ppxscal/embedding_network huggingface dataset:
Multilingual Weighted Codebooks for Non-native Speech Recognition
Authors: Martin Raab, Rainer Gruhn, Elmar Nöth
Venue: Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Text, Speech and Dialogue (2008)

In many embedded systems commands and other words in the user's main language must be recognized with maximum accuracy, but it should be possible to use foreign names as they frequently occur in music titles or city names. Example systems with constrained resources are navigation systems, mobile phones and MP3 players.Speech recognizers on embedded systems are typically semi-continuous speech recognizers based on vector quantization. Recently we introduced Multilingual Weighted Codebooks (MWCs) for such systems. Our previous work shows significant improvements for the recognition of multiple native languages. However, open questions remained regarding the performance on non-native speech.We evaluate on four different non-native accents of English, and our MWCs produce always significantly better results than a native English codebook. Our best result is a 4.4% absolute word accuracy improvement. Further experiments with non-native accented speech give interesting insights in the attributes of non-native speech in general.
Thrust Control, Stabilization and Energetics of a Quadruped Running Robot
Authors: Joaquin Estremera, Kenneth J Waldron
Venue: International Journal of Robotics Research (2008)

In order to achieve powered autonomous running robots it is essential to develop efficient actuator systems, especially for generating the radial thrust in the legs. In addition, the control of the radial thrust of the legs can be a simple, effective method for stabilizing the body pitch in a running gait. This paper presents the mechanical systems, models and control strategies employed to generate and control leg thrust in the KOLT quadruped running robot. An analytical model of the electro-pneumatic leg thrusting system is presented and analyzed to evaluate its performance and to facilitate the design of control strategies. Several experiments have been conducted to estimate the energy losses and determine their origins as well as to compute the energetic efficiency of the actuation system. Two thrust control methods are also proposed and tested experimentally. The closed loop method regulates thrust through the control of the hip liftoff speed, a conceptually simple control strategy that stabilizes the body pitch in pronk and trot gaits without the need for central feedback, even on irregular terrain. The open-loop control method regulates the energy added in each hop based on the model of the actuator system. The efficacy of these models and techniques is tested in several planar trot and pronk experiments, and the results are analyzed focusing on the body stabilization, the power consumption and the energetic efficiency.
Repository Junction and Beyond at the EDINA (UK) National Data Centre
Authors: Robin Rice, Peter Burnhill, Christine Rees, Anne Robertson
Venue: Proceedings of the 11th European conference on Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries (2007)

EDINA has been funded to undertake a variety of repository-related development activities to enhance and support access to scholarly and learning objects in the UK. JORUM is a national learning object repository for sharing and repurposing educational materials. The purpose of the Depot is to ensure that all UK academics can enjoy the benefits of Open Access for their peerreviewed post-prints by providing a repository for the interim period before every university has such repository provision. GRADE has been investigating and reporting on the technical and cultural issues around the reuse of geospatial data in the context of media-centric, informal and institutional repositories. With the DataShare project, by supporting academics who wish to share datasets on which written research outputs are based, a network of institution-based data repositories will develop a niche model for deposit of `orphaned datasets' currently filled neither by centralised subject-domain data archives nor institutional repositories.
A new solution for automatic control of heating systems in buildings based on measuring heat transfer through outer surfaces
Authors: Daniel Popescu
Venue: Proceedings of the 10th WSEAS International Conference on Automatic Control, Modelling & Simulation (2008)

The article presents a new solution for automatic control of heating systems in buildings with dynamic heat loads, which completes the current automation systems with a perimetral infrared video monitoring system for heat transfer through outer surfaces of buildings. Thermal maps are converted in electric signals that give the main perturbation and the strategy for adjusting the temperature of the living space is adapted to the specific of the building. The main perturbation is determined fairly and the automatic control system efficiently rejects the perturbation. The effect is a reduction in fuel consumption used to assure thermal comfort in buildings.
LTLC: Linear Temporal Logic for Control
Authors: Youngmin Kwon, Gul Agha
Venue: Proceedings of the 11th international workshop on Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control (2008)

Linear systems are one of the most commonly used models to represent physical systems. Yet, only few automated tools have been developed to check their behaviors over time. In this paper, we propose a linear temporal logic for specifying complex properties of discrete time linear systems. The proposed logic can also be used in a control system to generate control input in the process of model checking. Although, developing a full feedback control system is beyond the scope of this paper, authors believe that a feedback loop can be easily introduced by adopting the receding horizon scheme of predictive controllers. In this paper we explain the syntax, the semantics, a model checking algorithm, and an example application of our proposed logic.
An ultrasonic communication system for biotelemetry in extremely shallow waters
Authors: Gregory S. Parsons, Shaolin Peng, Alexander G. Dean
Venue: Proceedings of the third ACM international workshop on Underwater Networks (2008)

This paper introduces an ultrasonic communication system for biotelemetry in extremely shallow waters (under 3 meters). This application domain is notable for its tight constraints on device size, weight, and energy. We have developed this communication system as a fundamental component of the RaPTEX toolchain, which aims to simplify the prototyping and analysis of underwater communication systems. This paper's primary contribution is hardware and software for an ultrasonic communications system which successfully operates in extremely shallow waters. It is tailored for short-range disposable biotelemetry applications, as it can be implemented with simple hardware and inexpensive, power-sipping microcontrollers, rather than more demanding digital signal processors. The system presented also has a very low part count, not only making it small and lightweight but also cheap so it can be deployed in large numbers. We present the system design and then evaluate its performance.
Illusory vowels resulting from perceptual continuity: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study
Authors: Antje Heinrich, Robert P. Carlyon, Matthew H. Davis, Ingrid S. Johnsrude
Venue: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (2008)

We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the neural processing of vowels whose perception depends on the continuity illusion. Participants heard sequences of two-formant vowels under a number of listening conditions. In the “vowel conditions,” both formants were always present simultaneously and the stimuli were perceived as speech-like. Contrasted with a range of nonspeech sounds, these vowels elicited activity in the posterior middle temporal gyrus (MTG) and superior temporal sulcus (STS). When the two formants alternated in time, the “speech-likeness” of the sounds was reduced. It could be partially restored by filling the silent gaps in each formant with bands of noise (the “Illusion” condition) because the noise induced an illusion of continuity in each formant region, causing the two formants to be perceived as simultaneous. However, this manipulation was only effective at low formant-to-noise ratios (FNRs). When the FNR was increased, the illusion broke down (the “illusion-break” condition). Activation in vowel-sensitive regions of the MTG was greater in the illusion than in the illusion-break condition, consistent with the perception of Illusion stimuli as vowels. Activity in Heschl's gyri (HG), the approximate location of the primary auditory cortex, showed the opposite pattern, and may depend instead on the number of perceptual onsets in a sound. Our results demonstrate that speech-sensitive regions of the MTG are sensitive not to the physical characteristics of the stimulus but to the perception of the stimulus as speech, and also provide an anatomically distinct, objective physiological correlate of the continuity illusion in human listeners.
Detection Fractional Vegetation Cover Changes Using MODIS Data
Authors: Shao-Jun Liu, Jing-Hong Zhang, Guang-Hui Tian, Da-Xin Cai
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 Congress on Image and Signal Processing, Vol. 4 - Volume 04 (2008)

Monitoring seasonal changes in vegetation activity over wide areas is essential for many applications, Satellite remote sensing offers a systematic and objective means for detecting and monitoring ecological environment.A large amount of satellite remote sensing data at different spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions was proved to estimate Land cove change.One of the most widely used approaches is image differencing, according to which the images acquired at two dates are subtracted in order to produce a difference image to be analyzed. In this paper A new algorithm of Fractional vegetation cover (FVC) change detection is put forward to analyze the variability of vegetation cover dynamics using multitemporal analysis of MODIS data, the difference image can therefore be divided into many classes: increase and decrease by the optimal threshold. In the result, the FVC change detection map is generated directly from satellite images without any ground truth about the considered area and available for monitoring and evaluation FVC change but improvement is still needed.
Multivariate Data Clustering for the Gaussian Mixture Model
Authors: Mindaugas Kavaliauskas, Rimantas Rudzkis
Venue: Informatica (2005)

This paper discusses a soft sample clustering problem for multivariate independent random data satisfying the mixture model of the Gaussian distribution. The theory recommends to estimate the parameters of model by the maximum likelihood method and to use &ldquo;plug-in&rdquo; approach for data clustering. Unfortunately, the calculation problem of the maximum likelihood estimate is not completely solved in multivariate case. This work proposes a new constructive a few stage procedure to solve this task. This procedure includes statistical distribution analysis of a large number of the univariate projections of observations, geometric clustering of a multivariate sample and application of EM algorithm. The results of the accuracy analysis of the proposed methods is made by means of Monte-Carlo simulation.
Balancing local resources and global goals in multiply-constrained distributed constraint optimization
Authors: Milind Tambe
Venue:  (2007)

Distributed constraint optimization (DCOP) is a useful framework for cooperative multiagent coordination. DCOP focuses on optimizing a single team objective. However, in many domains, agents must satisfy constraints on resources consumed locally while optimizing the team goal. These resource constraints may need to be kept private or shared to improve efficiency. Extending DCOP to these domains raises two issues: algorithm design and sensitivity analysis. Algorithm design requires creating algorithms that trade off completeness, scalability, privacy and efficiency. Sensitivity analysis examines whether slightly increasing the available resources could yield a significantly better outcome. This thesis defines the multiply-constrained DCOP (MC-DCOP) framework and provides complete and incomplete algorithms for solving MC-DCOP problems. Complete algorithms find the best allocation of scarce resources, while incomplete algorithms are more scalable. The algorithms use mutually-intervening search; they use local resource constraints to intervene in the search for the globally optimal solution. The algorithms use four key techniques: (i) transforming constraints to maintain privacy; (ii) dynamically setting upper bounds on resource consumption; (iii) identifying the extent to which the local graph structure allows agents to compute exact bounds on resource consumption; and (iv) using a virtual assignment to flag problems rendered unsatisfiable by their resource constraints. Proofs of correctness are presented for all algorithms. Finally, the complete and incomplete algorithms are used in conjunction with one another to perform distributed local reoptimization to address sensitivity analysis. Experimental results demonstrated that MC-DCOP problems are most challenging when resources are scarce but sufficient. In problems where there are insufficient resources, the team goal is largely irrelevant. In problems with ample resources, the local resource constraints require little consideration. The incomplete algorithms were two orders of magnitude more efficient than the complete algorithm for the most challenging MC-DCOP problems and their runtime increased very little as the number of agents in the network increased. Finally, sensitivity analysis results indicated that local reoptimization is an effective way to identify resource constraints that are creating bottlenecks. Taken together these new algorithms and examination of the problem of sensitivity analysis help extend the applicability of DCOP to more complex domains.
Generalized "Stigma": Evidence for Devaluation-by-Inhibition Hypothesis from Implicit Learning
Authors: Haotian Zhou, Lulu Wan, Xiaolan Fu
Venue: Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (2007)

Recently, a new fundamental discovery has been made of the relationship between attentional system and affective system of human brain, giving rise to the devaluation-by-inhibition hypothesis. It is shown that selective attention has an affective impact on an otherwise emotionally bland stimulus. Particularly, if a neutral stimulus was inhibited by selective attention in a prior task, it would be valued less in a subsequent affective evaluation task than it would otherwise have been. In the present study, we extend this line of research on the affective consequence of attention and demonstrate that prior attentional states (attended or inhibited) associated with a group of neutral stimuli (character strings) can even influence subsequent preference judgment about previously-unseen stimuli if these new stimuli share certain basic features (e.g., follow the same rule) with those encountered in a previous stage.
A Component-Based Ambient Agent Model for Assessment of Driving Behaviour
Authors: Tibor Bosse, Mark Hoogendoorn, Michel C. Klein, Jan Treur
Venue: Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing (2008)

This paper presents an ambient agent-based model that addresses the assessment of driving behaviour. In case of negative assessment, cruise control slows down and stops the car. The agent model has been formally specified in a component-based manner in the form of an executable specification that can be used for prototyping. A number of simulation experiments have been conducted. Moreover, dynamic properties of components at different aggregation levels and interlevel relations between them have been specified and verified.
Overlapped Finger Geometry Signal Processing and Finger Shape Comparisons for Person Identification
Authors: Ching-Liang Su
Venue: Informatica (2007)

This study uses object-extracting technique to extract - thumb, index, middle, ring, and small fingers from hands. The algorithm developed in this study can find precise locations of fingertips and finger-to-finger-valleys. The extracted fingers contain many useful geometry features. One can use these features to conduct the person identification. Geometry descriptor is used to transfer geometry features of fingers to another feature-domain for image-comparison. Image subtraction is used to exam difference of two fingers. This study uses the fingers as features to recognize different persons. National Science Council, Taiwan, supported this work under grant NSC 95-2221-E-212-003.
Quickly prototyping petri nets tools with SNAKES
Authors: Franck Pommereau
Venue: Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Simulation tools and techniques for communications, networks and systems & workshops (2008)

This paper presents the toolkit SNAKES that is aimed at providing a flexible solution to the problem of quickly prototyping Petri nets tools. In particular, SNAKES is expected to have as few built-in limitations as possible with respect to the particular variant of Petri net to be used. The goal is to make SNAKES suitable for any kind of Petri net model, including new ones for which there exists no available tool. For this purpose, SNAKES is designed as a very general Petri net core library enriched with a set of extension modules to provide specialised features. On the one hand, the core library is versatile in that it defines a general Petri net structure where all the computational aspects are delegated to an interpreted programming language. On the other hand, the extension modules provide with enough flexibility to allow to redefine easily any part of the base Petri net model. SNAKES is released under the GNU LGPL, it can be downloaded at &lang;http://www.univ-paris12.fr/lacl/pommereau/soft/snakes&rang; with the API documentation and a tutorial.
Monotonic Abstraction for Programs with Dynamic Memory Heaps
Authors: Parosh Aziz Abdulla, Ahmed Bouajjani, Jonathan Cederberg, Frédéric Haziza, Ahmed Rezine
Venue: Proceedings of the 20th international conference on Computer Aided Verification (2008)

We propose a new approach for automatic verification of programs with dynamic heap manipulation. The method is based on symbolic (backward) reachability analysis using upward-closed sets of heaps w.r.t. an appropriate preorder on graphs. These sets are represented by a finite set of minimal graph patterns corresponding to a set of bad configurations. We define an abstract semantics for the programs which is monotonic w.r.t. the preorder. Moreover, we prove that our analysis always terminates by showing that the preorder is a well-quasi ordering. Our results are presented for the case of programs with 1-next selector. We provide experimental results showing the effectiveness of our approach.
Use of Auxiliary Information in Risk Estimation
Authors: Loredana Consiglio, Silvia Polettini
Venue: Proceedings of the UNESCO Chair in data privacy international conference on Privacy in Statistical Databases (2008)

In the release of microdata files, reidentification of a record implies disclosure of the values of a possibly large set of sensitive variables. When microdata files are released by statistical Agencies, a careful assessment of the associated disclosure risk is therefore required.In order for an informed decision to be made, maximising accuracy and precision of the risk estimators is crucial. Clearly such characteristics will affect the risk assessment process and Agencies should choose the estimator that performs best. In fact, estimators may perform poorly, especially for those records whose real risk is higher. To improve estimation, we propose to introduce external information, arising from a previous census as is done in the context of small area estimation (see [10]). In [4] we considered SPREE - type estimators that use the association structure observed at a previous census (see [9]); in this paper we consider models that use the structure of a population contingency table while allowing for smooth variation of the latter. To assess the statistical properties of this estimator and compare it with alternative approaches, we show results of a simulation study that is based on a complex sampling scheme, typical of most households surveys in Italy. Comparison is made with a simple SPREE estimator and a Skinner-type estimator [13,6], applied to a complex sampling scheme.
Design and Simulation of NAND Gates Made of Single Electron Devices
Authors: T. Tsiolakis, G. Ph. Alexiou, N. Konofaos
Venue: Proceedings of the 2008 Panhellenic Conference on Informatics (2008)

In this paper we present NAND gates designed using single electron logic. First the single-electron NAND behaviour is studied and then the energy performance of the circuit is examined. The whole design and simulation is made using a Monte-Carlo based tool. The results proved that the circuits were behaving as NAND gates, while the free energy study of the system and the stability diagram verified the correct functioning of the circuit.
MIRACLE at ImageCLEFphoto 2007: Evaluation of Merging Strategies for Multilingual and Multimedia Information Retrieval
Authors: Julio Villena-Román, Sara Lana-Serrano, José Luis Martínez-Fernández, José Carlos González-Cristóbal
Venue: Advances in Multilingual and Multimodal Information Retrieval: 8th Workshop of the Cross-Language Evaluation Forum, CLEF 2007, Budapest, Hungary, September 19-21, 2007, Revised Selected Papers (2008)

This paper describes the participation of MIRACLE research consortium at the ImageCLEF Photographic Retrieval task of ImageCLEF 2007. For this campaign, the main purpose of our experiments was to thoroughly study different merging strategies, i.e. methods of combination of textual and visual retrieval techniques. Whereas we have applied all the well known techniques which had already been used in previous campaigns, for both textual and visual components of the system, our research has primarily focused on the idea of performing all possible combinations of those techniques in order to evaluate which ones may offer the best results and analyze if the combined results may improve (in terms of MAP) the individual ones.
Comparing Non-parametric Ensemble Methods for Document Clustering
Authors: Edgar Gonzàlez, Jordi Turmo
Venue: Proceedings of the 13th international conference on Natural Language and Information Systems: Applications of Natural Language to Information Systems (2008)

The biases of individual algorithms for non-parametric document clustering can lead to non-optimal solutions. Ensemble clustering methods may overcome this limitation, but have not been applied to document collections. This paper presents a comparison of strategies for non-parametric document ensemble clustering.
The advantages of built-in checking
Authors: John W. Mauchly
Venue: Papers and discussions presented at the Dec. 8-10, 1953, eastern joint AIEE-IRE computer conference: information processing systems---reliability and requirements (1953)

Electronic computers save money. That is the basic economic fact behind all of the current activity in the designing and building of information-processing systems. The job of the engineering designer is economic as well as technical. He must balance many factors as well as he knows how in order to achieve maximum utility at minimum cost.