uh , they can't speak in their native languages and but their interlanguage isn't really a match to any existing , uh , language model ,
D: Uh - huh .
E: this is the worst case scenario .
C: Yeah .
C: Yeah .
D: Well , that 's pretty much what you 're going to have in the networking group .
E: And B: Right .
D: because because they most the network group is almost entirely Germans and Spaniards .
E: Well
E: Oh .
E: But the thing is , I think that these people are of high enough level in their in their language proficiency that D: I see .
E: And I 'm not objecting to accents .
E: I I 'm I 'm just thinking that we have to think at a at a higher level view , could we have a language model , a a grammar a grammar , basically , that um , wo would be a a possibility .
D: OK .
D: Uh - huh .
E: So y so if you wanted to bring in a model like Dan Jurafsky 's model , an and do some top - down stuff , it to help th the bottom - up and merge the things or whatever , uh , it seems like um , I don't see that there 's an argument D: Mm - hmm .
E: I 'm I what I think is that why not have the corpus , since it 's so expensive to put together , uh , useful for the widest range of of central corp things that people generally use corpora for and which are , you know , used in computational linguistics .
D: Mm - hmm .
E: That 's that 's my point . Which which includes both top - down and bottom - up .
D: OK .
C: It 's difficult .
C: Yeah .
D: OK , well , i i let 's let 's see what we can get .
D: I mean , it it I think that if we 're aiming at at uh , groups of graduate students and professors and so forth who are talking about things together , and it 's from the Berkeley campus , probably most of it will be OK ,
E: Yes , that 's fine .
E: That 's fine .
E: Exactly .
E: And my point in m in my note to Liz was I think that undergrads are an iff iffy population .
D: but D: OK .
F: I definitely agree with that , I mean , for this purpose .
D: OK .
D: OK .
E: Grads and professors , fine .
C: Yeah .
B: Well , not to mention the fact that I would be hesitant certainly to take anyone under eighteen , probably even an anyone under twenty - one .
C: Yeah .
B: So .
D: Oh , you age - ist !
B: What 's that ?
E: Age - ist .
B: Well , age - ist . <comment> The " eighteen " is because of the consent form .
F: Right , Yeah .
C: Yeah .
B: We 'd hafta get find their parent to sign for them .
C: " Age - ist " .
C: Yeah . Yeah .
D: Yes .
E: Yeah , that 's true .
B: So .
F: I have a uh , um , question .
F: Well , Morgan , you were mentioning that Mari may not use the k equipment from IBM if they found something else , cuz there 's a D: They 're they 're yeah , they 're d they 're uh assessing whether they should do that or y do something else , hopefully over the next few weeks .
F: Cuz I mean , one remote possibility is that if we st if we inherited that equipment , if she weren't using it , could we set up a room in the linguistics department ?
F: And and I mean , there there may be a lot more or or in psych , or in comp wherever , in another building where we could um , record people there .
F: I think we 'd have a better chance
B: I think we 'd need a real motivated partner to do that .
F: Right ,
B: We 'd need to find someone on campus who was interested in this .
F: but F: Right .
F: But if there were such a F: I mean it 's a remote possibility , then um , you know , one of us could you know , go up there and record the meeting or something rather than bring all of them down here .
B: Yep .
F: So it 's just a just a thought if they end up not using the the hardware .
D: Well , the other thing Yeah , I mean the other thing that I was hoping to do in the first place was to turn it into some kind of portable thing so you could wheel it around .
B: Right .
D: Uh .
D: But . Um , and B: Well , I know that space is really scarce on at least in CS .
D: Uh B: You know , to to actually find a room that we could use regularly might actually be very difficult .
D: Yeah .
F: But you may not need a separate room , you know ,
B: That 's true .
F: the idea is , if they have a meeting room and they can guarantee that the equipment will be safe and so forth , and if one of us is up there once a week to record the meeting or something D: Yeah .
B: True .
B: Mm - hmm .
B: Yep .
D: Well , maybe John would let us put it into the phonology lab or something .
F: Huh .
B: Yep .
D: You know .
F: I I think it 's not out of the question .
D: Yeah .
B: Yeah , I think it would be interesting because then we could regularly get another meeting .
F: Um .
F: So .
C: Yeah .
B: another type of meeting .
F: Right .
F: Right .
C: But I I I think you need , uh , another portable thing a another portable equipment to to do , eh , more e easier the recording process , eh , out from ICSI .
B: Hmm .
D: Yeah .
C: Eh and probably . I don't know .
D: Yeah .
B: Right .
C: Eh , if you you want to to record , eh , a seminar or a class , eh , in the university , you you need  It - it would be eh eh very difficult to to put , eh , a lot of , eh , head phones eh in different people when you have to to record only with , eh , this kind of , eh , d device .
D: Yeah .
B: Yeah , but B: I think if we if we wanna just record with the tabletop microphones , that 's easy .
C: Oh - yeah .
C: Ye - Yeah , yeah .
B: Right ?
B: That 's very easy ,
B: but that 's not the corpus that we 're collecting .
C: Yeah .
D: Actually , that 's a int that raises an interesting point that came up in our discussion that 's maybe worth repeating .
D: We realized that , um , when we were talking about this that , OK , there 's these different things that we want to do with it .
D: So , um , it 's true that we wanna be selective in some ways , uh , the way that you were speaking about with , uh , not having an interlingua and uh , these other issues .
D: But on the other hand , it 's not necessarily true that we need all of the corpus to satisfy all of it .
D: So , a a as per the example that we wanna have a fair amount that 's done with a small n recorded with a small , uh , typ number of types of meetings
D: But we can also have another part that 's , uh , just one or two meetings of each of a of a range of them
D: and that 's OK too .
D: Uh , i We realized in discussion that the other thing is , what about this business of distant and close microphones ?
D: I mean , we really wanna have a substantial amount recorded this way ,
D: that 's why we did it .
D: But what about For th for these issues of summarization , a lot of these higher level things you don't really need the distant microphone .
F: Right ,
F: I mean , I c I think there 's D: You actually don't .
B: And you don't really need the close microphone , you mean .
C: Yeah .
F: Yea - yeah yeah , you actually don't really even need any fancy microphone .
E: Which one did you mean ?
D: You d You don't ne it doesn't you just need some microphone , somewhere .
F: You can use found data .
B: Ye - Yeah . Yep .
C: Yeah .
B: Tape recorder .
E: Oh .
D: Yeah .
C: Yeah .
F: You you can .