ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
Corpus-based unit selection for natural-sounding speech synthesis
Authors: Jon Rong-Wei Yi
Venue:  (2003)

Speech synthesis is an automatic encoding process carried out by machine through which symbols conveying linguistic information are converted into an acoustic waveform. In the past decade or so, a recent trend toward a non-parametric, corpus-based approach has focused on using real human speech as source material for producing novel natural-sounding speech. This work proposes a communication-theoretic formulation in which unit selection is a noisy channel through which an input sequence of symbols passes and an output sequence, possibly corrupted due to the coverage limits of the corpus, emerges. The penalty of approximation is quantified by substitution and concatenation costs which grade what unit contexts are interchangeable and where concatenations are not perceivable. These costs are semi-automatically derived from data and are found to agree with acoustic-phonetic knowledge. The implementation is based on a finite-state transducer (FST) representation that has been successfully used in speech and language processing applications including speech recognition. A proposed constraint kernel topology connects all units in the corpus with associated substitution and concatenation costs and enables an efficient Viterbi search that operates with low latency and scales to large corpora. An A* search can be applied in a second, rescoring pass to incorporate finer acoustic modelling. Extensions to this FST-based search include hierarchical and paralinguistic modelling. The search can also be used in an iterative feedback loop to record new utterances to enhance corpus coverage. This speech synthesis framework has been deployed across various domains and languages in many voices, a testament to its flexibility and rapid prototyping capability. Experimental subjects completing tasks in a given air travel planning scenario by interacting in real time with a spoken dialogue system over the telephone have found the system &ldquo;easiest to understand&rdquo; out of eight competing systems. In more detailed listening evaluations, subjective opinions garnered from human participants are found to be correlated with objective measures calculable by machine. (Copies available exclusively from MIT Libraries, Rm. 14-0551, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307. Ph. 617-253-5668; Fax 617-253-1690.)
Similarity among melodies for music information retrieval
Authors: Takao MIURA, Isamu SHIOYA
Venue: Proceedings of the twelfth international conference on Information and knowledge management (2003)

Here we discuss how to look for similar melody in music databases by giving monophonic melody in sheet. In this work, we utilize text expression (or sheet music) to describe music and introduce pitch spectrum of melodies. By this feature, we concisely distinguish music from tempo, transposition or other arbitrary expressions. We show the usefulness by experimental results.
An Annotated Bibliography on Computers and the Physically Handicapped: Part V-B. The Speech Impaired and Hearing Impaired, 1975-1980
Authors: Ross W. Lambert,  Jr., Lisa Schurer
Venue: Issue 37 (Fall 1986) (1986)

This is the sixth in a series of articles reviewing the scientific literature on computers and the physically handicapped. Please see the Spring, 1983 issue of the SIGCAPH Newsletter (No. 32) for a description of articles appearing in the literature between January 1975 and December, 1980 concerning the speech impaired and hearing impaired. Part A may be found in Winter, 1986 (No. 36) of this Newsletter.
ADMiRe: an algebraic approach to system performance analysis using data mining techniques
Authors: Kien A. Hua, Ning Jiang, Roy Villafane, Duc Tran
Venue: Proceedings of the 2003 ACM symposium on Applied computing (2003)

System performance analysis is a very difficult problem. Traditional tools rely on manual operations to analyze data. Consequently, determining which system resources to examine is often a lengthy process, where many problems are elusive, even when using data mining tools. We address this problem by introducing the Analyzer for Data Mining Results (ADMiRe) technique as a natural and flexible means to further interpret data mining outcome. In our scheme, regression analysis is first applied to performance data to discover correlations between parameters. Regression rules are defined to represent this output in a format suitable for ADMiRe. ADMiRe expressions are then used to manipulate these sets of rules, revealing information about combined, common and different features of varying configurations. This knowledge would be unavailable if regression output were considered in isolation. ADMiRe was tested with performance data collected from a TPC-C (Transaction Processing Performance Council) test on an Oracle database system, under various configurations, to demonstrate the effectiveness of our technique.
Real-time video postprocessing algorithms and metrics
Authors: Wenfeng Gao
Venue:  (2003)

The main purpose of video postprocessing is to reduce compression artifacts, such as blocking, ringing, and temporal noise. Many existing postprocessing algorithms either require very high computational cost or cannot visually remove the artifacts, especially at very low bit rates. In this research, we propose an adaptive de-blocking algorithm, a clustering-based de-ringing algorithm, and a motion-compensated temporal filtering with a down-sampled pattern. These algorithms can smooth out the compression artifacts while preserving the strong edges and texture areas. In addition to effective artifact reduction, our algorithms have low computational cost. The implementation of our de-blocking and de-ringing algorithms on a mediaprocessor demonstrates the feasibility of real-time video postprocessing. In addition, we have also developed new metrics to measure the blocking artifacts in the reconstructed or postprocessed images. To validate our algorithms and metrics, we have designed statistics-based subjective quality assessment experiments. The experimental results confirm that our proposed postprocessing algorithms have achieved a significant improvement over other methods while the proposed blockiness metric is more consistent with subjective evaluation than peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR).
Coordination-based distributed constraint solving in DICE
Authors: Peter Zoeteweij
Venue: Proceedings of the 2003 ACM symposium on Applied computing (2003)

DICE (Distributed Constraint Environment) is a framework for the construction of distributed constraint solvers from software components in a number of predefined categories. The framework is implemented using the Manifold coordination language, and delivers coordination services to these components. The coordination services implement existing protocols for constraint propagation, termination detection and splitting of constraint satisfaction problems. DICE combines these protocols with support for parallel search and the grouping of closely related components into cooperating solvers. In addition to these facilities, the paper describes the DICE framework architecture, and gives a report on its implementation.
Critical dimension control in optical lithography
Authors: S. Postnikov, S. Hector, C. Garza, R. Peters, V. Ivin
Venue: Microelectronic Engineering (2003)

The exposure tool used for integrated circuit (IC) fabrication is critical to improving the packing density and transistor speed of the circuits. In addition to increasing resolution, which improves packing density and transistor speed, the exposure tool is also expected to provide tight linewidth control across the chip. Across chip linewidth variation (ACLV) has a significant influence on circuit speed. The allowed ACLV is usually assumed to be about 10% of the nominal linewidth. Therefore, just a few nanometers in linewidth variation may significantly impact IC performance. Contributions to the CD variation across chip and wafer due to lithographic sources of error are discussed in this paper. CD control afforded by future optical lithography tools is estimated using Monte Carlo aerial image simulations by making reasonable assumptions about the performance of the future tools and mask CD control. The impact of reticle enhancement technologies on ACLV is evaluated. The main sources of CD error can be identified. This approach will help define the path to improving CD control. The technique described was tested using data from the current generation of technology, and reasonable agreement between predicted and observed CD variation was obtained.
Multidatabase services: issues and architectural design
Authors: Neil Coburn, Per-Åke Larson
Venue: Proceedings of the 1992 conference of the Centre for Advanced Studies on Collaborative research - Volume 2 (1992)

It is common for (distributed) applications to require access to multiple databases and other data sources. Such access can be facilitated by the use of a multidatabase system. A multidatabase eases the burden on the application programmer by providing a layer of integrating and coordinating services that acts as a front-end to each component database system. Ideally, the user is presented with a single, uniform view of the (virtual) multidatabase and is unaware of the autonomy, heterogeneity, and distribution of the underlying databases.This paper discusses the problems that arise in providing multidatabase services and presents a high-level architectural design for a multidatabase system. It also surveys some existing systems.
Characterizing indirect speech acts
Authors: Gretchen P. Brown
Venue: Computational Linguistics (1980)

This paper presents the core of a descriptive theory of indirect speech acts, i.e. utterances in which one speech act form is used to realize another, different, speech act. The proposed characterization of indirect speech acts is based on principles of goal formation, viewed in the context of a general structural model of action. The model of action is used to develop rules that characterize a large number of indirect speech act forms. Computational implications of the theory are discussed.
The Future of Mobile Technology: Findings from a European Delphi Study
Authors: Hans Lehmann, Jürgen Kuhn, Franz Lehner
Venue: Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'04) - Track 3 - Volume 3 (2004)

Mobile business relies on complex, competing, if not incompatible, and sometimes unreliable technology. These aspects have therefore often dominated its research assessment. This paper, however, reports from a primarily business application oriented study of the field.A Delphi study, adapted for qualitative data and scenario building, was carried out acrossGerman-speaking Europe during 2002 and 2003. 52 experts' participated in the study, giving their considered opinion on what, over the next 5 to 7 years, the dominant mobile technologies, user structures and applications would be. The key response to the technologyquestion was that WIFI would be dominant, with cellular 3G still at least 4 years away. Furthermore, 2.5G will remain in full use as it is adequate for most B2E/B applications for the mobile workforce, which will account for 75% of users. The most likely users of 3G broadband are teenagers -- who cannot pay for them. Very few consumer applications other than small payments and ad-hoc ticketing/reservations services were given a chance of success. These findings are in marked contrast to the official line' taken by the 3G providers in Europe.
Combination Approaches for Multilingual Text Retrieval
Authors: Martin Braschler
Venue: Information Retrieval (2004)

We describe the Eurospider component for Cross-Language Information Retrieval (CLIR) that has been employed for experiments at all three CLEF campaigns to date. The central aspect of our efforts is the use of combination approaches, effectively combining multiple language pairs, translation resources and translation methods into one multilingual retrieval system. We discuss the implications of building a system that allows flexible combination, give details of the various translation resources and methods, and investigate the impact of merging intermediate results generated by the individual steps. An analysis of the resulting combination system is given which also takes into account additional requirements when deploying the system as a component in an operational, commercial setting.
Economic models of information technology in retail banking
Authors: Patrick T. Harker
Venue:  (2003)

This study is structured as a set of three essays which focus on the economics of information technology in the retail banking industry. Employing a game-theoretic analysis, the first paper explains the economic reasoning behind the trend in retail banks in the U.S. to develop most of their application software in-house. It also establishes thresholds for the time to develop, and quality of product taking into account technical competencies, investment decisions, and market shares. The second paper studies pricing decisions for online banking given the existence of network externalities. Most literature has examined the effect of network externalities on pricing decisions for durable goods. In the case of online banking, however, the customer's decision does not end with adoption of a mode of online banking since the customer is free in later periods to change an adopted mode. We develop an economic model that incorporates the customer's ability to switch in a later period. Three significant findings of this paper are as follows: (i) In the presence of positive network externalities, the bank can commit itself to increasing future fees for online banking services, (ii) The bank can afford to offer discounts, incentives, and one-time monetary payouts to ensure initial signup for online banking service, and (iii) Service quality can become a proxy for switching costs and, thus, be used to regulate the stickiness of the market. The final paper employs a stochastic dynamic programming model to examine the effects of word-of-mouth and expert opinions on dynamic pricing strategies for online banking. Departing from previous literature, we model network effects as stochastic, in particular following a jump-diffusion process. The word-of-mouth contributes to the Wiener portion of the mixed-diffusion process, while expert opinion reviews contribute to the Poisson component. We derive the optimal dynamic pricing policy under this situation, and analyze the impact of uncertainty on both expected profits and pricing policy.
A New Method of Fault Tolerance TCP
Authors: Zhao Li, Ke Xu, Mingwei Xu, Lizheng Fu, Jianping Wu
Venue: Proceedings of the 2003 International Conference on Computer Networks and Mobile Computing (2003)

With the rapid development of Internet, the need of high availability of data services on Internet becomes more urgent. But as one of the most useful protocol on Internet, TCP protocol software can not solve the high availability due to the failure of hardware or software on Server/Client. In this paper, we propose a new method that can implement fault tolerance TCP to improve the high availability of data transmission. First, we analyze some existing methods of fault tolerant TCP; Then based on the characteristic of present server architecture, we put forward our new method of fault tolerant TCP; At last, we describe in detail how to implement and test our method. Experimental results show that our fault-tolerantTCP can offer high available and high effective communication support for reliable data service on Internet.
Privacy as life, liberty, property
Authors: Richard Volkman
Venue: Ethics and Information Technology (2004)

The cluster of concerns usually identified as matters of privacy can be adequately accounted for by unpacking our natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Privacy as derived from fundamental natural rights to life, liberty, and property encompasses the advantages of the control and restricted access theories without their attendant difficulties.
Automated Metamorphic Testing
Authors: Arnaud Gotlieb, Bernard Botella
Venue: Proceedings of the 27th Annual International Conference on Computer Software and Applications (2003)

Usual techniques for automatic test data generation arebased on the assumption that a complete oracle will beavailable during the testing process. However, there areprograms for which this assumption is unreasonable. Recently,Chen et al. [3, 4] proposed to overcome this obstacleby using known relations over the input data and theirunknown expected outputs to seek a subclass of faults insidethe program. In this paper, we introduce an automatictesting framework able to check these so-called metamorphicrelations. The framework makes use of ConstraintLogic Programming techniques to find test data that violatea given metamorphic-relation. Circumstances where itcan also prove that the program satisfies this relation arepresented. The first experimental results we got with a prototypetool build on the top of the test data generator INKA,show that this methodogy can be completely automated.
The Use of Encrypted Functions for Mobile Agent Security
Authors: Hyungjick Lee, Jim Alves-Foss, Scott Harrison
Venue: Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'04) - Track 9 - Volume 9 (2004)

Mobile agent technology is a new paradigm of distributed computing that can replace the conventional client-server model. However, it has not become popular due to some problems such as security. The fact that computers have complete control over all the programs makes it very hard to protect mobile agents from untrusted hosts. In this paper we propose a security approach for mobile agents, which protects mobile agents from malicious hosts. Our new approach prevents privacy attacks and integrity attacks to mobile agents from malicious hosts. This approach is an extension of mobile cryptography, as proposed by Sander and Tschudin, and it removes many problems found in the original idea of mobile cryptography while preserving most of the benefits. Although the original idea of mobile cryptography allowed direct computations without decryptions on encrypted mobile agents, it did not provide any practical ways of implementation due to the fact that no homomorphic encryption schemes are found for their approach. Our approach provides a practical idea for implementing mobilecryptography by suggesting a hybrid method that mixes a function composition technique and a homomorphic encryption scheme that we have found. Like the original mobile cryptography, our approach will encrypt both code and data including state information in a way that enables direct computation on encrypted data without decryption.
PAORE: Package Oriented Requirements Elicitation
Authors: Junzo Kato, Morio Nagata, Shuichiro Yamamoto, Motoshi Saeki, Haruhiko Kaiya, Hisayuki Horai, Atsushi Ohnishi, Seiichi Komiya, Kenji Watahiki
Venue: Proceedings of the Tenth Asia-Pacific Software Engineering Conference Software Engineering Conference (2003)

We propose a new requirements elicitation method insuch a domain of ERP, CRM, and SCM by using specifications of several existing package software. We have analyzed the requirements elicitation processes of experiencedanalysts in a specific domain, and found that they clarify requirements by referring the specifications of existingpackages that seem to be satisfied with customer's needs.This process can be formulated into two sub-processes:1) package selection, where an analyst compares the customer's needs with functions/non-functions of packages andselects the suitable candidates of packages; and 2) requirements evolution, where he examines the selected packageswith his customer and an approved part of specificationsof packages are added into their requirements. The proposed method, called PAORE (PAckage Oriented Requirements Elicitation method) is designed based on the analysis.We applied this method to a simple but realistic example ofWeb-based Sales Supporting System and assessed it.
Assessing Knowledge Management Success/Effectiveness Models
Authors: Murray E. Jennex, Lorne Olfman
Venue: Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 37th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'04) - Track 8 - Volume 8 (2004)

This paper proposes a framework for assessing knowledge management system, KMS, Success Models. The framework uses three criteria: how well the model fits actual KMS success factors, the degree to which the model has a theoretical foundation, and if the model can be used for two types of approaches to building a KMS. The framework is then applied tofour KMS success models found in the literature and is determined to be a useful framework for assessing KMS success models.
Research on Dynamic Feedback and Elastic Scheduling Model and Algorithm for Flexible Workload
Authors: Yu Chen, Qionghai Dai
Venue: Proceedings of the 2003 International Conference on Computer Networks and Mobile Computing (2003)

Soft real-time applications, such as multimedia systems, are becoming increasingly unpredictable due to the variable of the tasks' attributes. Under this circumstance, the scheduling algorithms depending on the tasks' static attributes can't provide useful and efficient scheduling support to those soft real-time systems. In this paper, we present a dynamic feedback and elastic scheduling model and period adjustment algorithm for soft real-time application with flexible workload. Based on logging the number of task instance that missing deadline periodically, this model adjusts the tasks' executing period to change theresource requirement in the next sampling period. This model make the system state converge to the steady state when the system is overloaded, and make tasks use system resource sufficiently when system resource isn't fully utilized. We analysis the model and evaluate its performance.
The Problem of Pattern Recognition in Arrays of Interconnected Objects. Statement of the Recognition Problem and Basic Assumptions
Authors: S. D. Dvoenko, A. V. Kopylov, V. V. Mottl
Venue: Automation and Remote Control (2004)

In the classical pattern recognition problem, consideration is given to individual objects, each of which actually belongs to one of the finite number of classes and is presented for the recognition irrespective of other objects. Recognition objects often form a single interconnected array determined by the nature of the event involved, namely, its natural extent in time or in space along one or a few coordinates. As a consequence, the need arises to take consistent decisions about the classes for all elements of the array. The prior assumption consisting in the fact that neighboring objects more often belong to one class than to different classes will permit one to improve the recognition quality in comparison with the classical case of the independence of classes of separate objects.
ICA using spacings estimates of entropy
Authors: Erik G. Learned-Miller, John W. Fisher III
Venue: The Journal of Machine Learning Research (2003)

This paper presents a new algorithm for the independent components analysis (ICA) problem based on an efficient entropy estimator. Like many previous methods, this algorithm directly minimizes the measure of departure from independence according to the estimated Kullback-Leibler divergence between the joint distribution and the product of the marginal distributions. We pair this approach with efficient entropy estimators from the statistics literature. In particular, the entropy estimator we use is consistent and exhibits rapid convergence. The algorithm based on this estimator is simple, computationally efficient, intuitively appealing, and outperforms other well known algorithms. In addition, the estimator's relative insensitivity to outliers translates into superior performance by our ICA algorithm on outlier tests. We present favorable comparisons to the Kernel ICA, FAST-ICA, JADE, and extended Infomax algorithms in extensive simulations. We also provide public domain source code for our algorithms.